A powerful reimagining of the story of Ganga, goddess of the river, and her doomed mortal son, from Vaishnavi Patel, author of the instant New York Times bestseller Kaikeyi . A mother and a son. A goddess and a prince. A curse and an oath. A river whose course will change the fate of the world. Ganga, joyful goddess of the river, serves as caretaker to the mischievous godlings who roam her banks. But when their antics incur the wrath of a powerful sage, Ganga is cursed to become mortal, bound to her human form until she fulfills the obligations of the curse. Though she knows nothing of mortal life, Ganga weds King Shantanu and becomes a queen, determined to regain her freedom no matter the cost. But in a cruel turn of fate, just as she is freed of her binding, she is forced to leave her infant son behind. Her son, prince Devavrata, unwittingly carries the legacy of Ganga’s curse. And when he makes an oath that he will never claim his father’s throne, he sets in motion a chain of events that will end in a terrible and tragic war. As the years unfold, Ganga and Devavrata are drawn together again and again, each confluence another step on a path that has been written in the stars, in this deeply moving and masterful tale of duty, destiny, and the unwavering bond between mother and son.

This book provides insight into the paradigmatic approaches evolved by CIA decades ago in Vietnam which remain operational practices today in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, Yemen andelsewhere.Valentine’s research into CIA activities began when CIA Director William Colby gave him free accessto interview CIA officials who had been involved in various aspects of the Phoenix program in South Vietnam. The CIA would rescind it, making every effort to impede publication of The Phoenix Program, which documented the CIA’s elaborate system of population surveillance, control, entrapment,imprisonment, torture and assassination in Vietnam.While researching Phoenix, Valentine learned that the CIA allowed opium and heroin to flow from its secret bases in Laos, to generals and politicians on its payroll in South Vietnam. His investigations into thisillegal activity focused on the CIA’s relationship with the federal drugs agencies mandated by Congress to stop illegal drugs from entering the United States. Based on interviews with senior officials, Valentinewrote two subsequent books, The Strength of the Wolf and The Strength of the Pack, showing how the CIA infiltrated federal drug lawenforcement agencies and commandeered their executivemanagement, intelligence and foreign operations staffs in order toensure that the flow of drugs continues unimpeded to traffickers andforeign officials in its employ.Ultimately, portions of his research materials would be archived at theNational Security Archive, Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center,and John Jay College.This book includes excerpts from the above titles along withupdated articles and transcripts of interviews on a range of currenttopics, with a view to shedding light on the systemic dimensions of theCIA’s ongoing illegal and extra-legal activities. These terrorism anddrug law enforcement articles and interviews illustrate how the CIA’sactivities impact social and political movements abroad and in theUnited States.A common theme is the CIA’s ability to deceive and propagandize theAmerican public through its impenetrable government-sanctionedshield of official secrecy and plausible deniability.Though investigated by the Church Committee in 1975, CIA praxis thencontinues to inform CIA praxis now. Valentine tracks its steadyinfiltration into practices targeting the last population to be subjected tothe exigencies of the American the American people.

At first glance, Barbara Kalish fit the stereotype of a 1950s wife and mother. Married at eighteen, Barbara lived with her husband and two daughters in a California suburb, where she was president of the Parent-Teacher Association. At a PTA training conference in San Francisco, Barbara met Pearl, another PTA president who also had two children and happened to live only a few blocks away from her. To Barbara, Pearl was "the most gorgeous woman in the world," and the two began an affair that lasted over a decade. Through interviews, diaries, memoirs, and letters, Her Neighbor's Wife traces the stories of hundreds of women, like Barbara Kalish, who struggled to balance marriage and same-sex desire in the postwar United States. In doing so, Lauren Jae Gutterman draws our attention away from the postwar landscape of urban gay bars and into the homes of married women, who tended to engage in affairs with wives and mothers they met in the context of their daily through work, at church, or in their neighborhoods. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the lesbian feminist movement and the no-fault divorce revolution transformed the lives of wives who desired women. Women could now choose to divorce their husbands in order to lead openly lesbian or bisexual lives; increasingly, however, these women were confronted by hostile state discrimination, typically in legal battles over child custody. Well into the 1980s, many women remained ambivalent about divorce and resistant to labeling themselves as lesbian, therefore complicating a simple interpretation of their lives and relationship choices. By revealing the extent to which marriage has historically permitted space for wives' relationships with other women, Her Neighbor's Wife calls into question the presumed straightness of traditional American marriage.

