One of NPR’s 50 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Decade: A fifteenth-century palace mapmaker must hide his powers in the time of the Inquisition . . . Award-winning author G. Willow Wilson’s debut novel Alif the Unseen was an NPR and Washington Post Best Book of the Year and established her as a vital American Muslim literary voice. Now she delivers The Bird King, an epic journey set during the reign of the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula at the height of the Spanish Inquisition. Fatima is a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain. Her dearest friend, Hassan, the palace mapmaker and the one man who doesn’t leer at her with desire, has a secret—he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls? As the two traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, The Bird King asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate. “Wilson has a deft hand with myth and with magic, and the kind of smart, honest writing mind that knits together and bridges cultures and people.” —Neil Gaiman, author of Norse Mythology “A triumph . . . one of the best fantasy writers working today.” —BookPage “A treasure-house of a novel, thrilling, tender, funny, and achingly gorgeous. I loved it.” —Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians trilogy

Once upon a time there was a bad, bad poet called James, whose head was nothing more than a huge egg with facial features crudely appended. And one day, while James was on the toilet thinking about a line from The Waste Land ("Hieronymo's mad againe"), the egg cracked open and out lurched an ambiguous creature called the Bird King. From the moment he stepped into our world, the Bird King was very busy. He flapped his patchy wings, made absurd laws, fell in love with inanimate objects. Following him around with his head still gaping and his mulchy brain exposed, James recorded the Bird King's episodic adventures, transmitting them to the world through Twitter. ****************************************** Enjoy James Knight's latest collection of broken stories, poetic fragments and assembled pictures, including the long poems "The Death of the Bird King", "The Monsters" and "The Madness of the Bird King", as well as "Oneiroscope", 24 original artworks and 60 short pieces.

Six Twitter poets showcase their work in this diverse anthology. From James Knight's 13-tweet preface: 6. Poetry has been given a lifeline by online social networking. The private and personal has become the public and universal. 7. All of the poets in this volume publish and collaborate on Twitter. Our words thrash and leap through the rapids of the timelines. 8. People don't usually have time for poetry. But poems popping up in timelines give instant sensation, gratification. 9. The tweet is the sonnet for the 21st Century. If a sonnet embodies elegant compression, a tweet is a mind-expanding miniature. 10. The tweet is the building block of many of the poems in this book. In some cases it's obvious, in others less so. 11. The poets in this anthology are diverse, but we share a playful attitude to words and an interest in hallucinatory subjectivity. 12. We come from the UK, the USA, Mexico, Australia. The internet brought us together, made us virtually a movement

When a student at Oxford University decides to commit a crime to help his studies, he gets more than he bargained for. With the help of his new assistant they embark on an adventure of magic and mystery, in a search for secrets locked in the history of time.

Made famous on The Martha Stewart Show on television and Sirius radio, Marc Morrone is front and center to answer his viewers’ (and his readers’) many questions about their favorite pets. In Ask the Bird Keeper, Marc’s quirky, entertaining personality shines on every page as he spews out his wisdom, know-how, and hilarious anecdotes to answer dozens of questions. Divided into nine chapters, this book offers answers on hundreds of topics about feeding, housing, training, healthy, anatomy, and everyday care. In the “Food” chapter—from grit to grub—Marc discusses dietary changes, supplements, people food, and different kinds of diets. A chapter devoted to accommodations talks about various cage options, choosing the right size cage and equipment, and cleaning tips. Positive reinforcement underscores Marc’s chapter “School,” in which he lectures on bonding, hyperactive, noise issues, and challenging bird behaviors. As a self-taught bird keeper, Marc’s chapter on “Health” is a true primer in what owners can and cannot do, from first aid tips and trimming (nails, beaks, feathers) to broken tails, parasites, parrot fever and bird flu. While Marc is often laugh-out-loud funny in all of the chapters, it is his genuine admiration and respect for his avian friends that make this book a unique resource for all pet lovers. Fill with real first-hand information and reliable tips, readers will be laughing and learning in equal measure! The book is beautifully designed and illustrated with color photographs as well as original artwork by Jason O’Malley.

Volume 5 - Demon King’s Domination "This is a shortcut for cultivation, filled with slaughter and blood. But… I like it. I want chaos, the more chaos, the better!" A story of a villain, Fang Yuan who was reborn 500 years into the past with the Spring Autumn Cicada he painstakingly refined. With his profound wisdom, battle and life experiences, he seeks to overcome his foes with skill and wit! Ruthless and amoral, he has no need to hold back as he pursues his ultimate goals. In a world of cruelty where one cultivates using Gu - magical creatures of the world - Fang Yuan must rise up above all with his own power. Humans are clever in tens of thousands of ways, Gu are the true refined essences of Heaven and Earth. The Three Temples are unrighteous, the demon is reborn. Former days are but an old dream, an identical name is made anew. A story of a time traveler who keeps on being reborn. A unique world that grows, cultivates, and uses Gu. The Spring and Autumn Cicada, the Venomous Moonlight Gu, the Wine Insect, All-Encompassing Golden Light Insect, Slender Black Hair Gu, Gu of Hope… And a great demon of the world that does exactly as his heart pleases!

Conference of the Birds is John Heilpern's true story of an extraordinary journey. In December 1972, the director Peter Brook and an international troupe of actors (Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida among them) left their Paris base to emerge again in the Sahara desert. It was the start of an 8,500-mile expedition through Africa without precedent in the history of theater. Brook was in search of a new beginning that has since been revealed in all his work--from Conference of the Birds and Carmen to The Mahabharata and beyond. At the heart of John Heilpern's brilliant account of the African experiment is a story that became a search for the miraculous.