THE STORY: Gillian Holroyd is one of the few modern people who can actually cast spells and perform feats of supernaturalism. She casts a spell over an unattached publisher, Shepherd Henderson, partly to keep him away from a rival and partly becaus

The witch as a cultural archetype has existed in some form since the beginning of recorded history. Her nature has changed through technological developments and sociocultural shifts--a transformation most evident in her depictions on screen. This book traces the figure of the witch through American screen history with an analysis of the entertainment industry's shifting boundaries concerning expressions of femininity. Focusing on films and television series from The Wizard of Oz to The Craft, the author looks at how the witch reflects alterations of gender roles, religion, the modern practice of witchcraft, and female agency.

Rosemary Edghill cast a keenly observant, friendly, yet faintly amused eye on an intriguing American micro-culture. The Bast novels offer a very new view of the practitioners of a very old faith. Edghill allows that there's still magic in the air. Rosemary Edghill's Bast novels are a real treat. Bell, Book, and Murder contains all three Bast novels, Speak Daggers to Her, Book of Moons, and The Bowl of Night (excerpted in USA Today). At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The first page has Henry hooked. The second page has him captivated. The third page . . . BBBBRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG! . . . will have to wait. That is, unless Henry ignores the bell, stays put, and keeps on reading the most awesome book. By not springing up with the ringing of the bell, Henry sets off a chain reaction unlike anything his school or town has ever seen. Luckily, Mayor Wise, Governor Bright, and Senator Brilliant know exactly what the situation calls for: A louder bell. MUCH louder. With this hilarious, high-energy satire from bestselling author Chris Barton and illustrator Ashley Spires, readers will be cheering louder still as one of their own continues to just stay put.

The teen stars of Saved by the Bell entertained global audiences for over a decade. On TV, the actors in this ground-breaking show portrayed characters of model behavior, though often indulging in a little innocent adolescent fun. But what was it like behind the scenes? What were these kids really like, and what was it like to live one's teenage years in front of the camera? Dustin Diamond, Saved by the Bell's Samuel Screech Powers, pulls back the curtains to reveal the truth about being a child star in Hollywood. Diamond shows what happens when kids grow up too fast, too rich, and too famous. Book jacket.

Kaveh Akbar’s exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar’s second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body’s question, “what now shall I repair?” Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance—the infinite void of a loved one’s absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation—teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness. Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell’s linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives—resonant, revelatory, and holy.