Frankenstein in Baghdad by
*International Booker Prize finalist* "Brave and ingenious." --The New York Times "Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound." --Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment "Extraordinary . . . A devastating but essential read." --Kevin Powers, bestselling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi--a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café--collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he's created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive--first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path. A prizewinning novel by "Baghdad's new literary star" (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.
Abominable Science! by
Throughout our history, humans have been captivated by mythic beasts and legendary creatures. Tales of Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness monster are part of our collective experience. Now comes a book from two dedicated investigators that explores and elucidates the fascinating world of cryptozoology. Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths. After examining the nature of science and pseudoscience and their relation to cryptozoology, Loxton and Prothero take on Bigfoot; the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and its cross-cultural incarnations; the Loch Ness monster and its highly publicized sightings; the evolution of the Great Sea Serpent; and Mokele Mbembe, or the Congo dinosaur. They conclude with an analysis of the psychology behind the persistent belief in paranormal phenomena, identifying the major players in cryptozoology, discussing the character of its subculture, and considering the challenge it poses to clear and critical thinking in our increasingly complex world.
Monsters of the Midwest by
Read 23 chilling stories, from two paranormal investigators, about reportedly true encounters with monsters in the Midwest. A mysterious snake grows to frightening proportions. A slimy, clawed, green-scaled beast terrorizes swimmers from the bottom of a lake. Two enormous birds try to prey upon farm animals--and children. The Midwest's history includes several unimaginable encounters with legendary creatures. This collection of "ghost stories" presents the creepiest, most surprising tales of monsters in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Authors Jessica Freeburg and Natalie Fowler are active paranormal investigators with a shared fascination for things that go bump in the night. The professional writers spent countless hours combing the region for the strangest and scariest run-ins with the unexplained. Horror fans and history buffs will delight in these 23 terrifying tales. They're based on reportedly true accounts, proving that the Midwest is the setting for some of the most unsettling monster tales ever told. The short stories are ideal for quick reading, and they are sure to captivate even the most reluctant of readers. Share them with friends around a campfire, or try them alone at home--if you dare.
The Man in the Monster by
An astonishing portrait of a murderer and his complex relationship with a crusading journalist Michael Ross was a serial killer who raped and murdered eight young women between 1981 and 1984, and several years ago the state of Connecticut put him to death. His crimes were horrific, and he paid the ultimate price for them. When journalist Martha Elliott first heard of Ross, she learned what the world knew of him— that he had been a master at hiding in plain sight. Elliott, a staunch critic of the death penalty, was drawn to the case when the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Ross’s six death sentences. Rather than fight for his life, Ross requested that he be executed because he didn’t want the families of his victims to suffer through a new trial. Elliott was intrigued and sought an interview. The two began a weekly conversation—that developed into an odd form of friendship—that lasted over a decade, until Ross’s last moments on earth. Over the course of his twenty years in prison, Ross had come to embrace faith for the first time in his life. He had also undergone extensive medical treatment. The Michael Ross whom Elliott knew seemed to be a different man from the monster who was capable of such heinous crimes. This Michael Ross made it his mission to share his story with Elliott in the hopes that it would save lives. He was her partner in unlocking the mystery of his own evil. In The Man in the Monster, Martha Elliott gives us a groundbreaking look into the life and motivation of a serial killer. Drawing on a decade of conversations and letters between Ross and the author, readers are given an in-depth view of a killer’s innermost thoughts and secrets, revealing the human face of a monster—without ignoring the horrors of his crimes. Elliott takes us deep into a world of court hearings, tomblike prisons, lawyers hell-bent to kill or to save—and families ravaged by love and hate. This is the personal story of a journalist who came to know herself in ways she could never have imagined when she opened the notebook for that first interview. Praise for The Man in the Monster “Elliott’s harrowing story pulls off something brilliant and new. Elliott peered into the mind of a serial killer by becoming his friend. A narrative that is riveting, honest, and devastating.” —Jack Hitt, author of Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character “Martha Elliott takes us inside the mind of serial killer and rapist Michael Ross. Elliott spent ten years getting to know the man behind the monster, and the pace of her book is as fast and merciless as a thriller.” —Rebecca Tinsley, author of When the Stars Fall to Earth
Frankenstein the Graphic Novel: Original Text by
Conceived as part of a literary game among friends in 1816, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is today regarded as a classic piece of 19th century literature. The story begins with the journey of an adventurer, Robert Walton, who saves the life of a man at the North Pole. That man, Victor Frankenstein, tells Walton about his experiments with the creation of life and how he ended up at the North Pole. Through this simple plot device, Shelley was able to deal with serious real-world issues like acceptance, tolerance, and understanding, as well as the universal human need for companionship and love. The novel, of course, inspired a host of films, from the 1931 classic starring Boris Karloff to Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, and more recently, a series of novels by Dean Koontz. This version, though slightly abridged, retains much of the original dialogue and remains true to Shelley's brilliant vision.
