Search results for ""Author Weird"

'A smart, thrilling, utterly unnerving novel' GILLIAN FLYNN on Andrew Pyper's The Demonologist EVERY FAMILY HAS SECRETS. It is only after their father dies that Aaron, Bridge and Franny learn how wealthy he was. But they must fulfil a request in his will to get any inheritance: spend a month in a cabin, deep in the mountains, with no contact with the outside world. Despite their concerns, they agree. BUT SECRETS CAN BE A REAL KILLER. The isolation soon makes them question what their father was trying to tell them. And why they have memories of the cabin, though none of them have been there before. The only thing they are sure of is that something is calling to them from the darkness of the woods. And before the month is through, they will discover just how deadly secrets can be.For fans of The Haunting of Hill House, Twin Peaks and Stephen King, Andrew Pyper returns with this gripping novel about the dark side of family. *** PRAISE for ANDREW PYPER *** 'Brilliant thriller . . . readers will be invested in the thoughtfully constructed characters. Fans of Josh Malerman's Bird Box will be pleased' Publishers Weekly on The Homecoming (* Starred Review) 'One assumes the book was written beneath a full moon . . . Pyper's petrifying imagination comes through in the details. The Homecoming creates a battle between the reader's faith in what they know about their own histories and the leery possibility of treachery emerging out of nowhere . . . Pyper's craftsmanship knows no limit when it comes to making the reader confront their own inescapable fears' Globe and Mail 'Weird, wonderful, audacious . . . Brilliantly constructed and absolutely mesmerizing, this could very well be [Pyper's] best book yet' Booklist 'Genuinely terrifying, don't-read-late-at-night stuff. Thrilling, compelling and beautifully written' SJ Watson, bestselling author of Before I Go to Sleep 'Pyper’s style flips back and forth from gallows humour to Grand Guignol horror…you’ll want to keep all the lights on as you read this one' Independent on Sunday on Lost Girls 'With impressive skill and confidence…Pyper has created an intricate puzzle, playing with elements of the courtroom drama, the detective story and country Gothic…As a debut novel, Lost Girls is remarkable and compelling. But more than that, it is a novel that goes some way towards reinventing the literary ghost story as a modern-day going concern' The Times on Lost Girls 'Sentence by sentence there’s little to fault: the moody unease of small-town Canada is maintained and a creeping horror revealed' Guardian on Lost Girls 'A best-seller in the author’s native Canada…it’s easy to see why…extremely compelling' Sunday Telegraph on Lost Girls 'This is an excellently written novel, brilliant in its evocation of an atmosphere which, at first mildly sinister, progressively thickens and darkens' Evening Standard on Lost Girls

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Tenth-grader Yugi always had his head in some game--until he solved the Millennium Puzzle, an Egyptian artifact containing the spirit of a master gambler from the age of the pharoahs! Possessed by the puzzle, Yugi becomes Yu-Gi-Oh, the King of Games, and challenges evildoers to the Shadow Games...weird games with high stakes and high risks! Let the games begin! Meet Seto Kaiba, master of the world's most dangerous collectible card game. When Kaiba discovers that Yugi's grandfather owns the incredibly rare Blue-Eyes White Dragon card, he will stop at nothing to get it...even if he has to duel with Yugi's dark alter ego Yu-Gi-Oh! Then, out of the sands of Egypt, the mystic Shadi has come to test Yugi's powers, which will give Yugi his greatest challenge yet. If he loses, his best friends will die!

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One week. One prize. Seven really weird challenges. The kids at Benjamin Banneker College Prep are a little… competitive. Okay. They’re a LOT competitive. The minute Principal Yee announces an epic competition for the golden B-B trophy, seventh-grader Frederick Douglass Zezzmer knows he has to win. But it won’t be easy. The competition doesn’t just include science, technology, engineering, and math. It also has arts and sports. Not Doug’s best subjects. Even worse, it’s a TEAM competition. Instead of being in a superstar group, Doug gets paired with four middle school misfits no one else wants. Worst of all, Doug’s dad has a horrible backup plan. If Doug doesn’t win, he has to forget about becoming the World’s Greatest Inventor and spend the summer in sports camp, with his scary stepbrother. With only a week to go, Doug launches a quest to turn his team

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Can you stay at your ex's place without things getting weird? And how do you properly apologize to your host for tequila-fueled bad behavior? Fear not! Guestiquette has the answers. Guestiquette is the first book that takes on the complicated world of being a houseguest, offering useful, irreverent, and hilarious advice for guests and hosts. Not sure how to deal with a Schnauzer that hates you or what to do if a zombie apocalypse breaks out while you're staying at someone's home? Guestiquette has you covered.  In addition to advice, this book has fun illustrations, charts, lists, and even a recipe, that celebrate the houseguest experience. You'll also find true first-person stories from hosts and houseguests who were brave enough to share their often cringe-inducing tales, including vivid recounts of a honeymoon spent in the wrong house and a Thanksgiving dinner that would have given Martha Stewart n

