The old man had treasures to sell and a secret to keep. Ten people buy treasures from the flea market with one common thread. The vendor is a mysterious old man selling off his collection of old stuff. One by one, the buyers discover that their treasure is really a horror in disguise. One scary story after another reveals the old man’s secret. It is a tale of terror that shortens their years so h

A lovable oddball cast of characters is at the heart of this treasure-hunt through the last days of one of the greatest flea markets on earth. "[Rips] has humanity, humor and the gift of a limpid, agile, unpretentious prose style.… A captivating portrait.”—Ben Downing, Wall Street Journal Across America and around the world, people wander through flea markets to search for lost treasures. For decades, no such market was more renowned than the legendary Chelsea flea market, which sprawled over several blocks and within an old garage on the west side of Manhattan. Visitors would trawl through booths crammed with vintage dresses, rare books, ancient swords, glass eyeballs, Afghan rugs, West African fetish dolls, Old Master paintings, and much more. In The Golden Flea, the acclaimed writer Michael Rips takes readers on a trip through this charmed world. With a beguiling style that has won praise from Joan Didion and Susan Orlean, Rips recounts his obsession with the flea and its treasures and provides a fascinating account of the business of buying and selling antiques. Along the way, he introduces us to the flea’s lovable oddball cast of vendors, pickers, and collectors, including a haberdasher who only sells to those he deems worthy; an art dealer whose obscure paintings often go for enormous sums; a troubadour who sings to attract customers; and the Prophet, who finds wisdom among all the treasures and trash. As Rips’s passion for collecting grows and the flea’s last days loom, he undertakes a quest to prove the provenance of a mysterious painting that just might be the one.

Flea Market Fidos is a first-of-its-kind guide to hunting down canine collectibles and giving them pride of place in your home. From paint-by-number terriers to Diana Thorne dog drawings, this irresistibly illustrated volume offers inspiration and information for both first-time collectors and serious dog devotees. Canine categories are illustrated with 150 flea market photos and include Puppy Love (a litter of lovable dog collectibles for children), Pup Art (puppy paintings and dog drawings), Ruff Stuff (stuffed dogs of every breed), Paper Trained (ephemera finds), and Real Tails (a celebration of the loyal road-trip rovers who accompany their owners on junking journeys). Readers will also be delighted by Go Fetch, a comprehensive resource guide of the best shops, websites, flea markets, and antique malls nationwide and abroad.

A little sweet tea and a whole lot of spells won't always put out the fire...Welcome to Jewell, NC, a small strip of land on the Crystal Coast with no stop signs or traffic lights, but it's got a whole lot of magic. Ruby Mae Jewell helps run the family business of selling antiques and refurbished goods. But with old objects, you never know when one of them possesses more than just dust and cobwebs.When Rue hits up a flea market, she gets more than she bargained for. Finding a potentially dangerous magical object, she has to get it off the market and out of mortal hands. But when more research reveals its threatening nature to the magical community as well, she's put to the test of what to do...especially when the find someone murdered on their land who was looking for it.Ruby Mae struggles to balance doing the right thing and saving her family at all costs. But when things turn from bad to worse, it may get harder for her to know which choices to make.Will her fiery personality and powers be able to solve the mystery before anyone else gets hurt or will Ruby Mae's efforts to solve the murder go up in smoke?Grab a sweet tea and a rocking chair to find out in Flea Market Magic: Book 1 of Southern Relics Cozy Mysteries!

Collects fourteen poems about quirky subjects and characters.

Walter Muhr bought a camera at the flea market that had a terrible secret. The old man at the market that sold it to him told him the photo he developed might not be the same one he took. He had wondered at its meaning. He found out. Fading Photographs is not a story to tell in the dark. Telling spooky stories around the campfire is a traditional way to enjoy a summer’s evening. There is something about the chirping of crickets and hooting owls that create a yearning to have the stuffing scared out of you. So go ahead, read this scary horror story aloud to your companions around the campfire. If you dare. The dark fantasy tale collection, Ten Tales From the Flea Market, includes this spooky horror story.

A ninth-grader's suspension for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" during homeroom becomes a national news story.

The fascinating account of a pioneering ethnobotanist’s travels in the Amazon—at once a gripping adventure story, a passionate argument for conservationism, and an investigation into the healing power of plants, by the author of The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know For thousands of years, healers have used plants to cure illness. Aspirin, the world's most widely used drug, is based on compounds originally extracted from the bark of a willow tree, and more than a quarter of medicines found on pharmacy shelves contain plant compounds. Now Western medicine, faced with health crises such as AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer, has begun to look to the healing plants used by indigenous peoples to develop powerful new medicines. Nowhere is the search more promising than in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical forest, home to a quarter of all botanical species on this planet—as well as hundreds of Indian tribes whose medicinal plants have never been studied by Western scientists. In Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin recounts his travels and studies with some of the most powerful Amazonian shamans, who taught him the plant lore their tribes have spent thousands of years gleaning from the rain forest. For more than a decade, Dr. Plotkin raced against time to harvest and record new plants before the rain forests' fragile ecosystems succumb to overdevelopment—and before the Indians abandon their own culture and learning for the seductive appeal of Western material culture. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice relates nine of the author's quests, taking the reader along on a wild odyssey as he participates in healing rituals; discovers the secret of curare, the lethal arrow poison that kills in minutes; tries the hallucinogenic snuff epena that enables the Indians to speak with their spirit world; and earns the respect and fellowship of the mysterious shamans as he proves that he shares both their endurance and their reverence for the rain forest.