Iconoclastic Departures by
"Iconoclastic Departures contributes to the ongoing reevaluation of Mary Shelley as a professional author in her own right with a lifelong commitment to the development of her craft. Many of its essays acknowledge the importance of her family to her work - the steady theme of much earlier scholarship - but for them the family has become an imperative socio-psychological context within which to better understand her innovations in the many literary forms she worked with during her career: journals, letters, travelogues, biographies, poems, dramas, tales, and novels." "The book's essays also convey the conviction that even if Mary Shelley, after Percy Shelley's death, gradually retired from public life as his relatives wished, she retained a resiliently resistant attitude toward many of the established orders of her day, easily recovered by a careful look beyond her "feelings" to the productions of her literary "imagination."" "The Mary Shelley who inhabits this three-part collection of portraits is a radical, even if a quiet radical. Part 1 focuses on various moments in her construction of her authorial identity; parts 2 and 3 anatomize the nature of her resistance and her innovation. She is presented as a writer who reappropriates authority for herself, who redesigns genres, who redefines gender, who rewrites history and biography, who revises her readers' aesthetic expectations, and who protests cultural imperialism at home and abroad. It seems significant to the contributors to this volume that this new, radical Mary Shelley was not invented by a pointed call for papers but emerged spontaneously from an open invitation to scholars working in various corners of the English-speaking world."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
MonsterMind by
Alfonso Casas's MonsterMind is a very personal account of the innermonsters that live inside his head. But, who doesn't have amonster inside them? Who has never heard that voice inside their headundermining everything they do? You're not good enough . . . You just gotreally lucky . . . There are people far better and more qualified than you . .. In a very honest exercise, Alfonso Casas identifies and introduces hisown monsters to his readers: Mr. Past Traumas, Mr. Fear, Mr. Social Anxiety, Mr.Impostor Syndrome, Mr. Sadness, Mr. Doubt... The pessimistic, the insecure, theself-demanding, the monster that keeps you from sleeping while you think of whatyou could have said back in that conversation two years ago, or that keeps youlooking over the punctuation of every text message to figure out the tonelurking beneath the surface. All those monsters make up the bestiary ofcontemporary society. But the anxiety generation is expert in morethings: in looking inside themselves and their lives, and--whynot?--in laughing at their own neuroses as best they can. In theend, if the monsters won't leave us, we might as well get to know them andlaugh at them! Anxiety is another pandemic, but the monsters dwellinginside us are funny, too (especially as drawn by Alfonso Casas).
Mary Shelley by
"Beyond question Shelley scholars and 19th-century specialists will value this usefully annotated and carefully produced edition; it may also be that anyone would enjoy the stories themselves . . . and the accompanying original engravings."--Diane Johnson
Monsters in the Movies by
From B-movie bogeymen and outer space oddities to big-budget terrors, Monsters in the Movies by legendary filmmaker John Landis showcases the greatest monsters ever to creep, fly, slither, stalk, or rampage across the Silver Screen! Landis provides his own fascinating and entertaining insights into the world of moviemaking, while conducting in-depth "conversations" with leading monster makers, including David Cronenberg, Christopher Lee, John Carpenter, and Sam Raimi — to discuss some of the most petrifying monsters ever seen. He also surveys the historical origins of the archetypal monsters, such as vampires, zombies, and werewolves, and takes you behind the scenes to discover the secrets of those special-effects wizards who created such legendary frighteners as King Kong, Dracula, and Halloween's Michael Myers. With more than 1000 stunning movie stills and posters, this book is sure to keep even the most intense fright-seekers at the edge of their seats for hours!
Women and Other Monsters by
A fresh cultural analysis of female monsters from Greek mythology, and an invitation for all women to reclaim these stories as inspiration for a more wild, more "monstrous" version of feminism The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In our language, in our stories (many written by men), we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds-who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or not sexy enough-aren't just outside the norm. They're unnatural. Monstrous. But maybe, the traits we've been told make us dangerous and undesirable are actually our greatest strengths. Through fresh analysis of eleven female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Jess Zimmerman takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides women (and others) to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero- one that looks a lot like a monster, with the agency and power to match. Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we're told fall outside the bounds of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters-damsels, love interests, and even most heroines-do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. Today, women are becoming increasingly aware of the ways rules and socially constructed expectations have diminished us. After seeing where compliance gets us-harassed, shut out, and ruled by predators-women have never been more ready to become repellent, fearsome, and ravenous.
M Is for Monster by
When Doctor Frances Ai's younger sister Maura died in a tragic accident six months ago, Frances swore she would bring her back to life. However, the creature that rises from the slab is clearly not Maura. This girl, who chooses the name "M," doesn't remember anything about Maura's life and just wants to be her own person. However, Frances expects M to pursue the same path that Maura had been on-applying to college to become a scientist-and continue the plans she and Maura shared. Hoping to trigger Maura's memories, Frances surrounds M with the trappings of Maura's past, but M wants nothing to do with Frances' attempts to change her into something she's not. In order to face the future, both Frances and M need to learn to listen and let go of Maura once and for all. Talia Dutton's debut graphic novel, M Is for Monster, takes a hard look at what it means to live up to other people's expectations-as well as our own. M Is for Monster is one of the titles on our Surely list which is dedicated to showcasing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual creators and stories.
20,000 Leagues under the Sea by
A huge sea monster has attacked and wrecked several ships from beneath the sea. Professor Arronax bravely joins a mission to hunt down the beast. He goes aboard the Nautilus, a secret submarine helmed by the mysterious Captain Nemo. At first, the mission is exciting, as Nemo takes Arronax on a voyage around the underwater world. But when things start to go wrong, Arronax finds there's no escape from the Nautilus. He is now Captain Nemo's captive--20,000 leagues under the sea!
Golem by
Winner of the 1997 Caldecott Medal Retold from traditional sources and accompanied by David Wisniewski's unique cut-paper illustrations, Golem is a dramatic tale of supernatural forces invoked to save an oppressed people. It also offers a thought-provoking look at the consequences of unleashing power beyond human control. The afterword discusses the legend of the golem and its roots in the history of the Jews. A Caldecott Medal Book.