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The Kobayashi twins, Mego and Mitsuru, were named after historical figures, but only Mego has grown up with a taste for history. So when Mitsuru is in danger of losing his weekends to extra history classes, he convinces his sister to swap clothes with him and ace his tests! After all, how hard can it be for them to play each other? Megumu's life has gone from weird to wonderful - she no longer has to cross dress as her brother, and her true love, Aoi, has asked her out on a date! It's the beginning of a beautiful relationship, even if they have to stay two feet apart at all times or risk Aoi going into anaphylactic girl shock. Meanwhile, Mitsuru is back in his own clothes too, but he's making war, not love! Can he defeat the school bully and win the hand of his sweetheart, Shino?!

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"I'm embarrassed when I remember Les. Anything but him, with his crisp and coleslaw breath, his tongue slipping inside my mouth - a mouth much too small. A tongue prising the shell away from the outer membrane of an egg, while a blueish, angular embryo wriggles underneath, uncomfortable, fearful at being prematurely exposed to the light..." Shae wants to stop shagging other women's husbands and be a proper queer. Plus, she's bored of only ever getting to use her new strap on a pile of cushions. The answer seems simple enough: come out, go out, and finally get it on with the fit bird at Dyke Night. Or it would be if Evaline, a wayward silicone mistress from the future, wasn't jealous.... A surreal, dirty little book that falls somewhere between Derek McCormack, David Cronenberg, and the tentacle porn you 'accidentally downloaded', Silicone God is for those who like it very, very weird.

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Nao Brown suffers from OCD, but not the hand-washing, overly tidy type that people often refer to jokingly. Nao suffers from violent, morbid obsessions, while her compulsions take the form of unseen mental rituals. Working part-time in a 'designer' vinyl toy shop, while struggling to get her own illustration career off the ground, she's still searching for that elusive love – the perfect love. And in meeting the man of her dreams, she realises… dreams can be quite weird. Nao's meditation practice is an attempt to quieten her mind and open her heart, and it's through this that she comes to understand that things aren't so black and white after all. In fact, they're much more... brown. This new edition contains eight pages of additional material, including previously unseen artwork, which gives an insight into Glyn Dillon’s creative process.

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***LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2016***'KNOWS HOW TO KEEP HER AUDIENCE HOOKED' The Times'A MASTERFUL STORYTELLER' Clare Mackintosh'DARK, WEIRD AND GLORIOUSLY FEMINIST' ElleGeorgian London, in the summer of 1763.At nineteen, Anne Jaccob, the elder daughter of well-to-do parents, meets Fub the butcher's apprentice and is awakened to the possibilities of joy and passion. Anne lives a sheltered life: her home is a miserable place and her parents have already chosen a more suitable husband for her than Fub. But Anne is an unusual young woman and is determined to pursue her own happiness in her own way......even if that means getting a little blood on her hands.'A SHARP EYE AND A SHARPER WIT' Guardian'A SPIRITED, DARK DEBUT' Woman & Home'STRANGE, DARK AND UTTERLY MESMERIC' Hannah Kent*And Janet Ellis's second, darkly compelling novel, How It Was, is out now*

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The ultimate non-technical guide to the fast-developing world of quantum computing Computer technology has improved exponentially over the last 50 years. But the headroom for bigger and better electronic solutions is running out. Our best hope is to engage the power of quantum physics. 'Quantum algorithms' had already been written long before hardware was built. These would enable, for example, a quantum computer to exponentially speed up an information search, or to crack the mathematical trick behind internet security. However, making a quantum computer is incredibly difficult. Despite hundreds of laboratories around the world working on them, we are only just seeing them come close to 'supremacy' where they can outperform a traditional computer. In this approachable introduction, Brian Clegg explains algorithms and their quantum counterparts, explores the physical building blocks and quantum weirdness necessary to make a quantum computer, and uncovers the capabilities of the current generation of machines.

