An NPR Best Book of the Year · A Time Magazine Most Anticipated Book of the Year “A moving meditation on motherhood, intergenerational trauma and how surface appearances often obscure a deeper truth. . . . A stunning second novel from a writer who set the bar very high with her first!”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and Community Board The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of a Palestinian-American woman, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents. Yara Murad has worked hard to outrun the demons of her tumultuous Brooklyn childhood. Now living far from home, Yara has achieved everything she aspired to: She is highly educated and teaches art to college student. She's also raising two daughters with her businessman husband, Fadi. Her marriage is nothing like her parents' high-conflict relationship, and she knows her life is worlds better and freer than her mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel that way? Why does Yara experience flashes of anger out of nowhere or a sadness she can’t name? When an incident at the college threatens her job, her mother suggests that a family curse could be to blame. While Yara doesn’t believe in old superstitions, she's shaken as she finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must finally confront the childhood she thought she’d left behind and forge her own path forward.

Mitchell reveals the chilling true story of serial killer Coral Eugene Watts, the prime suspect in more than 90 unsolved murders in and around Texas in a case that was featured on "60 Minutes." of photos. Original.

Evil eye is a phenomenon observed globally and has to do with the misfortune and calamities that we can cause to someone else out of jealousy of their possessions. The book engages with evil eye beliefs in Corfu and investigates the Christian Orthodox influences on the phenomenon and how it affects individuals’ reactions to it. Developing an interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers a fresh view of evil eye as a facilitator of wellbeing rather than a generator of calamities.

Television-watching has become an everyday activity in Britain, but according to the author, few viewers give the activity much thought. This study examines the effects of the medium on our lives, our views and on children. It also examines the effects of television violence on society.

This book illuminates the customs, beliefs and practices that link us to an ancient, and often darker, human past.

The evil eye--the power to inflict illness, damage to property, or even death simply by gazing at or praising someone--is among the most pervasive and powerful folk beliefs in the Indo-European and Semitic world. It is also one of the oldest, judging from its appearance in the Bible and in Sumerian texts five thousand years old. Remnants of the superstition persist today when we drink toasts, tip waiters, and bless sneezers. To avert the evil eye, Muslim women wear veils, baseball players avoid mentioning a no-hitter in progress, and traditional Jews say their business or health is "not bad" (rather than "good"). Though by no means universal, the evil eye continues to be a major factor in the behavior of millions of people living in the Mediterranean and Arab countries, as well as among immigrants to the Americas. This widespread superstition has attracted the attention of many scholars, and the twenty-one essays gathered in this book represent research from diverse perspectives: anthropology, classics, folklore studies, ophthalmology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, sociology, and religious studies. Some essays are fascinating reports of beliefs about the evil eye, from India and Iran to Scotland and Slovak-American communities; others analyze the origin, function, and cultural significance of this folk belief from ancient times to the present day. Editor Alan Dundes concludes the volume by proffering a comprehensive theoretical explanation of the evil eye. Anyone who has ever knocked on wood to ward off misfortune will enjoy this generous sampling of evil eye scholarship, and may never see the world through the same eyes again.

“A quartet of shrewd and unnerving novellas about toxic entanglements” from the National Book Award–winning author (Booklist). Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prominent writers of her generation, and she is fearless when exploring the most disturbing corners of human nature. In Evil Eye, Oates offers four chilling tales about love so powerful that people might die—or kill—for it. In the title story, we meet Mariana, the young fourth wife of a prominent intellectual. When her husband’s first wife comes to visit, Mariana learns a terrible secret that threatens her marriage and sanity. In “So Near Any Times Always,” shy teenager Lizbeth meets Desmond, a charming older boy who offers the first spark of romance. Yet as their relationship blossoms, Lizbeth realizes that a menacing soul lies beneath Desmond’s perfect façade. In “The Execution,” spoiled college student Bart Hansen has planned the perfect crime to get back at his condescending parents. What he didn’t plan on was the resilience of his mother’s love, even in the face of death. And in “The Flatbed,” childhood trauma has prevented Cecelia from enjoying physical intimacy with a man. But when she meets the love of her life, Cecelia must confront the demon who stole her innocence long ago. With the razor-sharp prose that has made Joyce Carol Oates a living legend, Evil Eye shows love as sporadically magical, mysterious, and murderous. “A dazzling, disturbing, tour de force of Gothic suspense: four odd, compelling, ingeniously narrated tales that gain in power and resonance when read in conjunction with each other.” —The Boston Globe “Exquisitely suspenseful. . . . The relationships between the damaged, sometimes monstrous individuals who people these pages will keep the reader riveted.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Edgar® Award–winning author of The Janissary Tree comes the fourth and most captivating Investigator Yashim mystery yet! It takes a writer of prodigious talents to conjure the Istanbul of the Ottoman Empire in all its majesty. In three previous novels, Jason Goodwin has taken us on stylish, suspenseful, and vibrant excursions into its exotic territory. Now, in An Evil Eye, the mystery of Istanbul runs deeper than ever before. It's 1839, and the admiral of the Ottoman fleet has defected to the Egyptians. It's up to the intrepid Investigator Yashim to uncover the man's motives. Of course, Fevzi Ahmet is no stranger to Yashim—it was Fevzi who taught the investigator his craft years ago. He's the only man whom Yashim has ever truly feared: ruthless, cruel, and unswervingly loyal to the sultan. So what could have led Yashim's former mentor to betray the Ottoman Empire? Yashim's search draws him into the sultan's seraglio, a well-appointed world with an undercurrent of fear, ambition, and deep-seated superstition. When the women of the sultan's orchestra begin inexplicably to grow ill and die, Yashim discovers that the admiral's defection may be rooted somewhere in the torturous strictures of the sultan's harem. No one knows more about the Ottoman Empire and Istanbul than Jason Goodwin, of whom Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times: "Mr. Goodwin uses rich historical detail to elevate the books in this series . . . far above the realm of everyday sleuthing."

This first full-scale study of the Evil Eye in the Bible and the biblical communities has traced in four volumes evidence of Evil Eye belief and practice in the ancient world from Mesopotamia (c. 3000 BCE) to Late Roman Antiquity (c. 600 CE). The fourth and final volume considers the literary and material evidence of the unabated thriving of Evil Eye belief and practice in Israel following the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE (chapter 1) and in early Christianity (chapter 2) through Late Antiquity (500-600 CE), with a brief reference to Evil Eye lore in early Islam. Numerous cross-references relate the subject matter of this volume to that of the previous three. A concluding Epilogue (chapter 3) offers some final thoughts on this survey of Evil Eye belief and practice in antiquity and their role in conceptualizing and combatting the pernicious forces of evil in daily life. Beside presenting the first full-scale monograph on the Evil Eye in the Bible and the biblical communities (volumes 3 and 4), the volumes summarize a century of research since the milestone two-volume study of Siegfried Seligmann, Der bose Blick und Verwandtes (1910), and they describe the ecological, historical, social, and cultural contexts within which the biblical texts are best understood. Throughout the study, the Evil Eye in antiquity is treated not as an instance of vulgar superstition or deluded magic, but as a physiological, psychological, and moral phenomenon whose operation was deemed explicable on rational grounds.