Despite Brian’s longstanding aversion to cruises, there was no way he could pass up the opportunity to join an ‘expedition cruise’ to Melanesia. After all, this little known corner of the Pacific Ocean included any number of delectable destinations, not least the myriad islands that made up New Caledonia, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. So Brian and Sandra signed up – for two weeks at sea in the MS Caledonian Sky, and what would turn out to be two weeks of discovery as this pocket cruise ship made its way north from New Zealand up through Melanesia to Papua New Guinea. Along the way would be encountered isolated communities, novel cultures, lush tropical vegetation, volcanoes – and, if one was Brian, a series of self-induced melancholic episodes that threatened to ruin the whole trip. Whether it was a contemplation of the failing of friendships, the malignant nature of political correctness or just the trials of old age, Brian just couldn’t help immersing himself in gloom – despite his far from gloomy situation. Indeed, so relentless were these attacks of melancholia that Brian was obliged to resort to a remedy once used by Captain Cook’s crew when they were in this same part of the Pacific. Because to relieve the tedium of their long voyages, they would set about the composition of any number of crude limericks… So, Melanesia, Melancholia and Limericks provides not just an insight into the fascinating islands of Melanesia (and the not-so-fascinating depths of Brian’s melancholia) but also fifty brand new and not in the least bit melancholic limericks. Most of which Sandra found profoundly crude. Inevitably.

There was a keen lover named Claude Whose technique with women was flawed And that’s why, you see He had turned sixty-three By the time he had finally scored This book does what it says on the tin – and more. It not only provides 366 original ribald rhymes, but with this armoury of new 21st century limericks, it also fights a rearguard action against the forces of political correctness, wokeness, unwarranted respect – and decency. Ideal for Baby Boomers, A Leap Year in Limericks is not for the faint-hearted...

The White Goddess is perhaps the finest of Robert Graves's works on the psychological and mythological sources of poetry. In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.

Bela Lugosi may -- as the eighties gothic rock band Bauhaus sang -- be dead, but the vampire lives on. A nightmarish figure dwelling somewhere between genuine terror and high camp, a morbid repository for the psychic projections of diverse cultures, an endlessly recyclable mass-media icon, the vampire is an enduring object of fascination, fear, ridicule, and reverence. In The Vampire Lectures, Laurence A. Rickels sifts through the rich mythology of vampirism, from medieval folklore to Marilyn Manson, to explore the profound and unconscious appeal of the undead. Based on the course Rickels has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for several years (a course that is itself a cult phenomenon on campus), The Vampire Lectures reflects Rickels's unique lecture style and provides a lively history of vampirism in legend, literature, and film. Rickels unearths a trove that includes eyewitness accounts of vampire attacks; burial rituals and sexual taboos devised to keep vampirism at bay; Hungarian countess Elisabeth Bathory's use of girls' blood in her sadistic beauty regimen; Bram Stoker's Dracula, with its turn-of-the-century media technologies; F. W. Murnau's haunting Nosferatu; and crude, though intense, straight-to-video horror films such as Subspecies. He makes intuitive, often unexpected connections among these sometimes wildly disparate sources. More than simply a compilation of vampire lore, however, The Vampire Lectures makes an original and intellectually rigorous contribution to literary and psychoanalytic theory, identifying the subconscious meanings, complex symbolism, and philosophical arguments -- particularly those of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche -- embeddedin vampirism and gothic literature.

An easy-to-use dictionary of over 80,000 rhyming words.

Several years after Jack London’s death, his wife Charmian released a 2-volume biography of his life. Volume I starts with the origins of his parents, John and Flora, and covers Jack’s childhood and early life growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. It also covers his oyster pirating, Klondike trips, and time spent riding the railroads. The book is full of his letters to Cloudesley Johns, Anna Strunsky, and others. The first volume ends with his voyage to Asia to cover the Japanese-Russian War. Volume II starts with his return from Korea after war-reporting and his divorce from his first wife. It covers their trip on the Snark and trips to New York and around Cape Horn. The 'bad year' when his house burns is described in detail, as is a return to Hawaii and the start of World War I. The volume ends with Jack's death in 1916.