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Bran's Southern California upbringing is anything but traditional. After her mother abandons her and joins a Buddhist colony, Bran is raised by her 'common-law stepfather' on Bourdon Farms - a plant nursery that doubles as a cover for a biker gang. She spends her days tending plants, slogging through high school and imagining what life could be if she had been born to a different family.Then she meets Peter - a charming, troubled college student from the East Coast - who launches his teaching career by initiating her into the world of art. The two begin a seemingly doomed long-distance relationship as Bran searches for meaning in her own surroundings. She knows how to survive, but now she must learn how to live.'Avalon observes beautifully the shifting terrain of teenage intimacy: its intensity and its fragility . . . it's a hilarious, heartbreaking and - of course - extremely weird novel.' Sunday Times

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“Mighty strange doings” mark the Pittsburgh of Jacob Bacharach’s audacious and hilarious debut novel, a town where “yeti, UFOs, rumors of orgiastic rites, intimations of the Mayan apocalypse and ‘psycho-temporal distortions’ add that extra zing to the bustling night life” (James Wolcott). On the edge of thirty, and comfortably adrift in life, Peter Morrison finds his personal and professional life taking a turn for the weird as his attempts to transition into adulthood are thwarted by conspiracies both real and imagined. In this madcap coming-of-age novel, where no one quite comes of age, Bacharach brings an “immensely entertaining” and “Vonnegut-like sensibility” (Library Journal ) to the “aptly surreal satire” (Dan Chaon) of hipsters, corporations, and American life in the adolescent years of the twenty-first century. “A disarming, intelligent and seriously funny debut,” The Bend of the World “marks the arrival of Jacob Bacharach as a writer to watch” (Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

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''George McGavin is a rarity.'' Sir David AttenboroughInsects conquered Earth long before we did and will remain long after we''re gone. Outnumbering us in the billions, they are essential to life as we know it, helping to maintain many of the natural processes that we take for granted. Taking a deep dive into the unknown truths of the most successful and enduring animal group the world has ever seen, entomologist and broadcaster George McGavin explores not only the incredible traits that insects have evolved, such as dragonflies that can fly across oceans without rest and beetles that lay their eggs exclusively in corpses, but also the vital lessons that we have learnt from them and how they continue to help us grow as a society. The Hidden World reveals the unseen effects this weird and wonderful population has on our planet, if only we care to look. ''Crawling with detail, glowing with extraordinary facts and rich with humour and per

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The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch marking humanity's alteration of the Earth: its rock structure, environments, atmosphere. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene offers the most comprehensive survey yet of how literature can address the social, cultural, and philosophical questions posed by the Anthropocene. This volume addresses the old and new literary forms - from novels, plays, poetry, and essays to exciting and evolving genres such as 'cli-fi', experimental poetry, interspecies design, gaming, weird, ecotopian and petro-fiction, and 'new' nature writing. Studies range from the United States to India, from Palestine to Scotland, while addressing numerous global signifiers or consequences of the Anthropocene: catastrophe, extinction, 'fossil capital', warming, politics, ethics, interspecies relations, deep time, and Earth. This unique Companion offers a compelling account of how to read literature through the Anthropocene and of how literature might yet help us imagine a better world.

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'You see - no, you do not, but I see - such curious faces: and the people to whom they belong flit about so oddly, often at your elbow when you least expect it, and looking close into your face, as if they were searching for someone - who may be thankful, I think, if they do not find him.' There was an enormous fascination with fairies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which popularised depictions of benevolent winged friends and things of fragile beauty. But in wider folklore, the creatures of the fey are of a much more unsettling and otherworldly stock. Taking inspiration from folk tales and medieval legends, writers of weird tales and ghost stories such as Arthur Machen, M R James and Charlotte Riddell proved that fairies, elves, goblins and their ilk were something to be feared and respected as our ancestors did. This new collection of stories pairs strange creatures with frightening encounters to revive the fearsome past of the fairy folk.

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Falling in love is a beautiful thing. The internet, naturally, has taken this beauty and turned it into something deeply, deeply strange. Featuring screenshots from real-life dating conversations, Is This Love or Dopamine? is a hilarious, piercing analysis of the weird-and-not-so-wonderful world of internet dating. @beam_me_up_softboi creator and journalist Iona David explores all the highs, horrors and heartbreaks: from the all-important first DM slide to the inevitable eventual ghosting; from f*ckboys and Tinder anthems to loaded emojis and revenge selfies. Learn what to do if someone uses ‘teehee’ in a sext (run for the hills) or has a photo of themselves holding a massive fish on their profile (run faster). A dedication to all the hours spent lying in bed/sitting on the toilet swiping until thumb cramp sets in, this book will make you laugh, then cry, then delete your dating app profile, then (obviously) re-download it again. Long live the internet!

