Follow the adventures of Gaspar, a freelance thief who stubbornly refuses to swear fealty to the Thieves' Guild. Cursed with a special affinity for calamity and mishap, and a talent for snatching defeat from the brink of victory, our hero blunders from one misfortune to the next, yet somehow always manages to survive to tell the tale. Accompanied by his long-suffering companions - Hubris, a spellbroker who refuses to pay his dues to Wizards' Hall; Marna, a feisty thiefess with a quick tongue and a quicker temper; and Drune, a mischievous wight with an unusual magical ability - our unlikely hero encounters looming retribution and imminent catastrophe at every step. Whether raiding a sinister funeral ship, foiling a scheming seductress, solving a puzzling murder, or confronting a gang of villainous ship-wreckers, Gaspar always somehow manages to narrowly side step disaster. But there's seemingly no end to the troubles he can find, and he soon finds himself an unwitting player in the siege of an ancient border fortress by a goblin army. Told with an appealing mixture of seriousness and humour, this is an exciting, fast-paced romp based in a fantasy world where anything can, and usually does, happen!

Life isn't easy in a cut-throat city ruled by guilds, especially for a freelance thief who refuses to swear fealty to the local thieves' guild. Beset by thieves and threatened by assassins, Gaspar is forced into a madcap hunt for a magical artefact. Confronted by danger at every turn, he and his friend, Hubris the Spellbroker, become entangled in a bizarre web of intrigue, politics and outlandish fashion. They soon realise that they are just pawns in a greater game, but who is their real adversary and how can they disentangle themselves without ending up seriously dead? This humorous fantasy novella (28,500 words) is a prequel to the novel, Gaspar The Thief (126,000 words), also by David A. Lindsay.

A wiseman had a dream, and it all began with a star. Three magi, Gaspar from India, Melchior from Persia, and Balthasar from Arabia, set out on a star-led journey to meet the newborn world ruler. What they encountered at their long journey's end astonished them all. But what awaits them thirty years later will change their lives forever. The most famous journey of all time begins...

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, comes Unholy Night, the next evolution in dark historical revisionism. They're an iconic part of history's most celebrated birth. But what do we really know about the Three Kings of the Nativity, besides the fact that they followed a star to Bethlehem bearing strange gifts? The Bible has little to say about this enigmatic trio. But leave it to Seth Grahame-Smith, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to take a little mystery, bend a little history, and weave an epic tale. In Grahame-Smith's telling, the so-called "Three Wise Men" are infamous thieves, led by the dark, murderous Balthazar. After a daring escape from Herod's prison, they stumble upon the famous manger and its newborn king. The last thing Balthazar needs is to be slowed down by young Joseph, Mary and their infant. But when Herod's men begin to slaughter the first born in Judea, he has no choice but to help them escape to Egypt. It's the beginning of an adventure that will see them fight the last magical creatures of the Old Testament; cross paths with biblical figures like Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist; and finally deliver them to Egypt. It may just be the greatest story never told.

Jake Murdock takes plenty of wild rides with customers in his taxi on Florida’s humid Gulf Coast. When Murdock is befriended by millionaire Robin Bayliss, they spend their days watching the bikinis and sunsets at Nora’s Beach Bar on Treasure Island. But when extortionists target Bayliss and the dead bodies start showing up, Murdock finds he’s in for the ride of his life—maybe his final ride. In a fractured landscape where loyalties mean nothing and nature itself has spun haywire, Jake Murdock and Robin Bayliss meet All the Little Birdies. Combining the madcap zaniness of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey with the lyrical poignancy of James W. Hall and Randy Wayne White, All the Little Birdies is evocative Florida noir.

New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries’s School for Heiresses series concludes with the fifth and sixth sexy and seductive stories "destined to captivate readers with its sensuality and wonderfully enchanting plots" (Romantic Times). When Diego Montalvo, a dashing Spanish magician, moves next door to Charlotte Harris’s School for Young Ladies, the beautiful and determined Lucy Seton sets out to save the threatened school. Diego has come to England to find the long-lost granddaughter of a Spanish Marques and return her to Spain, and he is convinced that Lucy is the woman he’s been looking for. Now, he just has to steal a look at her thigh to confirm a birthmark before whisking her away to Spain to collect his reward. But Diego never suspected his mission would include falling in love... In the wonderful conclusion of the series, Charlotte Harris, the beloved headmistress of the School for Young Ladies, finds romance with her mysterious pen pal known only as "Cousin Michael." In Wed Him Before You Bed Him, readers will finally discover his identity in this fun and sexy finale. Filled with passion, romance, and loveable heroines, the School for Heiresses series proves Sabrina Jeffries is a "grand mistress of storytelling" (Romantic Times).

Spoken Word and Social Practice: Orality in Europe (1400-1700) addresses historians and literary scholars. It aims to recapture oral culture in a variety of literary and non-literary sources, tracking the echo of women’s voices, on trial, or bantering and gossiping in literary works, and recapturing those of princes and magistrates, townsmen, villagers, mariners, bandits, and songsmiths. Almost all medieval and early modern writing was marked by the oral. Spoken words and turns of phrase are bedded in writings, and the mental habits of a speaking world shaped texts. Writing also shaped speech; the oral and the written zones had a porous, busy boundary. Cross-border traffic is central to this study, as is the power, range, utility, and suppleness of speech. Contributors are Matthias Bähr, Richard Blakemore, Michael Braddick, Rosanna Cantavella, Thomas V. Cohen, Gillian Colclough, Jan Dumolyn, Susana Gala Pellicer, Jelle Haemers, Marcus Harmes, Elizabeth Horodowich, Carolina Losada, Virginia Reinburg, Anne Regent-Susini, Joseph T. Snow, Sonia Suman, Lesley K. Twomey and Liv Helene Willumsen.

Since the release of his breakout film Irréversible in 2002, Gaspar Noé (b. 1963) has been labeled the principal provocateur of twenty-first-century French cinema. While many of the filmmaker’s complex and daring works have been reduced by his critics to their (innumerable) depictions of hallucinogens, violence, and unsimulated sexual intercourse—the latter rendered into vertiginous 3D with his film Love—other viewers have remained in steady awe of Noé’s dizzying camerawork, immersive visuality, and expressive editing. Noé’s cinema greets the short attention spans of digital life with works of extremities and endurance for performers and spectators alike. This first-of-its-kind collection of interviews documents Noé’s engagement with the feverish reception of his work and received ideas about his life and politics. Collecting conversations with critics, scholars, and artists, including fellow directors Matthew Barney, Abel Ferrara, and Harmony Korine, Noé speaks about his process as a writer, director, cinematographer, and editor. Also examined are his engagement with developing film technology and his fascination and indebtedness to past filmmakers such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean Eustache, Stanley Kubrick, and Sam Peckinpah. Noé discusses life in Buenos Aires and emigrating to France, his use of irony and melodrama, and his interest in documentary practices. Throughout, Noé explores his continuing examination of faith and secularism, body and mind, and the politics of spectatorship. Editor Geoffrey Lokke’s introduction provides a close reading of Noé in conversation, assessing what has changed over the years in terms of the filmmaker’s aesthetics and presentation of self, as well as what Noé is reticent to articulate about his life and art.