The New York Times bestselling series that inspired the international hit video game: The Witcher A sample of offerings from international fantasy superstar Andrzej Sapkowski, and the perfect introduction to his work. Best known for his series of stories and novels about Geralt, the Witcher, Sapkowski is one of the most successful fantasy authors in the world. Contains: 2 complete Witcher short stories taken from THE LAST WISH, the first chapter of Blood of Elves, the first Witcher novel, the first chapter of Baptism of Fire, the third full-length book in the series, and a non-Witcher short story "The Malady."

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and a baffling new world, the characters in Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

Edited, with an Introduction, by William Breeze. Foreword by David Tibet. This volume brings together the uncollected short fiction of the poet, writer and religious philosopher Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947). Crowley was a successful critic, editor and author of fiction from 1908 to 1922, and his short stories are long overdue for discovery. Of the fifty-two stories in the present volume, only thirty were published in his lifetime. Most of the rest appear here for the first time. Like their author, Crowley's stories are fun, smart, witty, thought-provoking and sometimes unsettling. They are set in places he had lived and knew well: Belle Epoque Paris, Edwardian London, pre-revolutionary Russia and America during the first World War. The title story The Drug stands as one of the first - if not the first - accounts of a psychedelic experience. His Black and Silver is a knowing early noir discovery that anticipates an entire genre. Atlantis is a masterpiece of occult fantasy, a dark satire that can stand with Samuel Butler's Erewhon. Frank Harris considered The Testament of Magdalen Blair the most terrifying tale ever written. Extensive editorial end-notes give full details about the stories.

Surviving the teenage years isn't easy. Especially, if you've just found out why you're feeling so, totally, different from the rest of the kids at school.In My Strange and Terrible Malady, Ronita Baker, 11th-grade individualist, is not happy. Doctors just diagnosed her with Asperger Syndrome. It's hard enough being the misfit daughter of a perfect mother. School isn't much easier.Things change when Ronnie meets Hannah and she takes the time to explain the mysteries of social interaction and other conundrums of daily life to Ronnie. Hannah soon makes more sense to Ronnie than the despised Life Coach. At first ? but that changes when the Life Coach starts relating better to Ronnie. My Strange and Terrible Malady takes a look at Asperger Syndrome from a young woman's point of view. Ronnie is clearly not socially savvy, but she is learning. Social and emotional interaction can be learned.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Tyranny comes an impassioned condemnation of America's pandemic response and an urgent call to rethink health and freedom. On December 29, 2019, historian Timothy Snyder fell gravely ill. Unable to stand, barely able to think, he waited for hours in an emergency room before being correctly diagnosed and rushed into surgery. Over the next few days, as he clung to life and the first light of a new year came through his window, he found himself reflecting on the fragility of health, not recognized in America as a human right but without which all rights and freedoms have no meaning. And that was before the pandemic. We have since watched American hospitals, long understaffed and undersupplied, buckling under waves of ill patients. The federal government made matters worse through willful ignorance, misinformation, and profiteering. Our system of commercial medicine failed the ultimate test, and thousands of Americans died. In this eye-opening cri de coeur, Snyder traces the societal forces that led us here and outlines the lessons we must learn to survive. In examining some of the darkest moments of recent history and of his own life, Snyder finds glimmers of hope and principles that could lead us out of our current malaise. Only by enshrining healthcare as a human right, elevating the authority of doctors and medical knowledge, and planning for our children’s future can we create an America where everyone is truly free.

A Wizard with a nose for magic gets a very bad head cold.

First there was Sinbad the sailor, famous for his seven voyages, and for the lavish dinner parties he would hold upon his return, such feasts often lasting a month or more. Then there was Sinbad the porter, a man of humbler origins, with ambitions beyond his means and a yearning to be an accountant. But Sinbad the sailor had financial problems which explains why he had to keep putting out to sea even though each experience was worse than the last. And he was never completely honest in his accounts of his adventures, omitting embarrassing incidents and ever-so-slightly exaggerating the importance of others. All of which, of course, would return to haunt him in later years. Sinbad the porter's ambitions served him in good stead when he set out on an eight and final voyage, attempting to correct the errors his namesake had caused in earlier journeys, not to mention restoring the sailor to his original size. He would have thought twice if he had known he would encounter the dangerously greedy two-headed cyclops, the lecherous pirate queen of the apes, the valley of the talking figs, Sam Ifrit and his All-Genie Orchestra, not to mention the dread Izzat, the fabled form from which even the giant Rukh flies in fear, and the perplexing problem of He-Who-Must-Be-Ignored...