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Atlas Obscura meets 1001 Facts to Scare the Sh*t Out of You in this serious survey of the most bizarre, creepy, and sometimes hilarious customs from cultures around the world. Every culture handles life differently. From the “blackening of the bride” in Scotland and the custom of not looking babies in the eyes in Kenya, to enlisting geese as part of the police squad in China and the tradition of children eating bread with chocolate sprinkles for breakfast in Amsterdam, there are so many unique behaviors all across the world. In Bizarre World, journey across the globe to understand how various cultures approach everything from grief, beauty standards, food, parenting, death, stress management, happiness, and more. Many customs may seem perfectly sane, while others, not so much. Some are just downright strange, funny, or weird. There’s so much to discover about the people around us and the beliefs they hold. Le

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Come on an amazing journey across the ocean, steering your ship to avoid the legendary monsters in this fun new take on snakes and ladders. Magical and mysterious, the water monsters of myths and legends are notoriously elusive, but watch out when they rear their heads as they could send you right back to the start! The booklet reveals their secrets and includes short retellings of the most fantastical tales. From Nessie the Loch Ness Monster to Te Wheke of New Zealand, welcome to the watery world of myths and legends! A fun and easy-to-play snakes and ladders game for children and families, suitable for age 6+ Features fun facts on all the weird and wonderful sea monsters from around the world: steer your ship around them to avoid going under! Complete with counters shaped liked ocean-exploring ships, this game can be enjoyed by two to six players Includes a booklet full of short retellings of Mythical sea monsters and their fa

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The ultimate collection for fans and new readers alikeCullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's iconic weird western, The Sixth Gun, is available for the first time in beautiful softcover omnibus editions, boasting an interlocking spine design for the collector's shelf!In the passing shadow of the Civil War, defiant Confederate general Oliander Hume waits to be freed, too evil and warped to die, too mad with bloodlust to surrender his black magic. He hungers for his lost and most precious possession, an ancient weapon of foreboding doom. But the last and most powerful of six magical revolversand the key to unlocking unstoppable powerhas fallen into the hands of an innocent girl, Becky Montcrief. The gunslinger at her side, Drake Sinclair, is no white knight and is himself on the hunt for the six legendary guns . . .This volume collects The Sixth Gun #117 from master storytellers Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, The Empty Man), Brian Hurtt (The Damned, Manor Black), and Tyler Crook (Harr

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Perilous planets, glittery gossip aliens, a snack-obsessed black hole, and more await Quinnelope and friends in the second laugh-out-loud book from comic duo Kayla Coombs and HF Brownfield.As Quinnelope is getting ready for bed one night, she discovers that the moon is mysteriously missing from the sky. Weird . . . BUT it's the perfect opportunity to pull an all-nighter. (Err, an all-dayer actually, since the sun is still up!) Except hours later, there's still no moon . . . this is a DISASTERRrrRrRrrRrrRrRRR!!!! There's only one thing to do: launch a space mission to solve the mystery of the missing moon! Along with her dutiful butler, Bub, and loyal companion, Star, the trio blast off on a cosmic adventure to find the missing moon once and for all.Solving this mystery won't be as easy as they thought, especially when they learn it's not just their moon that's missing, but moons all over the galaxy! Wait, WHAT?!?!?!? Will they be able to find the moons and restore night

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Meet Hap and Leonard, the unlikely detective duo now on screen in the highly praised series starring James Purefoy, Michael K. Williams and Christina Hendricks.If there's one thing Hap Collins and Leonard Pine like, it's trouble - and they especially like getting paid to find it. So when their friend and sometime boss Marvin Harmon asks the boys to look into a cold-case double homicide, they're happy to oblige. It turns out that both victims were set to inherit some serious money, and one of them ran with an honest-to-goodness vampire cult.The more closely Hap and Leonard look over the crime scene photos, the more trouble they see. The image of a red devil's head is painted on a tree. A little research turns up a slew of murders with that same fiendish signature. And if things aren't weird enough, Leonard has taken to wearing a deerstalker cap... Will this be the case that finally sends Hap over the edge?

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A deluxe edition of original and classic short stories, packed with monsters, vampires and a host of weird creatures. Tales of shadows and voices in the dark from the likes of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Hope Hodgson are cast with previously unpublished stories by some of the best writers of horror today. New, contemporary and notable writers featured are: DJ Tyrer, Ed Grabianowski, Andrew J. Wilson, Elise Forier Edie, Frank Roger, Gwendolyn Kiste, David A. Elsensohn, Bill Kte'pi, Justin Coates, James Lecky, Eric Esser, John H. Dromey, Kristopher Triana, Michael Bondies, Michael Paul Gonzalez, Glen Damien Campbell, William R.D. Wood, Rebecca J. Allred, and Lucy Taylor. A dazzling collection of the most gripping tales of horror, vividly told.

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Dan Gutman’s My Weird School meets James Patterson’s House of Robots in the adventures of Geeger, a robot who loses his class pet, in the second story in a fun-to-read Aladdin QUIX chapter book series that’s perfect for emerging readers!Geeger the Robot gets along great with the class pet, Fudge the Hamster—they both spend a lot of their time eating and share a love for mushy bananas. But when Fudge goes missing, some of the kids in Ms. Bork’s class think Geeger might be to blame! Could Geeger have eaten Fudge?! He certainly wouldn’t have done so on purpose. But Geeger has been known to eat things by accident before. With the help of his best friend Tillie, Geeger puts his strengths to use to find Fudge and clear his name!

