Completed series: Kindle edition: 11-chapters set; paperback: 1-volume set. When Sawoo gets bullied in high school, his only friend Kido promises to teach him how to become the greatest villain. But Kido goes overseas after teaching Sawoo only two of the three rules. Faithfully following the two rules, Sawoo writes Kido many letters in the hope that he will get to learn the last remaining rule but Kido never replies. One day after four years, Kido shows up in front of Sawoo, thinking those were love letters.

"[James] is the most intelligent man of his generation." -T. S. Eliot "Reading Henry James is like putting a new faculty to the test. This is the true morality.” -Anita Brookner “A very modern story about aimless lives and messy marriages”- Paul Theroux Henry James’ What Maisie Knew (1897) is one of the author's most piercing works of fiction, am impassioned look at the events of a young girls life as she is shuffled between her self-absorbed divorced parents. In this astonishingly modern novel, the damaging constructs of society and the illusions of respectability are seen through the perspective of an unforgettable child from her earliest years until a teenager. Maisie Farange, only six-years old at the onset of the novel, is a child of two narcissistic parents: Beale and Ida, who are only using the young child as a pawn in their own egomaniacal games. As the bitter divorce of her parents is settled in split custody, the emotional cruelty only increases. She is cared for by two governesses; the homely Mrs. Wix at her Mother’s house, and the beautiful Miss Overmore at her father’s home. As each parent re-marries much younger spouses, and those relationship in turn fail, Maisie is entangled in a web of moral corruption and psychological abuse. James’s tragic story of an innocent child caught between the corruption of the adult world is a thought-provoking and devastating meditation on failed responsibility.

Contributions by Jerold J. Abrams, José Alaniz, John Carey, Maurice Charney, Peter Coogan, Joe Cruz, Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Stefan Danter, Adam Davidson-Harden, Randy Duncan, Richard Hall, Richard Heldenfels, Alberto Hermida, Víctor Hernández-Santaolalla, A. G. Holdier, Tiffany Hong, Stephen Graham Jones, Siegfried Kracauer, Naja Later, Ryan Litsey, Tara Lomax, Tony Magistrale, Matthew McEniry, Cait Mongrain, Grant Morrison, Robert Moses Peaslee, David D. Perlmutter, W. D. Phillips, Jared Poon, Duncan Prettyman, Vladimir Propp, Noriko T. Reider, Robin S. Rosenberg, Hannah Ryan, Lennart Soberon, J. Richard Stevens, Lars Stoltzfus-Brown, John N. Thompson, Dan Vena, and Robert G. Weiner The Supervillain Reader, featuring both reprinted and original essays, reveals why we are so fascinated with the villain. The obsession with the villain is not a new phenomenon, and, in fact, one finds villains who are “super” going as far back as ancient religious and mythological texts. This innovative collection brings together essays, book excerpts, and original content from a wide variety of scholars and writers, weaving a rich tapestry of thought regarding villains in all their manifestations, including film, literature, television, games, and, of course, comics and sequential art. While The Supervillain Reader focuses on the latter, it moves beyond comics to show how the vital concept of the supervillain is part of our larger consciousness. Editors Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner collect pieces that explore how the villain is a complex part of narratives regardless of the original source. The Joker, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, Darth Vader, and Magneto must be compelling, stimulating, and proactive, whereas the superhero (or protagonist) is most often reactive. Indeed, whether in comics, films, novels, religious tomes, or video games, the eternal struggle between villain and hero keeps us coming back to these stories over and over again.

This carefully edited collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944) was an American author best known for his thoughtful Westerns under the pen name Max Brand. Prolific in many genres, he wrote historical novels, detective mysteries, pulp fiction stories and many more. Table of Contents: The Untamed The Night Horseman The Seventh Man Dan Barry's Daughter Ronicky Doone Ronicky Doone's Treasure Ronicky Doone's Reward Silvertip The Man from Mustang Silvertip's Strike Silvertip's Roundup Silvertip's Trap Silvertip's Chase Silvertip's Search The Stolen Stallion Valley Thieves The Valley of Vanishing Men The False Rider The Firebrand Claws of the Tigress The Pearls of Bonfadini Internes Can't Take Money The Secret of Dr. Kildare Above the Law Harrigan! Trailin'! Riders of the Silences Crossroads The Man Who Forgot Christmas Black Jack The Cure of Silver Cañon Donnegan Bull Hunter Jerico's Garrison Finish The Long, Long Trail Way of the Lawless Alcatraz The Garden of Eden The Power of Prayer The Rangeland Avenger Wild Freedom The Boy Who Found Christmas His Name His Fortune The Quest of Lee Garrison Rodeo Ranch "Sunset" Wins Soft Metal Under His Shirt The Tenderfoot The Black Rider In the River Bottom's Grip Acres of Unrest Bad Man's Gulch The Whispering Outlaw The Desert Pilot The Mountain Fugitive The Mustang Herder The Sheriff Rides Destry Rides Again Sixteen in Nome The Hair-Trigger Kid The Lightning Warrior The Three Crosses Range Jester Gunman's Gold The Red Bandanna Marbleface Red Devil of the Range Seven Faces King of the Range Seven Mile House John Ovington Returns That Receding Brow Hole-In-The-Wall Barrett The Ghost Out of the Dark Beyond the Finish A Special Occasion The Small World Fixed Wine in the Desert Dust Storm...

