We were lost in the woods on our way to the city, my brother Hansel and I, when we came upon the cottage. A faery cottage, with a handsome and mysterious occupant. He calls himself the Magus, and he makes magnificent chocolates and confections for the Wicked Revels, the wild woodland dance of the fair folk. The moment I lay eyes on him, I sense he is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. And I’ve dreamed of a lot. No one knows what strange desires dance in my mind—until now. Hansel doesn’t want me to stay. I defy his wishes. He’s my brother, not my master. But the Magus can only offer me desire—never satisfaction. My desire feeds his magic, and his magic makes his confections delicious. He can never touch me, although he certainly has a lot of ways around that. He is forbidden from attending the Revels. And he bears a curse that ends on All Hallow’s Eve, but he can’t tell me its nature. Whoever this man is, whatever his name is, I will find out, because I have never met anyone who understands me the way he does, and I know he is meant to be mine. Tasting Gretel is a standalone fairy tale retelling of Hansel and Gretel, for those who like an unabashedly adorable happily ever after with serious steaminess! Although it is definitely standalone, it doesn't hurt to read These Wicked Revels before this one.

Decades after a celebrated Viennese psychoanalyst begins working with a woman who claims to be a machine, a young girl retreats into fairy tales, unaware of the dangers in her Nazi-controlled German city.

Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy “that are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put the book down to settle yourself” (San Francisco Chronicle). Gretel Ehrlich’s world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her “bridge to heaven.” She captures a “light moving down a mountain slope.” She sees a ruined city in the face of a fire-scarred mountain. Above all, she recalls what a painter once told her about art when she was twelve years old, as she sat for her portrait: “You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that.” In this unforgettable collection, Ehrlich mixes life and death, real and sacred, to offer a stunning vision of our world that is both achingly familiar and miraculously strange. According to National Book Award–winning author Andrea Barrett, these essays are “as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they’ve grown. . . . Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart.”

On January 19, 2009, Chicago teacher and playwright Joe Janes decided to write a comedy sketch a day for a year. He did that. When he was done, Don Hall of the WNEP Theater Foundation decided to produce them. All of them. In June of 2010, Don and Joe gathered together over 200 Chicago actors and directors and over eleven nights presented 26 shows each featuring two weeks worth of sketches (although one has 15 scenes). Yep. Crazy. All 365 comedy sketches are collected in this book along with a complete list of directors and actors from the Strawdog shows. Joe teaches comedy writing at The Second City and Columbia College.

Kirksey lives in Tennessee. Sometimes he has odd visions. Some of them are Orwellian. He thinks a lot. You may think he is crazy.