DIVDIVCalifornia natives Gil and Rudy must use their newfound magical powers to defend their adopted homeland when the powers of the Dark rise up—again/divDIV /divDIVOnce upon a time, Gil and Rudy lived simple lives. Until they met Ingold, she was an ordinary PhD candidate and he was a drifter, whiling away his life riding motorcycles under the California sun. But wizards have a way of complicating things. Ingold brought them across the Void, where an evil known as the Dark threatened to devour civilization whole. Civilization’s hopes rested on an infant prince, and to protect him Gil and Rudy had to draw on newfound powers—she as a warrior, and he as a wizard. With Ingold’s help they escaped the Dark, and led a hardy band of survivors to a far-away keep, where humanity could be safe for a time./divDIV /divDIVBut now that time is past, and there is nowhere to hide from the Dark./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection./div /div

When mountains are your salvation, what keep your mental weather calm and free of storms, how do you cope if they’re out of reach? After spending a decade restlessly globetrotting in search of a way of life that worked for him, journalist Kieran Cunningham alighted on Sondrio, a small town in Lombardy, Italy. A stone’s throw from the Alps, there he found the perfect combination of fresh mountain air, a strong network of local friends and lots of climbing. Finally he was able to accept and manage his diagnosis of Bipolar 1. And then Lombardy found itself the European epicentre of Covid-19 and subject to the strictest of lockdowns. What does a climber do when his beloved peaks are off limits? When he’s only permitted to leave the house for his weekly sanctioned grocery shop? When all the things that help him maintain his delicate equilibrium are taken away? As Kieran feels his mental health begin to crumble, he looks desperately for something he can climb to help rid him of his excess energy and hopefully get him back on track. Kieran finds himself navigating the walls of his house over and over while gazing at the mountain ranges so tantalisingly close. He dreams of that first euphoric climb – alone in the clouds, tired, happy, sated. Climbing the Walls is a memoir about mental health and the power of nature and exercise. It’s both a devastatingly honest account of living with Bipolar 1 and a love song to small-town Italian life and the high places that keep him healthy.

In "The Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft, a man restores his ancestral estate in England, only to be haunted by mysterious noises within the walls. As he investigates, he uncovers horrifying secrets about his family's dark past and the ancient horrors lurking beneath the mansion.

In the Lovecraftian universe there exists many terrible and horrifying things, from extraterrestrial gods and ancient secrets to zealous cults, supernatural beasts and beyond. Lovecraft's 1939 short story "In the Walls of Eryx" centres around the life and demise of a Venetian prospector who becomes lost in an invisible maze while mining on the planet Venus. Lovecraft's first and only science fiction story, this book is not to be missed by short story lovers and fans of Lovecraft's exceptional fiction. Other notable works by this author include: “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Rats in the Walls”, and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”. Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer of supernatural horror fiction. Though his works remained largely unknown and did not furnish him with a decent living, Lovecraft is today considered to be among the most significant writers of supernatural horror fiction of the twentieth century. Read & Co. is publishing this classic short story now as part of our “Fantasy and Horror Classics” imprint in a new edition with a dedication by George Henry Weiss.

“A lively popular history of an oft-overlooked element in the development of human society” (Library Journal)—walls—and a haunting and eye-opening saga that reveals a startling link between what we build and how we live. With esteemed historian David Frye as our raconteur-guide in Walls, which Publishers Weekly praises as “informative, relevant, and thought-provoking,” we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existed—to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources, and each man was bred to a life of struggle. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected; on the other, those the walls kept out. The stars of this narrative are the walls themselves—rising up in places as ancient and exotic as Mesopotamia, Babylon, Greece, China, Rome, Mongolia, Afghanistan, the lower Mississippi, and even Central America. As we journey across time and place, we discover a hidden, thousand-mile-long wall in Asia's steppes; learn of bizarre Spartan rituals; watch Mongol chieftains lead their miles-long hordes; witness the epic siege of Constantinople; chill at the fate of French explorers; marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line; tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin; gape at Hollywood’s gated royalty; and contemplate the wall mania of our own era. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “provocative, well-written, and—with walls rising everywhere on the planet—timely,” Walls gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them? Find out in this masterpiece of historical recovery and preeminent storytelling.