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Dan Gutman’s My Weird School meets James Patterson’s House of Robots in the adventures of Geeger, a robot who loses his class pet, in the second story in a fun-to-read Aladdin QUIX chapter book series that’s perfect for emerging readers!Geeger the Robot gets along great with the class pet, Fudge the Hamster—they both spend a lot of their time eating and share a love for mushy bananas. But when Fudge goes missing, some of the kids in Ms. Bork’s class think Geeger might be to blame! Could Geeger have eaten Fudge?! He certainly wouldn’t have done so on purpose. But Geeger has been known to eat things by accident before. With the help of his best friend Tillie, Geeger puts his strengths to use to find Fudge and clear his name!

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Meet Suee: Twelve years old, wears her hair to the left in a point, favors a black dress, has no friends—and she likes it that way! When Suee transfers to the dull and ordinary Outskirts Elementary, she doesn’t expect to hear a strange voice speaking to her from the darkness of the school’s exhibit room, and she certainly doesn’t expect to see her shadow come to life. Then things start to get really weird: One by one, her classmates at school turn into zombie-like, hollow-eyed Zeroes. While Suee investigates why this is happening, her shadow gains power. Soon, Suee must confront a stunning secret that her shadow has been hiding under her own two feet—something very dark and sinister that could put Suee and her newfound friends at risk!

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Entombed within these pages are twenty-seven accounts of the dead and the bizarre, tales of those who have experienced for themselves the Queen City's supernatural world. Meet a child ghost who died in a horrible auto accident and now haunts current area drivers. Consider the vanishing Monroe family or the disappearing murder suspect in Fourth Ward. Be careful of a knock at the door—it could be a ghost...or someone literally coming back from the dead. Visit a forest where a young spirit girl saves a boy, then haunts him as a man. Drive over the Catawba River Bridge, where you may be lured to jump by the ghosts struggling in the water beneath. Ramble about the Rosedale Plantation to understand its haunted past. Above all, enjoy the mystical, weird, horrifying, and sometimes funny, stories from behind Charlotte’s eternal curtain.

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Hilarious, illustrated school-based antics where everything that happens leads to DRAMA and RUNNING AROUND and even some FAINTING! When a session of extreme dancing leaves Maisie in hospital with a broken leg, things take a turn for the weird! Strange noises in the ward at night, missing cuddly toys and a sandwich trolley that only ever has TUNA sandwiches. Could Maisie's leg be CURSED? If it is, and it DEFINITELY IS, then everything is DOOMED!Laugh-out-loud fun from Blue Peter Award winners Pamela Butchart and Thomas Flintham.Read more of Izzy's adventures!Baby Aliens Got My TeacherThe Spy Who Loved School DinnersMy Headteacher Is a Vampire RatAttack of the Demon Dinner LadiesTo Wee Or Not To Wee!There's a Werewolf In My Tent!The Phantom Lollipop Man!There's a Yeti in the Playground!Icarus Was Ridiculous

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The ultimate book of Blues trivia, The Man City Miscellany is full of weird and wonderful facts. Including: * The only goalkeeper to have scored for City, * The name of Clive Allen’s dog, * The identity of the City player who played with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, * Who is the ‘Invisible Man’ the City fans sing about?"I rang my secretary and said 'what time do we kick off tonight?' and she said 'every 10 minutes.'" - Alan Ball during his troubled reign of City, 1996"Apparently, decapitation is no longer a capital offence." - Joe Royle reacts to an unpunished tackle on Kevin Horlock, 1998Packed with random Man City facts, stats, lists, tables, anecdotes and quotes, from the club's record scorer to the bizarre name of the club cat, this is the ultimate trivia book for every City fan’s bookshelf.

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Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein; but have you heard of Margaret Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier? Have you read the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era? Or the stories of Gertrude Barrows Bennett, whose writing influenced H.P. Lovecraft? Monster, She Wrote shares the stories of women past and present who invented horror, speculative, and weird fiction and made it great. You ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V.C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Coltor, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). And each profile includes a curated reading list so you can seek out the spine-chilling tales that interest you the most.

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We are ninjas and ninjas are brave! Willa and her best friends love ninjas. They have matching ninja backpacks and ninja t-shirts, and at school they even form a ninja club. But Willa has a secret: she’s a werewolf! Worried that no one will understand, she hides the truth from her friends. Until Val has a sleepover... and it’s on the night of the full moon. Willa is overcome with nerves. When an accident reveals that her friends were hiding secrets too, she realises maybe it’s not so important to be a normal ninja. After all, a paranormal ninja can do so many cool things! Join three remarkable friends as they discover that ALL of us are weird in our own special ways. Lovable and lively illustrations accompany this charming story that explores facing your fears, encouraging readers to celebrate their true selves.

