In these impactful first-person essays, a selection of Repeater authors come together to write about what heroism means to them, trying to imagine a new kind of hero figure for the twenty-first century. "I don’t have any heroes, they’re all useless", opined John Lydon in 1976. As a spokesperson of sorts for the punk generation, Lydon was giving voice to a nihilistic, deconstructive impulse which, for better or worse, would go on to dominate the next half-century or so of intellectual, cultural and political life. But isn’t one of the problems with the modern world that we no longer have any real sense of what heroism is? What if we recovered heroism from the hands of the fascists and the neoliberal ideologues, and proclaimed that – despite everything – a hero can and should be something to be? In these personal, provocative essays, the authors behind the uncompromising project that is Repeater Books come together to redefine the idea of the hero for a twenty-first-century public which desperately needs something to believe in. From Eric Cantona to Wile E Coyote, Bruno Latour to Paula Rego, forgotten legends and anonymous family members, this compendium of extraordinary human behaviour is essential reading for anyone who has ever thought that, despite what Jean-Paul Sartre said, heaven is other people.

In these impactful first-person essays, a selection of Repeater authors come together to write about what heroism means to them, trying to imagine a new kind of hero figure for the twenty-first century. "I don’t have any heroes, they’re all useless", opined John Lydon in 1976. As a spokesperson of sorts for the punk generation, Lydon was giving voice to a nihilistic, deconstructive impulse which, for better or worse, would go on to dominate the next half-century or so of intellectual, cultural and political life. But isn’t one of the problems with the modern world that we no longer have any real sense of what heroism is? What if we recovered heroism from the hands of the fascists and the neoliberal ideologues, and proclaimed that – despite everything – a hero can and should be something to be? In these personal, provocative essays, the authors behind the uncompromising project that is Repeater Books come together to redefine the idea of the hero for a twenty-first-century public which desperately needs something to believe in. From Eric Cantona to Wile E Coyote, Bruno Latour to Paula Rego, forgotten legends and anonymous family members, this compendium of extraordinary human behaviour is essential reading for anyone who has ever thought that, despite what Jean-Paul Sartre said, heaven is other people.

A selection of Repeater authors choose their favourite forgotten horror stories for this new anthology, with each also writing a critical introduction for the story of their choice. A selection of Repeater authors choose their favourite horror stories for this new anthology, with each writing a critical introduction for the story of their choice. Edited by novelist and Repeater publisher Tariq Goddard and "horror philosopher" Eugene Thacker, The Repeater Book of the Occult is a new anthology of horror stories that explores the ever-shifting boundaries between the natural and supernatural, between the real and the unreal. As the editors note, "In the grey zone between what appears and what is, lies horror. But horror writing is also a certain disposition, a way of thinking based on a suspicion regarding the world as it is given to us, and a doubt regarding the accepted ways of explaining that world to us - and for us." The Repeater Book of the Occult includes introductions by Repeater authors such as Leila Taylor, Carl Neville, Rhian E Jones, and Elvia Wilk, and features horror classics by Algernon Blackwood, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as forgotten gems by authors such as W.W. Jacobs, Mark Twain, and Sheridan Le Fanu.

A gritty and moving personal account of the struggle to provide humanitarian relief during Operation Restore Hope in war-torn Somalia. In 1993, Gareth Owen volunteered to go to Somalia with an Irish aid agency. Located in a remote desert outpost, he encountered the brutality of conflict and famine and experienced the hardships and struggles of an extraordinary race of desert warriors. He rubbed shoulders with the French Foreign Legion and Greek Special Forces and worked alongside a band of international aid workers striving to feed the Somali people. And as the country began to recover, he found himself losing connection with the Somalis as their resentment towards the international presence grew and violent confrontation erupted. In this accessible and engaging memoir, Owen, now Humanitarian Director at Save the Children UK, recounts the entanglement of violence and humanity at the heart of this notorious peacekeeping operation. This is a story of human resilience and contradictory friendships, of loyalty, courage and extraordinary endeavour — but mostly it is a story about the meaning of human connection in desperate circumstances. Part memoir, part history and part politics, When the Music's Over sees beyond the criticism of humanitarian intervention and challenges us to consider the enduring importance of international solidarity in a world where notions of common humanity and universal peace are increasingly being abandoned.

Yes, it’s true: you can learn how to be a verbal wizard! Ever hear someone utter an unforgettable phrase and feel yourself reacting with with…well, awe? Ever read a great quote and think I could never come up with anything that clever? Daunting as it may seem, there’s nothing mystical about witcraft. Crafting memorable lines doesn’t require DNA-encoded brilliance. What it does require is some knowledge of the tricks and techniques that make words stick. In Word Hero, Jay Heinrichs rescues the how-to of verbal artistry from cobwebbed textbooks and makes it entirely fresh– even a little mischievous. Fear not: on offer here are not dry, abstract ideas couched in academic jargon. Rather, Heinrichs takes you on an amusing – and amazingly helpful – tour of the mechanisms that make powerful language work. You’ll learn how to slyly plant your words in people’s heads and draw indelible verbal pictures by employing such tools as “crashing symbols,” “rapid repeaters,” “Russian Dolls” and even the powers of Mr. Potato Head. With those tools and others tucked in your utility belt, you might not immediately achieve “wordsmith immortality” but you will become a better speaker, writer, and raconteur…and long after people have forgotten everything else, they’ll remember your priceless lines.

Even though they were mother and daughter they were known mostly as ‘the sisters’. It was a union that would lead them both into lives they wished they had not had. For thirty-five years, two women frighten each other through the fading twilight of the last century, their existence an unacknowledged tragedy of manners. Confusing their duty to one another for the feelings they’re too busy to mention, their desire for “modest social success” ends by asphyxiating whatever lies within its grasp. From the art galleries of Manhattan Island to the pubs of the North Yorkshire Moors, Nature and Necessity is a wild reimagining of the nineteenth-century realist novel, a story of siblings battling for survival and supremacy, a war story without armies, and a warning that even the most promising and prosperous of lives can be crushed by the fear of uttering the confession: I love you.

When children start going missing in a rural town, the investigation takes twists and turns into the strange world of privilege and the realm of the occult. "I always wanted to be a writer, but I became a policeman instead." WESSEX, 2016. Teenagers are vanishing off the council estates of a small provincial city. A crop of herbs that are said to posses magical powers which only grow once every fifty years are found in the woods. A supernatural creature believed to be the guardian of the herbs is seen in nightmares. Rumours of orgiastic rituals on the estates of the rich and powerful excite the curious. And the Queen of England decides to celebrate her 90th birthday with a visit to the city’s famous cathedral spire. Into this madness, two ambitious detectives, one with doomed literary ambitions, seek to solve the mystery, their only lead that “posh people are taking our children”. Blending mysticism, class war, societal malfeasance and transcendence, High John The Conqueror identifies the point in our recent history when the ghosts of our past become the political monsters of the present.