Reason Cansino must uncover the secret of the magic in her family's background to save the lives of her friends Tom and Jay-tee.

Fiction on the unique experience and curious atmosphere of libraries around the world, across time, that have inspired writers to dream up magic and madness. Some of these libraries existed, some have been drawn from the imagination, but all share the charm and mystery that has always haunted writers. Among the authors: Cervantes, Swift, Verne, Voltaire, Wharton, Huxley, Woolf, Borges.

The word "bibliophilia" indicates a love of books, both as texts to be read and objects to be cherished for their physical qualities. Throughout the history of Iberian print culture, bibliophiles have attempted to explain the psychological experiences of reading and collecting books, as well as the social and economic conditions of book production. Bibliophiles, Murderous Bookmen, and Mad Librarians analyses Spanish bibliophiles who catalogue, organize, and archive books, as well as the publishers, artists, and writers who create them. Robert Richmond Ellis examines how books are represented in modern Spanish writing and how Spanish bibliophiles reflect on the role of books in their lives and in the histories and cultures of modern Spain. Through the combined approaches of literary studies, book history, and the book arts, Ellis argues that two strains of Spanish bibliophilia coalesce in the modern period: one that envisions books as a means of achieving personal fulfilment, and another that engages with politics and uses books to affirm linguistic, cultural, and regional and national identities.

Despite the stodgy stereotypes, libraries and librarians themselves can be quite funny. The spectrum of library humor from sources inside and outside the profession ranges from the subtle wit of the New Yorker to the satire of Mad. This examination of American library humor over the past 200 years covers a wide range of topics and spans the continuum between light and dark, from parodies to portrayals of libraries and their staffs as objects of fear. It illuminates different types of librarians--the collector, the organization person, the keeper, the change agent--and explores stereotypes like the shushing little old lady with a bun, the male scholar-librarian, the library superhero, and the anti-stereotype of the sexy librarian. Profiles of the most prominent library humorists round out this lively study.

This volume invites teachers and students in women's studies to engage with the library not as an instrument for preserving and disseminating knowledge (including feminist knowledge), but as a subject and object of knowledge in its own right.

In 1856 William Dove, a young tenant farmer, was tried and executed for the poisoning of his wife Harriet. The trial might have been a straightforward case of homicide, but because Dove became involved with Henry Harrison, a Leeds wizard, and demonstrated through his actions and words a strong belief in magic and the powers of the devil, considerable effort was made to establish whether these beliefs were symptomatic of insanity. It seems that Dove murdered his wife to hasten a prediction made by Harrison that he would remarry a more attractive and wealthy woman. Dove employed Harrison to perform various acts of magic, and also made his own written pact with the devil to improve his personal circumstances. The book will study Dove’s beliefs and Harrison’s activities within the rural and urban communities in which they lived, and examine how modern cultures attempted to explain this largely hidden mental world, which was so sensationally exposed. The Victorian period is often portrayed as an age of great social and educational progress. This book shows how beliefs dismissed by some Victorians as ‘medieval superstitions’ continued to influence the thoughts and actions of many people, viz most famously Conan `table tapper' Doyle.

From the author of School for Sidekicks comes a witty and thoughtful middle-grade fantasy about the bonds of family and the strength of true friendship. Kalvan Monroe is worried. Either he’s going mad or he really did wake up with uncontrollable fire magic and accidentally summon a snarky talking fire hare. (Yes, that’s right, a hare. Made of fire. That talks.) He’s got to be going crazy, right? But if he’s not, then magic actually is real, and he’s got even more problems to worry about. Because Kalvan isn’t the only one with powers. The same fire magic that allows him to talk his way into and out of trouble burned too brightly in his mother, damaging her mind and leaving her vulnerable to the cold, manipulative spells of the Winter King. Can Kalvan gain control of his power in time to save his mother, or will their fires be snuffed out forever? Kelly McCullough combines Magic, Madness, and Mischief--as well as danger--in a delightful fantasy set in a magical version of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Regency England was a pivotal time of political uncertainty, with a changing monarchy, the Napoleonic Wars, and a population explosion in London. In Susanna Clarke's fantasy novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the era is also witness to the unexpected return of magic. Locating the consequences of this eruption of magical unreason within the context of England's imperial history, this study examines Merlin and his legacy, the roles of magicians throughout history, the mythology of disenchantment, the racism at work in the character of Stephen Black, the meaning behind the fantasy of magic's return, and the Englishness of English magic itself. Looking at the larger historical context of magic and its links to colonialism, the book offers both a fuller understanding of the ethical visions underlying Clarke's groundbreaking novel of madness intertwined with magic, while challenging readers to rethink connections among national identity, rationality, and power.