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Based on the hit graphic-novel series from BOOM! Studios, the publisher behind Lumberjanes, Giant Days follows the hilarious and heartfelt misadventures of three university first-years: Daisy, the innocent home-schooled girl; Susan, the sardonic wit; and Esther, the vivacious drama queen. While the girls seem very different, they become fast friends during their first week of university. And it’s a good thing they do, because in the giant adventure that is college, a friend who has your back is key—something Daisy discovers when she gets a little too involved in her extracurricular club, the Yogic Brethren of Zoise. When she starts acting strange and life around campus gets even stranger (missing students, secret handshakes, monogrammed robes everywhere . . .), Esther and Susan decide it’s up to them to investigate the weirdness and save their friend.

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Parasites are masterful works of evolutionary art. The tiny mite Hisliostoma laboratorium, a parasite of Drosophila, launches itself, in an incredible display of evolutionary engineering, like a surface-to-air missile at a fruit fly far above its head. Gravid mussels such as Lampsilis ventricosa undulate excitedly as they release their parasitic larval offspring, conning greedy predators in search of a tasty meal into hosting the parasite. The Art of Being a Parasite is an extensive collection of these and other wonderful and weird stories that illuminate the ecology and evolution of interactions between species. Claude Combes illustrates what it means to be a parasite by considering every stage of its interactions, from invading and reproducing to leaving the host. An accessible and engaging follow-up to Combes's Parasitism: The Ecology and Evolution of Intimate Interactions, this book will be of interest to both scholars and nonspecialists in the fields of biodiversity, natural history, ecology, public health, and evolution.

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The third title in the bestselling and highly illustrated children's books series, soon to be hitting screens everywhere as an animated film and TV show with Nickelodeon and produced by James Corden. A super-accessible and highly-illustrated chapter book series, perfect for readers aged 6+ and fans of Pamela Butchart, DogMan, the Naughtiest Unicorn and Hotel Flamingo. Ever wonder why pigeons always act so weird? It’s because they’re out there chasing the bad guys and saving your butts! What do REAL PIGEONS do? They nest, of course! And when they nest, they nest HARD. Protecting their city from crime is tiring work after all! But the squad can’t rest yet, not with a bone-crunching vulture on the loose, a wild child running amok, and a long-lost family to find! Will the REAL PIGEONS ever find the perfect nest to take the perfect nap?

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WINNER OF THE PHILIP K. DICK AWARD The baker's dozen stories gathered here turn readers into travellers to the past and the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present. The journey is the thing as Pinsker weaves music, memory, technology, history, mystery, love, loss, and even multiple selves on generation ships and cruise ships, on highways and high seas, in murder houses and treehouses. They feature runaways, fiddle-playing astronauts and retired time travellers. Weird, wired, hopeful, haunting, and often beautiful, Sarah Pinsker's stories cast a searching light on human nature. But what the heart wants is not always right, or easy. Praise for Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: 'Simply wonderful... Each story is generous and original' KAREN JOY FOWLER 'An auspicious start to what promises to be one wild ride of a literary career' KIRKUS 'Stories that are as delightful and surprising to pore through as they are introspective and elegiac' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

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From Epic Originals comes a collection of illustrated stories serving up spooky thrills and plenty of laughs. When the lunch bell rings at Newville Elementary, you can bet that things are about to get WEIRD! Welcome to the Cafetorium! It’s a cafeteria, a gymnasium, and possibly a portal to a world where cube-shaped mashed potatoes are plotting against the almost-definitely-robotic lunch staff. Join Liz Dawson, Declan, Remy, and the rest of Newville Elementary as they learn that when you have plans in the Cafetorium, the Cafetorium has plans for you, too! Each offbeat tale focuses on a different Newville Elementary student, giving readers a chance to walk in another kid’s slightly wacky shoes. Funny, unexpected twists in each story provide readers with subtle lessons about honesty, consequences, self-acceptance, and more.

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God created the heavens and the Earth- but, little-known fact, he outsourced the animals to the office of Heaven's Design Team! This hilarious and educational manga features weird real-life animals and puts even some humdrum critters in a strange new light. On the seventh day, God rested. But it turns out He started getting tired long before... In fact, when it came time to design the animals, God contracted the whole thing out to an agency...Heaven's Design Team! They love their work-the giraffe, the koala, the ping-pong tree sponge(?!)-but their divine client's demands are often vague, and the results are sometimes wild in more ways than one. Then there's prototyping and testing to worry about, not to mention Ms. Pluto's penchant for grotesque and Mr. Saturn, who just wants to make everything look like a horse... But in the end, all creatures great and small get their due!

