Edmund Peoples, definitely an optimistic person, has just received an important assignment: to visit various lands, each famous for a particular social advance. With orders to report back to his superiors on each land's successful methods and how his country can achieve social betterment as a result, Peoples prepares to leave his girlfriend and best friend behind, and embark on his journey accompanied by two other investigating visitors: the attractive Sunni Childless and the young and ambitious Omar Hinki. As Peoples and the two other visitors agree to separate and launch solo investigations, he begins his romp through ten strange, frightening, and laughable lands where he is confronted with humorous social and non-political spoofs as well as personal struggles that eventually lead him to shed his optimistic persona and embrace pessimism. Forced to question his beliefs, trust in strangers, and face danger, Peoples manages to survive his journey and return home, only to discover he has lost everything. Now jobless, aimless, and without a purpose, Peoples must somehow find his way back to a happy life. Visit to the Circus of Fools shares a hero's entertaining, satirical journey through various lands as he learns more than he ever imagined, especially about himself.

Journey into the depths of the mind, with this collection of twists and turns sure delight mind body and soul. It is not simply a group of poems and pros but a true Trip Through Insanity. Spanning 3 years this books follows pain, power and lust through the agonies, enjoyment, and spiritual discoveries of a poet who does not fear freedom of speech. Going through environmental consciousness to reflections then onto eventual realizations finishing with the deep human emotions of fear and love this collection is a real trip through insanity and is sure to excite one and all.

To survive in the City of Sin, an innocent girl must choose her new identity in this dark YA fantasy—the sequel to Ace of Shades. Indulge your vices in the City of Sin, where a sinister street war is brewing and fame is the deadliest killer of them all. Prim and proper Enne Salta never expected to team up with an infamous con man like Levi Glaiyser. But winning the Shadow Game was not the victory they imagined. Now the duo are wanted for murder and Enne is forced to live in disguise as Séance, a mysterious figure of the underworld. Desperate to build his empire, Levi makes a deal with the estranged son of Mafia donna Vianca Augustine, while Enna remains trapped by Vianca’s binding oath, unsure whether to embrace the role of refined lady or cunning street lord. As they walk a path of unimaginable wealth, a dangerous game of crime and politics swirls around them. And when unforeseen players enter, they must each make an impossible choice: sacrifice everything . . . Or die as legends.

In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

The dramatic and hilarious story of sores and survival on a human-powered journey across the ocean. It was to be an expedition like no other—a run across the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados aboard an experimental rowboat. There would be no support vessel, no stored water, no sails, no motor. The boat's crew of sixteen included several veterans of U.S. college rowing, a number of triathletes, a woman who had rowed both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and a scrawny, bespectacled sexagenarian -- our chronicler, Charles Wilkins. When he joined the expedition, Wilkins had never swung an oar in earnest. In a tale both harrowing and hilarious, Wilkins takes the reader along for seven weeks of rationed food, festering sores, breathtaking sunrises, sleep deprivation, and mile-high waves alongside a devoted crew of misadventurers.Little Ship of Fools is a fascinating and funny story of courage, adventure and human spirit

To understand comedy is to understand humanity, for the comic sense is central to what it means to be human. Nearly all the major issues with which human beings have exercised themselves are touched upon in some manner by the comic spirit. Yet education in the art of comedy and in comic appreciation is given little attention in most societies. The Spirituality of Comedy explores the wisdom of comedy and the comic answer to tragedy (in both popular and classical senses of the term). Tragedy is seen as a fundamental problem of human existence, while comedy is its counterweight and resolution.Conrad Hyers has taken a fresh look at comedy from the standpoint of comparative mythology and religion, and thus comedy's spiritual significance. In his unique study of the comic tradition, Hyers explains the difficulty in pinning down themes, structures, plots, or characters that are common to all comedy. Instead he argues that there is an essence of comedy in the area of pattern. He draws upon the rich historical ensemble of types of comic figures: the humorist, comedian, comic hero, rogue, trickster, clown, fool, underdog, and simpleton. He shows how each type incarnates a comic heroism in its own unique manner, offering a profound wisdom and philosophy of life.The approach of this book is broadly interdisciplinary, with materials and interpretations introduced from the various fields of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences as they illuminate both the tragic and comic sensibilities. The methodological thread that draws this all together is an analysis of the major types of comic figures in terms of the myths and legends associated with them, the rituals they produce and enact, and the symbolism of the comic figures themselves. Written in a very readable literary style, The Spirituality of Comedy will appeal to psychologists, social scientists, clergy, philosophers, and students of literature.