Since Zilan entered the world of royal alchemists, she has learned that alchemy comes at a price. She has lost loved ones in her search for broader justice against the evil Empress and all she wants now is to find some way to bring them back. Resurrection is her specialty, after all. In search of the myth of Penglai Island, where it’s rumored life can be fully restored, Zilan starts a new adventure. But when old threats come back to haunt her and the path to Penglai Island means facing down unpredictable, sometimes dangerous, alchemists, she wonders just how high of a price she may be willing to pay.

Zilan dreams of becoming a royal alchemist, of providing for her family by making alchemical gold and gems for the wealthy to eat in order to stay young forever. But for now, she’s trapped in her impoverished village in southern China, practicing an illegal form of alchemy to keep food on the table—resurrecting the dead, for a price.When Zilan finally has the chance to complete her imperial exams, she ventures to the capital to compete against the best alchemists in the country in tasks she’ll be lucky to survive, let alone pass. On top of that, her reputation for raising the dead has followed her to the capital, and the Crown Prince himself seeks out her help, suspecting a coming assassination attempt.The more Zilan succeeds in her alchemy, the more she gets caught in the dangerous political games of the royal family. There are monsters lurking within the palace walls, and it’s only a matter of time before they—and secrets of Zilan’s past—catch up with her.

Visceral, gritty, and unforgiving, GRIEF EATER is a zombie story like you’ve never read before. When Kristina rises from her violent death, she’s not the same fragile woman her family once abandoned. She’s rageful, powerful, and hungry—for the blood of the ones who were supposed to love her. With a newfound craving to see vengeance and grief served, she launches into a once-in-an-undead-lifetime journey across blood-slicked highways to the scorched Australian bush and her hometown. As her body fails and her mind fractures, she’s left with one final question: Is she here to forgive, or to feed? A transgressive, gory examination of queer identity and found family, GRIEF EATER sinks its teeth into trauma and what it means to be devoured by grief. Advance Praise for Grief Eater “Grief Eater is a scathing rebuke. And yet it has so much heart. Every line of Osborne’s gorgeous prose is a knife that cuts like a balm. Lyrical, constantly surprising, essential—Grief Eater takes a familiar genre and transforms it into something entirely new.” —Cadwell Turnbull, award-winning author of the Convergence Saga “This story will not spare you. It will reach into your chest and eat your heart. Osborne writes with brutal clarity about abuse and betrayal, about the queer joy and chosen family that will help you survive it. About how love and a quest for vengeance can be strong enough to move the dead. I’ve never read anything like it.” —K Tidbeck, author of Amatka and Jagannath. “Grief Eater is an embodied, sensory experience: screaming, snarling grief; monstrous hunger; the desire for answers that can only be found in blood. Horror at its finest, as glorious, gory relief and release.” —Angela Meyer, author of Moon Sugar “Soaked in blood and loss, Grief Eater is a bittersweet tale that is redolent with the transformative closure that comes after confronting painful trauma. A visceral and unflinching read!” —Suzan Palumbo, author of Skin Thief: Stories and Countess

A fascinating, revelatory memoir revealing the author’s struggle to come to terms with her own sociopathy and shed light on the often maligned and misunderstood mental disorder. Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing” felt. She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something. In college, Patric finally confirmed what she’d long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identified—well over 200 years ago—sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim. But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she’s capable of love, it must mean that she isn’t a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either. This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.

Bear and Hare are playing hide-and-seek. Hare is very good at closing his eyes and counting to ten. The problem is, Bear is not very good at hiding. When you're as big as Bear, squeezing yourself behind a lamp stand is not easy, and trying to disappear behind a glass fish tank is simply not going to work.

The Cat Kid Comic Club is deep in discovery in the newest graphic novel in the hilarious and heartwarming worldwide bestselling series by Dav Pilkey, the author and illustrator of Dog Man. ¡Hay divisiones internas dentro del Club de Cómics! Noemí, Mario y sus hermanos tratan cada uno de encontrar su propósito en la vida. Noemí tiene una idea para hacerse rica que causa un montón de conmociones y emociones. Al enfrentar el rechazo, los amigos intentan una y otra vez mantenerse fieles a su visión. Para colmo, una visita sorpresa llega a la clase a revolver las cosas. ¿Nublará el deseo de dinero y poder el propósito de Noemí? ¿Es hora de renunciar? ¿Podrá el Club seguir siendo el mismo? The comic club is going in all different directions! Naomi, Melvin, and siblings are each trying to find their purpose. Naomi has an idea to get rich quick that causes a lot of commotion and emotion. And when faced with rejections, the friends try and try again to stay true to their vision. To top it off, a surprise visitor comes to class to stir things up. Will a desire for money and power cloud Naomi's purpose? Is it quitting time? Will the club ever be the same?