Through fabulous visuals and lively storytelling, this entertaining book explores the strange science behind the bloodsuckers that surround us, including mosquitoes, head lice, and fleas. These critters can be irritating and sometimes even deadly, spreading terrible diseases such as malaria and the bubonic plague, which have killed millions. Students may be surprised to discover that bloodsuckers also help people. This text discusses how scientists are turning the chemicals blood drinkers produce into medicines and how doctors still use leeches to heal injuries.

Not all ancient bodies decompose and disappear. The Iceman died five thousand years ago. Today, his frozen body has become a murder mystery. Tollund Man was preserved by muddy soil packed with decaying plants. After three thousand years, Tutankhamun, the boy king of Egypt, was still wearing his crown, his body preserved on purpose. Colorful images and lively language provide an in-depth look at the lives and deaths of these fascinating mummies. Additionally, informative sidebars and a Further Reading section with current books and websites encourage further study.

Lots of teeth. Long legs. Beady eyes. You'll see the animals in this book are far from cute and cuddly. Outstanding photos combined with high-interest text perfectly supports reluctant or struggling readers.

Insects are the world's greatest success story. They have adapted to all kinds of environments and thrive on a bizarre variety of diets. The face fly gets its nourishment from a horse's tears, and there are beetles that raise their offspring on elephant dung. The praying mantis sometimes eats its own mate. Insects are both our friends and our foes. Featuring lively text and amazing photographs, this book entertains and educates the reader with a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the most numerous animals on earth.

Comedian and musician Reggie Watts shares his story of growing up in Montana as a biracial oddball struggling to navigate life, girls, drugs, and his own identity in America’s heartland—and having a blast doing it. Reggie Watts is weird. But you knew that. Anyone who’s seen his multifaceted, entirely improvised comedy and music shows knows that. Reggie Watts is also from the town of Great Falls, MT. These two facts are not unrelated. Watts grew up in Montana in the ‘80s, half French, half American, half white, half Black, speaking a bunch of different languages and slipping between the orchestra geeks and the football jocks until he finally found a squad of fellow misfits with an affinity for trouble. It was a wide-open time and place that invited freedom and exploration—as well as car theft and the not infrequent use of recreational cough syrup. And it helped him become the uniquely strange creative voice he is today. In Great Falls, MT, Watts takes us through his story, hitting on the culture shock he experienced after moving from Europe to the heart of America, where he was called racial slurs by neighbors but wasn’t Black enough for his father’s extended family. Where he fought with his authoritarian dad, built a new family of antiestablishment, post-punk oddballs—and ultimately knew he had to leave. But after Watts’s career exploded in Seattle and New York, ultimately scoring him a nightly place next to James Corden on The Late Late Show, he found himself drawn back to his hometown after the deaths of his parents. This is his love letter to the town that made him. But like love itself, it’s messy and complicated and dirty and beautiful—and as weird and wonderful as Watts himself.

A richly illustrated, encyclopedic deep dive into the history of roleplaying games. When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, they created the first roleplaying game of all time. Little did they know that their humble box set of three small digest-sized booklets would spawn an entire industry practically overnight. In Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, Stu Horvath explores how the hobby of roleplaying games, commonly known as RPGs, blossomed out of an unlikely pop culture phenomenon and became a dominant gaming form by the 2010s. Going far beyond D&D, this heavily illustrated tome covers more than three hundred different RPGs that have been published in the last five decades. Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground features (among other things) bunnies, ghostbusters, soap operas, criminal bears, space monsters, political intrigue, vampires, romance, and, of course, some dungeons and dragons. In a decade-by-decade breakdown, Horvath chronicles how RPGs have evolved in the time between their inception and the present day, offering a deep and gratifying glimpse into a hobby that has changed the way we think about games and play.

The second volume of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collection , featuring content previously published in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine. Each volume brings together a collection of the best of the official Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine content, celebrating the Slayer, her world and her legacy. Featuring cast and crew interviews, in-depth features and behind the scenes pictures and secrets, this is an essential read for Buffy fans old and new.

Om Frankenstein-figuren på film, teater, TV og i litteraturen

In this unique filmography, Leslie Rabkin delves deeply into film's "unconscious," producing a valuable reference text concerned with the history of film and its representation of therapy and mental illness. The Celluloid Couch is arranged by decade, with the exception of the earliest period, The Silent Era (from the very beginnings of film to 1920). Each period contains a thoughtful introduction that highlights important films and discusses the intersection of film with history and psychology. Rabkin's overview lays bare patterns in film's representation of mental illness and therapy, and inquires how contemporary stereotypes of psychiatric patients and institutions have been formed from film. Textual examples in the introduction are drawn from magazines and newspapers, as well as numerous readings of particularly important films refracted through the lens of a psychologist. The alphabetical entries are compact and inclusive, containing main titles as well as foreign listings, and detailed information such as cast, length, director, producer, and a brief synopsis of the film's plot and discussion of the forms of therapy depicted and utilized in the film. An efficient resource for the student of film, psychology, or mass culture, The Celluloid Couch makes the huge number of popular films that portray mental illness and therapy accessible.