From the author of Pressure, Dweller, and Wolf Hunt comes a new 90,000-word short story collection featuring twenty-nine stories and original cover artwork by Alex McVey. The stories within this collection range from hilarious to downright disturbing, proving that Jeff Strand is still a master of comedic horror. Seven of the stories ("Pett Semmuteary" "Dummy" "True Hero" "Fangboy and the Troll" "Stop Stabbing Me" "Pregnancy Test" and "Push the Button") have never been published and were written just for this book. Contains interior illustrations by artist Alex McVey. A man who finds a severed nose on a plate on his dining room table. A bell that can summon Satan (maybe). Casual Fridays at work that get out of control. A cheery outlook on the post-apocalyptic landscape. The final thoughts of a doomed skydiver. A girl punished by having to share a bed with her grandmother's corpse. Revenge via baking a tarantula into a cake. A romance between two carnivorous genetically enhanced plants. And the lost tale of Fangboy. These are only a few of the demented stories in DEAD CLOWN BARBECUE, a collection of twenty-nine gleefully macabre tales, seven of which were written just for this collection. There's even a brand new one about a ventriloquist dummy. Those things creep you out, right? You'll laugh. You'll scream. Okay...you probably won't actually scream, unless you already had issues before you started reading, but you might cringe and get a little spooked. "No author working today comes close to Jeff Strand's perfect mixture of comedy and terror." - Cemetery Dance

A new hilarious novel from the author of The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever and Stranger Things Have Happened. Rod's life doesn't suck. If you ask him, it's pretty awesome. He may not be popular, but he and his best friends play in a band that has a standing gig. Yeah, it's Monday night and they don't get paid, but they can turn the volume up as loud as they want. And Rod's girlfriend is hot, smart, and believes in their band—believes in Rod. Aside from a winning lottery ticket, what more could he ask for? Answer: A different cousin. When Rod's scheming, two-faced cousin Blake moves in for the semester, Rod tries to keep calm. Blake seems to have everyone else fooled with good manners and suave smile, except Rod knows better. Blake is taking over his room, taking over his band, taking over his life! But Rod's not about to give up without a fight. Game on. May the best prankster win...

In the year 2000, future Bram Stoker Award-winning author Jeff Strand published one of his earliest novels, How to Rescue a Dead Princess. Readership was extremely small...actually, let's go with "intimate." It was an incredibly goofy fantasy comedy, the work of an author who didn't yet have a speck of silver in his hair, much less the gray onslaught that's going on now. The book disappeared for many years. People pleaded with Mr. Strand to reissue it. "It's not my best work!" he snarled. "There are lots of other books in the world-read those!" But now, on its 24th anniversary, Mr. Strand has succumbed to peer pressure and brought it back! It's the saga of Randall, a squire assigned to escort the lovely Princess Dolores on a diplomatic journey of utmost importance. Then she gets killed. Now Randall must overcome desperate odds and ridiculous dangers in his quest to bring her back to life...before the entire Generic Fantasy Land falls into the evil clutches of The Dark One! How to Rescue a Dead Princess. The greatest comedic fantasy novel of all time? An immature work that tries too hard? YOU decide.

A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.

For decades we’ve had vampires, werewolves, Jason, Freddy, and Michael. And now zombies have gone all Hollywood. Out of a need to figure out what is the next classic monster, publisher and lifelong horror enthusiast Gerald Dean Rice has assembled this fresh and downright disturbing collection of short stories featuring some of the most clever and imaginative horror writers of the day including Tim Curran, Jeff Strand, Armand Rosamilia, Rebecca Besser, MontiLee Stormer, Lee Moan, Tonia Brown, Jake Bible, Faye McCray, and Jimmy Pudge. Inside, the diverse cast of contributors introduces new breeds of monsters such as sentient sex dolls, anti-zombie terrorists, suicidal cultists, the woman who can smell sin, and more. These monsters come alive within the pages, and they are blow-your-mind frightening. They are just what the horror world needs. They are Anything but Zombies!

"An exemplary biography—exhaustively researched, fair-minded and easy to read. It can nestle on the same shelf as David McCullough’s Truman, a high compliment indeed." —The Wall Street Journal The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the twentieth century—a wholly original account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, his battle against the Great Depression, and their own history. An impoverished orphan who built a fortune. A great humanitarian. A president elected in a landslide and then resoundingly defeated four years later. Arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism, Herbert Hoover lived one of the most extraordinary American lives of the twentieth century. Yet however astonishing, his accomplishments are often eclipsed by the perception that Hoover was inept and heartless in the face of the Great Depression. Now, Kenneth Whyte vividly recreates Hoover’s rich and dramatic life in all its complex glory. He follows Hoover through his Iowa boyhood, his cutthroat business career, his brilliant rescue of millions of lives during World War I and the 1927 Mississippi floods, his misconstrued presidency, his defeat at the hands of a ruthless Franklin Roosevelt, his devastating years in the political wilderness, his return to grace as Truman's emissary to help European refugees after World War II, and his final vindication in the days of Kennedy's "New Frontier." Ultimately, Whyte brings to light Hoover’s complexities and contradictions—his modesty and ambition, his ruthlessness and extreme generosity—as well as his profound political legacy. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times is the epic, poignant story of the deprived boy who, through force of will, made himself the most accomplished figure in the land, and who experienced a range of achievements and failures unmatched by any American of his, or perhaps any, era. Here, for the first time, is the definitive biography that fully captures the colossal scale of Hoover’s momentous life and volatile times.

They call her Blister. She's a hideously disfigured twenty-three year old woman, living in a shed next to her father's house, hidden away from the world.Jason Tray is a successful cartoonist, banished to his agent's lakeside cabin for a few days of mandatory rest and relaxation. One night, while hanging out with a couple of the locals at a dive bar, he takes them up on their offer to go "see Blister," having no idea what they're talking about.He peeks through the window at the most nightmarish thing he's ever seen.In the morning, he wakes up, hung over and regretful. He's better than this. He needs to...apologize?From the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of PRESSURE, DWELLER, and WOLF HUNT comes a tale of fiendish secrets, ghastly crimes, and human monsters."Impossible to put down, rich with character and humor, BLISTER explodes off the page."- Peter Adam Salomon, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of All Those Broken Angels

This statement was true when H. P. Lovecraft first wrote it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remains true at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The only thing that has changed is what is unknown. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this “light” creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow, chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness, as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers. The best horror writers of today do the same thing that horror writers of a hundred years ago did. They tell good stories—stories that scare us. And when these writers tell really good stories that really scare us, Ellen Datlow notices. She’s been noticing for more than a quarter century. For twenty-one years, she coedited The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and for the last six years, she’s edited this series. In addition to this monumental cataloging of the best, she has edited hundreds of other horror anthologies and won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards. More than any other editor or critic, Ellen Datlow has charted the shadowy abyss of horror fiction. Join

This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.

Painting a vivid picture of the pivotal case that broke apart a Chicago mob family, this narrative relies on court transcripts, police records, interviews, and notes to recreate the story as it unfolded in a 2007 courtroom.