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The weird and wonderful weather of our planet is brought to life in Eye Wonder: Weather. This updated and revised edition is the perfect introduction to the exciting world of weather, from rain, sun, and wind to hurricanes, snow storms, and twisters, and also gives the facts about climate change, how we predict the weather, the differences in clouds, and why we have changing seasons.A precursor to DK's award-winning Eyewitness series, Eye Wonder was specially developed for children aged 5+, featuring astonishing photography exhibiting subjects within their natural setting and offering a whole new level of information through powerful images.Learn about science, history, and the natural world through beautiful photography and lively, age-appropriate text. The Eye Wonder series organizes information in a way that's easy to search, easy to read, and easy to learn.

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In this version of our daily planner series, each day gets a full page of real estate–it's the perfect combination of a planner, journal, and that weird friend that knows the most random facts imaginable. Sure, it's technically undated–but really, it's more like 'un-yeared.' See, we did all of the hard work for you. We've already put in all of the dates, the fixed holidays, and tons of extra stuff like daily random holidays, celebrity birthdays, and other bits of trivia. Just mark what day of the week it is, and you're ready to go. Features 436 pages filled with import information like celebrity birthdays and random holidays Features a cloth bound cover with embossed, black foil artwork–and an attached ribbon bookmark Planner measures 5.125" wide by 7.5" tall (130mm x 190.5mm)

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'He spoke of a new kind of terre-mauvaise, of strange regions, connected, indeed, with definite geographical limits upon the earth, yet somehow apart from them and beyond them.' A poet comes to a fork in the road where three parallel destinies orbit the same violent fate; a child’s rebellious escapade to the city becomes a nightmare when the portal to return is nowhere to be found; rather than abdicate, Kaiser Wilhelm II leads the High Seas Fleet on a doom-laden final voyage. Delving into the strange imaginings of Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Sarban, Robert Holdstock and many more, this new collection brings together fourteen tales traversing uncanny collateral fates, weird eddies of alternative history, realms of Dark Fantasy and the unsettling otherworlds bordering our own reality.

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Meet the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand.Edgar is alarmed when he sees a nasty looking black tail slinking under the castle walls. But his warnings to the inhabitants of the castle go unheeded: Lord Valevine Otherhand is too busy trying to invent the unthinkable and discover the unknowable; his wife, Minty, is too absorbed in her latest obsession - baking; and ten-year-old Cudweed is running riot with his infernal pet monkey. Only Solstice, the black-haired, poetry-writing Otherhand daughter, seems to pay any attention. As the lower storeys of the castle begin mysteriously to flood, and kitchen maids continue to go missing, the family come ever closer to the owner of the black tail...Dedicated website on Raven Mysteries: www.ravenmysteries.co.uk

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Penny Baker is winning at life. Sort of.Her work is demanding, her kids are demanding and her husband seems to be undergoing some weird midlife crisis but she is juggling it all with the added delights of the menopause.But when the charity she works for is thrown into crisis and her mother's dementia advances, the strain starts to show.Can she navigate it all and still somehow keep a smile on her - flushed - face?A witty, relatable story of motherhood, menopause and managing the heck out of it all.Praise for Hot Mother:''A book that looks at what it means to be a middle-aged woman in today''s society. Funny, wise and downright wonderful.'' Nicola GillWarm, witty and entirely relatable.' Jenni KeerHilarious, sharply observed and oh so heartfelt, Peach is a Queen of Momcom.' Pernille HughesA beautifully crafted, intelligent and moving

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Explore this state-by-state compendium of weird laws, quirks, one-offs, and unusual records only to be found in the wonderfully wacky US of A. Only in America explores the strangest claims to fame and the most unusual place names every state has to offer. Visit the city of Dinosaur, drop by the Pizza Museum, find out where it is illegal to feed a pig without a permit, and check out the world’s only “carhenge” (that’s right, Stonehenge reconstructed using cars). Among many other marvels, discover:   The longest gum wrapper chain (over 20 miles!) Which state has the highest ratio of cows to humans in the country The origin of shoo-fly pie, a molasses cake baked in a pie crust The world’s largest (fake) bug, a 58-foot blue termite Where “dinner” means lunch and “supper” means dinner Illustrated by the brilliant Alan

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A laugh-out-loud love story with big ideas - and squirrels SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 Can squirrels speak? Do snails scream? Will a young couple, newly engaged, make it to their wedding day? Will their dysfunctional families ruin everything? Will they be undone by the advances of a very sexy, very unscrupulous heiress to a pharmaceuticals corporation? Is getting married even a remotely reasonable idea in the twenty-first century? And what in the world is a ‘Veblen’ anyway? ‘Raw and weird and hilarious’ Guardian ‘A touching, wildly funny and peculiarly elegant look at the travails of love of all kinds’ Sunday Express ‘Elizabeth McKenzie is clearly some sort of genius’ Paul Murray ‘I can’t remember a book I enjoyed more’ Nina Stibbe ‘Seriously funny and extraordinarily well written’ Jonathan Franzen, Guardian books of the year

