In literary legend, Faustus is the quintessential occult personality of early modern Europe. The historical Faustus, however, was something quite different: a magus ? a learned magician fully embedded in the scholarly currents and public life of the Renaissance. And he was hardly the only one. Anthony Grafton argues that the magus in sixteenth-century Europe was a distinctive intellectual type, both different from and indebted to medieval counterparts as well as contemporaries like the engineer, the artist, the Christian humanist, and the religious reformer. Alongside these better-known figures, the magus had a transformative impact on his social world.Magus details the arts and experiences of learned magicians including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Johannes Trithemius, and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Grafton explores their methods, the knowledge they produced, the services they provided, and the overlapping political and social milieus to which they aspired ? often, the circles of kings and princes. During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, these erudite men anchored debates about licit and illicit magic, the divine and the diabolical, and the nature of "good" and "bad" magicians. Over time, they turned magic into a complex art, which drew on contemporary engineering as well as classical astrology, probed the limits of what was acceptable in a changing society, and promised new ways to explore the self and exploit the cosmos.Resituating the magus in the social, cultural, and intellectual order of Renaissance Europe, Grafton sheds new light on both the recesses of the learned magician's mind and the many worlds he inhabited.

Three clever editors (who have spent altogether too much time reviewing crackpot manuscripts on the occult by fanatics and dilettantes) decide to have a little fun. They are inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years before from a suspiciously natty colonel, who claimed to know of a mystic source of power greater than atomic energy. On a lark, the editors begin randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entries. What they believe they are creating is a long, lazy game - until the game starts taking over... Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco—or indeed anyone—has ever devised.

"Smuggling the most up-to-the-minute contraband in antiquated charabancs-that's what I like doing," Gombrowicz said of his work and in this later day Gothic novel he uses all the traditional paraphernalia of haunted castles, mad prince, and riddle from the past to tell the very modern story of two young people caught up in a drama of shifting identities.

It is the 1930s, and hard times have hit Harveyville, Kansas, where the crops are burning up, and there's not a job to be found. For Queenie Bean, a young farm wife, a highlight of each week is the gathering of the Persian Pickle Club, a group of local ladies dedicated to improving their minds, exchanging gossip, and putting their quilting skills to good use. When a new member of the club stirs up a dark secret, the women must band together to support and protect one another. In her magical, memorable novel, Sandra Dallas explores the ties that unite women through good times and bad.

In order to achieve the greatest goal in human history -- to touch a boob -- Denji will risk everything in a fight against the dangerous Bat Devil. But will getting what he wants actually make him happy...?

BELLY OF THE BEAST In the depths of the Serpentback Cave, a brimmed cap casts its murky shadow upon Qifrey and his apprentices. The brimmed cap's dark magic has transformed Euini into a wild beast, and Coco, Tetia, and a critically injured Qifrey find themselves surrounded by the venomous stares of the cursed Romonons. In the face of doom, these witches must once again find a path to safety using their wits and their unique qualities, but will that be enough as they battle against a powerful new enemy who doesn't play by the rules?

A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life. In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie's mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family's horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings. This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Guts, the feared Black Swordsman, is on the rampage — and it's personal. Mozgus, the malefic master Inquisitor of the Holy See, in his murderous campaign against heretics, has captured Guts' former lover Casca and has her at the ready to be burned at the stake in the Tower of Conviction, little knowing that Casca's demonic Mark of Sacrifice is drawing hideous dark powers to the Tower. It'll take everything Guts has and more to defeat Mozgus — who is much, much more than a man — and even if he can, will he be able to save Casca from the hordes of Hell amidst the inquisitor's disintegrating citadel?

Guts, the feared Black Swordsman, is on the rampage — and it's personal. Mozgus, the malefic master Inquisitor of the Holy See, in his murderous campaign against heretics, has captured Guts' former lover Casca and has her at the ready to be burned at the stake in the Tower of Conviction, little knowing that Casca's demonic Mark of Sacrifice is drawing hideous dark powers to the Tower. It'll take everything Guts has and more to defeat Mozgus — who is much, much more than a man — and even if he can, will he be able to save Casca from the hordes of Hell amidst the inquisitor's disintegrating citadel?

The Black Swordsman Guts’ former captain and lover, Casca, has been taken by the Holy Iron Chain Knights to the "Tower of Conviction" of the fanatic torturer of the Holy See, Mozgus, who plans to treat the rumored witch to the proper agonies of the damned, but Guts is on his way to rescue Casca and dish out some chastisement of his own on any who get in his way. But forces in the demonic realms are in motion and are being drawn to the torture tower in what may be a prelude to a second Eclipse and an unprecedented release of malign spirits into the world!

The bewildered and near-mad Casca, former captain of the Band of the Hawk — and former lover of Guts, the Black Swordsman — has been adopted by Midland’s pagan cults as a witch, due to her demonic Mark of Sacrifice. But the Holy Iron Chain Knights campaign to rid the kingdom of heretics by any means necessary puts Casca in mortal danger, and Guts is having none of it, But all parties involved may end up with more than they bargained for as demonic spirits, drawn to Casca’s brand, begin to possess the heretics and unleash the forces of hell. But hell hath no fury like the Black Swordsman!

The fables of Aesop have become one of the most enduring traditions of European culture, ever since they were first written down nearly two millennia ago. Aesop was reputedly a tongue-tied slave who miraculously received the power of speech; from his legendary storytelling came the collections of prose and verse fables scattered throughout Greek and Roman literature. First published in English by Caxton in 1484, the fables and their morals continue to charm modern readers: who does not know the story of the tortoise and the hare, or the boy who cried wolf?

In a brilliant, original rendition, "Monsters of the Gevaudan" revisits a spellbinding French tale that has captivated imaginations for over two hundred years, and offers the definitive explanation of the strange events that underlie this timeless story. In 1764 a peasant girl was killed and partially eaten while tending a flock of sheep. Eventually, over a hundred victims fell prey to a mysterious creature, or creatures, whose cunning and deadly efficiency terrorized the region and mesmerized Europe. The fearsome aggressor quickly took on mythic status, and the beast of the Gevaudan passed into French folklore. What species was this killer, why did it decapitate so many of its victims, and why did it prefer the flesh of women and children? Why did contemporaries assume that the beast was anything but a wolf, or a pack of wolves, as authorities eventually claimed, and why is the tale so often ignored in histories of the ancien regime? Smith finds the answer to these last two questions in an accident of timing. The beast was bound to be perceived as strange and anomalous because its ravages coincided with the emergence of modernity itself. Expertly situated within the social, intellectual, cultural, and political currents of French life in the 1760s, "Monsters of the Gevaudan" will engage a wide range of readers with both its recasting of the beast narrative and its compelling insights into the allure of the monstrous in historical memory.