A collection of Scottish Traveller folk tales about the Devil from “Scotland’s greatest modern-day storyteller” (The Guardian (UK)). Devil stories are always fascinating, entertaining, and disturbing. These twenty tales, re-told by one of Scotland’s master storytellers, are a fascinating insight into Traveller beliefs about evil, temptation, and suffering in which the Devil exists not to punish, but to outwit you in a contest of intelligence and knowledge. This collection is an expanded edition of Duncan Williamson’s bestselling May the Devil Walk Behind Ye!, originally published by Canongate. Praise for Jack and the Devil’s Purse “An important part of our heritage to be treasured and shared.” —Scottish Home and Country (UK) “Duncan is a first-class storyteller.” —Northern Times (UK) “Superbly handled, as you would expect from this acknowledged master of storytelling.” —The Scots Magazine (UK)

Born in 1928 in a tent on the shore of Loch Fyne, Argyll, Duncan Williamson (d. 2007) eventually came to be recognized as one of the foremost storytellers in Scotland and the world. Webspinner: Songs, Stories, and Reflections of Duncan Williamson, Scottish Traveller is based on more than a hundred hours of tape-recorded interviews undertaken with him in the 1980s. Williamson tells of his birth and upbringing in the west of Scotland, his family background as one of Scotland’s seminomadic travelling people, his varied work experiences after setting out from home at about age fifteen, and the challenges he later faced while raising a family of his own, living on the road for half the year. The recordings on which the book is based were made by John D. Niles, who was then an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Niles has transcribed selections from his field tapes with scrupulous accuracy, arranging them alongside commentary, photos, and other scholarly aids, making this priceless self-portrait of a brilliant storyteller available to the public. The result is a delight to read. It is also a mine of information concerning a vanished way of life and the place of singing and storytelling in Traveller culture. In chapters that feature many colorful anecdotes and that mirror the spontaneity of oral delivery, readers learn much about how Williamson and other members of his persecuted minority had the resourcefulness to make a living on the outskirts of society, owning very little in the way of material goods but sustained by a rich oral heritage.

Devil stories are always fascinating, entertaining and disturbing. These twenty tales, re-told by one of Scotland's master storytellers, are a fascinating insight into Traveller beliefs about evil, temptation and suffering in which the Devil exists not to punish, but to outwit you in a contest of intelligence and knowledge. This collection is an expanded edition of Duncan Williamson's best-selling May the Devil Walk Behind Ye!, originally published by Canongate.

The follow-up to the critically acclaimed Phoenix Island, which reads like “Lord of the Flies meets Wolverine and Cool Hand Luke” (F. Paul Wilson, creator of Repairman Jack) and inspired the CBS TV show Intelligence. With a chip in his head and hundreds more throughout his body, sixteen-year-old Carl Freeman was turned from an orphan with impulse control issues into a super-soldier. Forced into the mercenary Phoenix Force group, he begins to fear he’ll never escape. Sent to a volcanic island to fight for them, he’ll compete in a combat tournament that awards teens with survival for merciless brutality. But just when all looks lost, he spies a friendly face…and possibly a way out.

Time works differently for devils . . .In the place that we call Hell, the Lord of Swarms is plotting his conquest. In the shambles of London's Smithfield, Jack the Darksman sets off to steal a devil. And in a different London altogether, a wicked secret is about to be revealed. The stage is set for an adventure that will span centuries. Devils are rising once more . . .

Presents an updated, beginner-friendly guide with the best homebrew techniques, tips, and new recipes.

"In the 1930s, Shanghai was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, fortunes made--and lost. 'Lucky' Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison in the States, spotted a craze for gambling and rose to become the Slot King of Shanghai. 'Dapper' Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto with a dream of dance halls--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivaled Ziegfeld's. In 1940 they bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation and genocide. They thought they ruled Shanghai; but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction they left in their wake."--Jacket