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We went to find a woolly mammoth ... and it was NOWHERE to be found.It wasn't chilling on the snow-covered lands. Or swimming in the icy river. And it DEFINITELY wasn't hiding in the frozen forest. Everywhere we looked, we found strange creatures instead. There was a hairy scary woolly rhino rolling around in some grass (weird ... we thought it always snowed in the Ice Age). A spotty dotty sabre-tooth cat that was ready for a fight (RUN!) And a spiky feisty giant armadillo (but I crept right past him - armadillos are pretty blind you know ...). But absolutely NO mammoths.Where could such a HUGE great MAMMOOSIVE creature be hiding?Meet some of the incredible and unbelievably large creatures from the Ice Age in this laugh-out-loud picture book story that features hilarious, fascinating and slightly bizarre facts throughout. Perfect for fans of We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

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There is a wonderfully weird but real world out there, and we are a part of it. It is time for physics to take life seriously.Can we ever truly comprehend the universe before we fully understand consciousness and the wonders, and limits, of the mind? Ulf Danielsson, an acclaimed theoretical physicist who has dedicated his career to probing the deepest mysteries of nature, thinks not. As he dismantles the arguments of esteemed mathematicians and scientists, who would substitute their mathematical models for reality and equate the mind to a computer, he makes a lucid and passionate case that it is nature, full of beauty and meaning, which must compel us. In challenging established worldviews, he also takes a fresh look at major philosophical debates, including the notion of free will.Fearless, provocative, and witty, The World Itself is essential reading for anyone curious about the profound questions surrounding life, the universe, and everything.

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Its name is Stella Maris, the 'star of the sea,' a small world beyond the edge of the human Expansion, where a few men and women - Vetch and human alike - have made their homes. Fleeing persecution or oppression on their own worlds, here they have found peace and plenty, in communion with the otherworldly Weird. A few weeks ago, that harmony was threatened, when Delia Walker came seeking hope for the future, hunted by her enemies in the Expansion, and went into the portal. Now, impossibly, her daughter has walked out, a grown woman, and demanded passage to the Expansion's capital. As more ships land on Stella Maris, bringing an end to the quiet obscurity the settlers have long cherished, a desperate race to carry Cassandra Walker to her destiny, and a resistance against those who would exploit Stella Maris for their own ends.

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After long years of war, the United States has sued for peace, yielding to a brutal coalition of nations ruled by fascist machines. One quarter of the country is under foreign occupation. Manhattan has been annexed by a weird robot monarchy, and in Tennessee, a permanent peace is being delicately negotiated between the battered remnants of the U.S. government and an envoy of implacable machines. Canadian businessman Barry Simcoe arrives in occupied Chicago days before his hotel is attacked by a rogue war machine. In the aftermath, he meets a dedicated Russian medic with the occupying army, and 19 Black Winter, a badly damaged robot. Together they stumble on a machine conspiracy to unleash a horrific plague - and learn that the fabled American resistance is not as extinct as everyone believes. Simcoe races against time to prevent the extermination of all life on the continent . . . and uncover a secret that America’s machine conquerors are desperate to keep hidden.

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Playful, formal, satirical and tender, the poems in The Fabulanarchist Luxury Uprising are wildly wide-ranging. Jack Houston whisks the reader through meditations on family life, the teachings of Lucretius, the sexual potential of Captain Barnacles, and dreams of a socialist utopia, managing to be both deeply weird and touching. In his debut pamphlet, Houston draws out and scrutinises the mundanities of life, showing how they can form part of something much bigger. His poems aim to awaken the capacity for revolution within us all, even if it only gets us as far as the roundabout in the local playpark."In the year 2121, we’re all now too aware that a sofa is simply a bench constructed from the hewn corpse of a tree, covered in a mesh made from the amniotic fibres of oppressedly mono-cropped cotton plants & filled with the plumage from many a murdered full-grown duck [...]"- from 'Utopia'

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We''re stressed! We all need to restWe keep getting tangled in tape.Oh it just isn''t fair! All toys should be square!But here comes another weird shape!Join the Christmas chaos in this flap-filled festive adventure!It's Christmas Eve but all is not well in Santa's workshop . . . The toy-building elves are exhausted, the gift-wrappers are tangled in tape and the reindeer-wranglers are ready to strike! Will Christmas be cancelled, or can one elf's quick thinking and festive spirit save the day? Lift the flaps to discover every corner of the workshop, from the reindeer stables to the wrapping room. Children will love this engaging, inventive story, and parents may well empathise with the stressed, overworked elves!This funny, festive book full of flaps pairs humorous text by Nicola Edwards with charming illustrations by Pauline Gregory to capture the essence

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