With an insight he often wished he had not inherited, Michael Forester, a far-from-ordinary rural Missouri teacher nearing retirement, faces danger head-on with a wry smile and never-say-die determination. He is a Kelly from a long line of feisty Irish ancestors who first homesteaded the rough Ozark valleys along Flat Creek just after the American Civil War. He is compelled by the sight, as his Irish forbearers termed it, to travel to the lakes in the north. There, he seeks answers regarding his waking dreams and his foreboding of terrible difficulties that soon will follow. A craftsman and woodworker with an envious zest for living, Michael unwinds from teaching by building sturdy touring kayaks. He has tested their sea worthiness and his own metal on solo trips in northern Minnesota and on Lake Superior for almost a decade. In those wild places where Mother Nature and organized crime are oddly poised to cast terrible troubles his way, passionate intrigues from the past surface. They reweave an already complex fabric of difficulties. Death looms for Michael Forester on the wave-tossed islands of Lake Superior and ultimately back home in the steep hill country of the Ozarks. He refuses to run from evil forces, the endgame, front and center. Michaels courage astounds his enemies but not his friends. Forester just is, and you want him by your side when the devil knocks at your door. All should know that good fortune sweet journeys is a long-standing Irish farewell of hope for the traveler. The proud beginnings of an Irish American familys odyssey are revealed in Good Fortune Sweet Journeys, are continued in Recapturing Lisdoonvarna, and set to rest in the final book of this three-part series, Saint Francis in the Garden.

Discover Your Voice and Enthrall Readers! The craft of writing is filled with various debates: Should I include a prologue? Should I delete all adverbs from my manuscript? Just how much backstory--if any--can I include in my story? These questions--and their often-contradictory answers--can cause confusion, frustration, and even paralysis in the writer. The Irresistible Novel frees you from the limits of so-called "rules" and instead provides you with a singular goal: You must engage your readers from beginning to end. Filled with down-to-earth discussions on the various debates of writing, as well as innovative research on neuroscience and reader response, this book shows you how to: • Navigate the various debates on writing fiction--showing versus telling, purple prose, outlining, writing description, and more--to decide what kind of novelist you want to be. • Hack your reader's brain to hook her interest and trigger emotional engagement from the very first page. • Incorporate enduring elements of storytelling from masters like Joseph Campbell, Aristotle, and Carl Jung. Readers want to be swept away by your stories. When you eschew the rules and focus on your readers' desires, you're free to write truly irresistible fiction.

The History of the Counts of Guines and Lords of Ardres, a work made famous by Georges Duby, now appears in an expert translation by Leah Shopkow. Consisting of 154 surviving chapters, Lambert's chronicle is just one of many local genealogies produced in Flanders during the high Middle Ages. It is extraordinarily rich and idiosyncratic, however, in its treatment of two competing families, longtime rivals until they were joined by marriage in the mid-twelfth century. In the first 96 chapters, Lambert, priest of the church of Ardres, traces the lineage of the counts of Guines from the seventh century to his present. Suddenly, narrative control seems to be wrested away by the garrulous Walter LeClud, illegitimate son of Baldwin of Ardres, who tells the history of the other family for the next 50 chapters. At that point, Lambert's voice is finally restored, with an account of the now combined holdings of Guines and Ardres. With two storytellers recounting some of the same events from different perspectives, The History of the Counts of Guines and Lords of Ardres is a particularly useful source for probing the medieval aristocratic family and aristocratic attitudes. Shopkow brings Lambert's chronicle to life in an accurate, lively translation and provides relevant historical and historiographical information in her extensive introduction and explanatory notes to the text.