An examination of taverns in the Romantic period, with a particular focus on architecture and the culture of conviviality.

“Kelly introduces fierce, lovable heroine Sam Quinn with this master class in storytelling and survival.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review on The Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar "Dynamic supernatural characters fuel a riveting tale.”—Kirkus Reviews I’m Sam Quinn, the werewolf book nerd owner of the Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar. Clive, my vampire gentleman caller, has asked me to marry him. His nocturne is less than celebratory. Unfortunately, for them and the sexy vamp doing her best to seduce him, his cold, dead heart beats only for me. As much as my love life feels like a minefield, it has to take a backseat to a far more pressing problem. The time has come. I need to deal with my aunt, the woman who’s been trying to kill me for as long as I can remember. She’s learned a new trick. She’s figured out how to weaponize my friends against me. To have any hope of surviving, I have to learn to use my necromantic gifts. I need a teacher. We find one hiding among the fae, which is a completely different problem. I need to determine what I’m capable of in a hurry because my aunt doesn’t care how many are hurt or killed as long as she gets what she wants. Sadly for me, what she wants is my name on a headstone. I’m gathering my friends—werewolves, vampires, wicches, gorgons, a Fury, a half-demon, an elf, and a couple of dragon-shifters—into a kind of Fellowship of the Sam. It’s going to be one hell of a battle. Hopefully, San Francisco will still be standing when the dust clears.

I’m Sam Quinn, the newly married werewolf book nerd owner of the Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar. Clive and I are on our honeymoon. Paris is lovely, though the mummy in the Louvre inching toward me is a bit off-putting. Although Clive doesn’t sense anything, I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched. Even after we cross the English Channel to begin our search for Aldith—the woman who’s been plotting against Clive since the beginning—the prickling unease persists. Clive and I are separated, rather forcefully, and I’m left to find my way alone in a foreign country, evading not only Aldith’s large web of hench-vamps, but vicious fae creatures disloyal to their queen. Gloriana says there’s a poison in the human realm that’s seeping into Faerie, and I may have found the source. I knew this was going to be a working vacation, but battling vampires on one front and the fae on another is a lot, especially in a country steeped in magic. As a side note, I need to get word to Benvair. I think I’ve found the dragon she’s looking for. Gloriana is threatening to set her warriors against the human realm, but I may have a way to placate her. Aldith is a different story. There’s no reasoning with rabid vengeance. She’ll need to be put out of our misery permanently if Clive and I have any hope of a long, happy life together. Heck, I’d settle for a few quiet weeks.

Jack and Lily Beaumont own a genuine Victorian tavern, situated on one of Belfast's few remaining narrow cobbled streets. They are content with their regular customers, but one day developer Vincent Halloran arrives with big plans for Maple Street. As Christmas approaches, Lily decides to hire four pretty barmaids and two singers in a final bid to save the Tavern - enter pint-sized man-eater Bridget, lazy art student Daisy, neurotic Trudy and painfully shy Marie, not to mention the handsome Devaney brothers with their tight leather trousers and acoustic guitars. But is it too little, too late?

In Yankel's Tavern, Glenn Dynner investigates the role of Jews in tavern-keeping in the Kingdom of Poland between 1815 and the uprising of 1863-4 and its aftermath.

NPR “Best Books of 2013” BookPage Best Books of 2013 Library Journal Best Books of 2013: Memoir Flavorwire 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2013 A vivid, funny, and poignant memoir that celebrates the distinct lure of the camaraderie and community one finds drinking in bars. Rosie Schaap has always loved bars: the wood and brass and jukeboxes, the knowing bartenders, and especially the sometimes surprising but always comforting company of regulars. Starting with her misspent youth in the bar car of a regional railroad, where at fifteen she told commuters’ fortunes in exchange for beer, and continuing today as she slings cocktails at a neighborhood joint in Brooklyn, Schaap has learned her way around both sides of a bar and come to realize how powerful the fellowship among regular patrons can be. In Drinking with Men, Schaap shares her unending quest for the perfect local haunt, which takes her from a dive outside Los Angeles to a Dublin pub full of poets, and from small-town New England taverns to a character-filled bar in Manhattan’s TriBeCa. Drinking alongside artists and expats, ironworkers and soccer fanatics, she finds these places offer a safe haven, a respite, and a place to feel most like herself. In rich, colorful prose, Schaap brings to life these seedy, warm, and wonderful rooms. Drinking with Men is a love letter to the bars, pubs, and taverns that have been Schaap’s refuge, and a celebration of the uniquely civilizing source of community that is bar culture at its best.

What was caricature to novelists in the Romantic period? Why does Jane Austen call Mr Dashwood's wife 'a strong caricature of himself'? Why does Mary Shelley describe the body of Frankenstein's creature as 'in proportion', but then 'distorted in its proportions' – and does caricature have anything to do with it? This book answers those questions, shifting our understanding of 'caricature' as a literary-critical term in the decades when 'the English novel' was first defined and canonised as a distinct literary entity. Novels incorporated caricature talk and anti-caricature rhetoric to tell readers what different realisms purported to show them. Recovering the period's concept of caricature, Caricature and Realism in the Romantic Novel sheds light on formal realism's self-reflexivity about the 'caricature' of artifice, exaggeration and imagination. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The tavern is widely acknowledged as central to the cultural and political life of Britain, yet widely misunderstood. Ian Newman provides the first sustained account of one of the primary institutions of the late eighteenth-century public sphere. The tavern was a venue not only for serious political and literary debate, but also for physical pleasure - the ludic, libidinal and gastronomic enjoyments with which late Georgian public life was inextricably entwined. This study focuses on the architecture of taverns and the people who frequented them, as well as the artistic forms - drinking songs, ballads, Anacreontic poetry, and toasting - with which the tavern was associated. By examining the culture of conviviality that emerged alongside other new forms of sociability in the second half of the eighteenth century, The Romantic Tavern argues for the importance of conviviality as a complex new form of sociability shaped by masculine political gathering and mixed company entertainments.

Giacomo Puccini, composer of some of the world's most popular operas, including La Boheme, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, was also a highly literary person who based his librettos on existing works of literature. This work explores that literary inheritance in an effort to enhance the listener's appreciation of the operatic experience. The author argues that the majority of Puccini's operas compose a grand cycle that finds its roots in the romance genre of 12th century France, serving to celebrate the strong, independent heroine. Via a close examination of the source works, the librettos, and the scores, this book offers fresh perspective on Puccini's legacy.