Man, myths, and monsters -- The mysterious graveyard -- Devil cats -- The ghost(s) of the Baker-Peters House -- Underground Knoxville -- The ghosts of UTK -- Unhappy spirits -- The haunted bottle -- Things that go bump in the night -- Knoxville's haunted theatres -- The quick, the dead and the quickly dead -- All the inglorious tricksters.

Knoxville, Tennessee, is a haunted city. Ghosts roam its streets, its old theaters, its graveyards, even the caverns that snake beneath its byways. Knoxville is also a city beset by mysterious beasts—from enigmatic monster cats to big hairy creatures that are said to roam the town by night. Knoxville is a city of legends. There are persistent rumors of an “Old Knoxville” buried beneath the present city, and there is a famous downtown cemetery where there are gravestones, but no bodies. With a firm eye to history, Price tells his chilling stories with perception and good humor—all of which add up to a book that can be read and reread for years to come.

In the early 1800s John Bell moved his family from North Carolina to the rich bottom lands along the Red River in Robertson County, Tennessee. Bell, an elder in the Red River Baptist Church, was well-liked and respected by most in the community and prospered as a farmer. As Bell worked hard to raise his family and to carve out a living, the unusual, unexpected, and terrifying happened. Between 1817 and 1821 the Bell family were allegedly tormented day and night by some heinous menacing spirit called a "witch" known as "Kate." Kate's remonstrations and activities were witnessed by many in the community. The events eventually led to the death of John Bell, and he is the only person whose demise is attributed to the work of a spirit. Written only seventy-three years after the awful events transpired, this is the story of the Bell Witch. This is the eyewiteness account by a member of the Bell family.

126 myths: sacred stories, animal myths, local legends, many more. Plus background on Cherokee history, notes on the myths and parallels. Features 20 maps and illustrations.

"Gorgeously crafted stories." —Nancy Pearl (Book Lust) on Morning Edition, "Books for a Rainy Day" "My favorite thing about her is the wry, uncanny tenderness of her stories. She has the astonishing ability to put her finger on the sweet spot right between comedy and tragedy, that pinpoint that makes you catch your breath. You're not sure whether to laugh out loud or cry, and you end up doing both at once." —Dan Chaon "When I first read China Mountain Zhang many years ago, Maureen McHugh instantly became, as she has remained, one of my favorite writers. This collection is a welcome reminder of her power—they are resonant, wise, generous, sharp, transporting, and deeply, deeply moving. McHugh is enormously gifted; each of these stories is a gift." —Karen Joy Fowler "Wonderfully unpredictable stories, from the very funny to the very grim, by one of our best and bravest imaginative writers." —Ursula K. Le Guin "Enchanting, funny and fierce by turns —a wonderful collection!" —Mary Doria Russell * Story Prize finalist. * A Book Sense Notable Book. In her luminous, long-awaited debut collection, award-winning novelist Maureen F. McHugh wryly and delicately examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using beautiful, deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations. — A woman introduces her new lover to her late brother. — A teenager is interviewed about her peer group's attitudes toward sex and baby boomers. — A missing stepson sets a marriage on edge. — Anthropologists visiting an isolated outpost mission are threatened by nomadic raiders. McHugh's characters—her Alzheimers-afflicted parents or her smart and rebellious teenagers—are always recognizable: stubborn, human, and heartbreakingly real. This new trade paperback edition has added material for book clubs and reading groups, including an interview with the author, book club questions and suggestions, and a reprint of Maureen's fabulous essay, "The Evil Stepmother." Maureen F. McHugh has spent most of her life in Ohio, but has lived in New York City and, for a year, in Shijiazhuang, China. She is the author of four novels. Her first novel, China Mountain Zhang, won the Tiptree Award, and Nekropolis, was a Book Sense 76 pick and New York Times Editor's Choice.

Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda. What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.

This history has been gleaned from the works of Ethnology by James Mooney and from word of mouth, as related to the author during the past thirty years. In the beginning of historical events, we hear of man in his paradisaical home, located somewhere within the boundaries known as ancient Egypt or Chaldea. His home was far away and his former history shrouded in the darkness of countless centuries of the past, and when we contemplate the remoteness of his ancestry, we become lost in the midst of our own research. When historical light began to flash from the Orient, we find man emerging with some degree of civilization from a barbaric state into the advanced degrees of civilized and enlightened tribes. When the maritime navigator, full of visions and dreams, dared to sail for those hitherto undiscovered shores, now known as America, there lived within the realm a wandering, happy, yet untutored, race of men whom we afterwards called Indians, who dwelt in great numbers along the whole distance from Penobscot Bay south to the everglades of Florida.