A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession. Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Doughty learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Doughty soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures. Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like? Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Doughty's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Doughty argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

When a mysterious and deadly plague sweeps through the world, a group of friends retreats to a luxurious countryside mansion at the Pakistani-Indian border, unaware that they’ve locked themselves in with an ancient secret and primordial power that will slowly tear them apart. As each member of the group fractures under the strain of the haveli’s maddening spell, they must decide whether to face the truth of their own demons or be lost within in the glittering labyrinth forever. In his lush, epic debut novel, award-winning writer Usman T. Malik invites readers to explore the rich, spellbinding tapestry that is Middle Eastern folklore. A DARK AND NARROW HOUSE is a terrifying exploration of memory, trauma, and the power of stories to save or destroy us.

Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this spellbinding, visceral debut about one family's queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets. One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth–and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny. With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood.

Hunger makes monsters in this dark new tale in Nghi Vo's Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle. Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of what happens when hunger stalks the land and what the powerful will do to hide their crimes. Trapped in the mansion of a sinister magistrate, Chih and Almost Brilliant must learn what happened in Baolin when the famine came to call, and they must do so quickly...because the things in the shadows are only growing hungrier. The Singing Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, and the Ignyte Award, and has won the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award.

Hunger makes monsters in this dark new tale in Nghi Vo's Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle. Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of what happens when hunger stalks the land and what the powerful will do to hide their crimes. Trapped in the mansion of a sinister magistrate, Chih and Almost Brilliant must learn what happened in Baolin when the famine came to call, and they must do so quickly...because the things in the shadows are only growing hungrier. The Singing Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, and the Ignyte Award, and has won the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award.

Under eternally gray skies the Wetworks harvests nutritious waste from the “Root”, the only plant humanity found after we fled through a gate to escape our home world’s ecological collapse. When a bloody accident at the sawmill births a new kind of person, this strange realm finally has someone who transcends the sins of the last one. Every petal and stalk of the Root is listening and whispering. Through this transfigured being, Jon Heap, we can hear what the all-plant says. We already depend on the Root, but it wants to give us something new: fresh fruit our priests will bless, our farmers will reap, and our mothers will bear. The Root will alter our bodies as it desires and despite the pain we will call it a miracle.

Anita Walsh, still reeling from her husband's sudden death, finds herself haunted not only by grief, but his "Negative Image," a new phenomenon where the deceased prey on those they loved in life, turning intimate memories into nightmares. This spectral figure uses their shared past as a weapon, systematically dismantling her friendships, career, and self-worth. Desperate for escape, Anita plunges into a quest to sever the ghostly bonds that tie her to her tormentor. As society grapples with the rising terror of NIs, a charismatic extremist proposes a radical solution to isolate the haunted from the unafflicted, gaining dangerous followers. Anita, alongside another victim of this spectral affliction, must navigate their personal hauntings and societal threats to prevent the breakdown of their community. With its gripping narrative and eerie exploration of love and betrayal, Negative Images marks Rebecca Schier-Akamelu as a powerful new voice in horror. This novel delves deep into the psychological horrors of grief and the supernatural, making it a must-read for fans of horror and ghost stories alike.

An awe-inspiring tour of bat world by the world’s leading expert With nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of mammalian species. The most successful and most diverse group of mammals, bats come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, from the tiny bumblebee bat to the giant golden-crowned flying fox. Some bats eat fruit and nectar; others eat frogs, scorpions or fish. Vampire bats feed on blood. Bats are the only mammals that can fly; their fingers have elongated through evolution to become wings with a unique super-flexible skin membrane stretched between them. Their robust immune system is one of the reasons for their extreme longevity. A tiny bat can live for forty years. Yossi Yovel, an ecologist and a neurobiologist, is passionate about deciphering the secrets of bats, including using AI to decipher their communication. In The Genius Bat he brings to vivid life these amazing creatures as well as the obsessive and sometime eccentric people who study them–bat scientists. From muddy rainforests, to star-covered night deserts, from guest houses in Thailand, to museum drawers full of fossils in New York, this is an eye-opening and entertaining account of a might mammal.

A farmer in old Japan prays to the gods for a wife, someone who is kind, beautiful, and hardworking. What would be even better is if she didn’t eat at all, saving him both money and food. Imagine his surprise when just such a woman shows up at his house one night. But all is not perfect. The gods have quite the sense of humor, and the farmer soon learns what kind of monster he is living with. But is it too late? “The Wife Who Didn’t Eat” is author Thersa Matsuura’s retelling of a classic horror-tinged Japanese folktale, “Kwazu Nyobo”. Here she reads her version of the story followed by a short commentary with some of her research notes and thoughts on the tale. Both the short story and commentary come in at just under one hour. Thersa Matsuura is a published author of two short story collections, one nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. You can also find her on her podcast, Uncanny Japan, where she talks more about the more obscure parts of Japanese culture.