A 2022 BRAM STOKER AWARD NOMINEE A TOR NIGHTFIRE MOST EXCITING HORROR BOOK OF 2022 "In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman." —Chuck Palahniuk With a Foreword by Brian Evenson In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin. A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip. A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance. A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist. A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all. A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin. Powerful and haunting, Thomas’ transportive collection dares you to examine what lies in the darkest, most twisted corners of human existence and not be transformed by what you find.

"This book explores the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion- what can we learn about it through historical documentation and the theories surrounding it? Captivate readers with this deep dive into a spooky, high-interest topic."--Provided by publisher.

In depth research into this baffling mystery are revealed in this book. Determined to avoid the hackneyed solutions of the past the authors, both experienced researchers in the field of paranormal happenings, have explored the entire subject rationally from within, interviewing everyone from fire officers to victims who have survived.

Offers authenticated examples of spontaneous combustion and challenges everyone to look again at theories which hitherto have been considered freakish, weird and crackpot.

Provides an exploration into how science has shaped our identity by examining the elements of our immune systems such as the thymuses, bone marrow, and lymph nodes to show how they define us in extremely individual ways, and reveals how faith and love are in fact programmed into our genes.

When Auntie Ned spontaneously combusts, she leaves behind a pair of smoking orthopedic shoes and a house that she wills to her best friend's daughters. Amy and Gwendolyn are sisters--closer than close--who move into Ned's bungalow and inherit her legacies: a closet full of housedresses, a freezer full of meat, and the passionate flames of unrequited desire. Amy's appetites--for meat, for sex, for getting her way--are ferocious, while Gwendolyn longs for a more normal existence but can't refuse her big sister anything at all. Not the intrusion of Dr. Minor, Professor of Pyrophenomena, who has come to investigate Auntie Ned's death. And not the presence in their bed of Roosevelt, a troubled carpenter whose steamy entanglement with the sisters will either save them all or create a situation that's bound to combust. ...a good Hollywood thriller... as well done as an exercise in flash defrosting. Spontaneous microwaves rather than thaws... - Kirkus Reviews

From the moment firefighter Nick Martin enters schoolteacher Miriam Zorga's life, he awakens buried passions and sets her body ablaze with need.

Rachel lives in constant fear that she will burst into flames. She can feel the heat building in her gut. She keeps buckets of water under the bed. She keeps them to fend off the flames that her body may create. Autocombustophobia. That's what they say she has. No one will believe Rachel when she explains that she spontaneously combusted once before. That's why her body is covered in burns. Rachel's mother is the only one who knows what really happened to her. All she said was that it was an accident, before she disappeared leaving Rachel to live with her grandparents. When Rachel becomes reunited with her estranged mother, she struggles to uncover the truth behind her injuries.Long buried family secrets are revealed and Rachel's fear of Spontaneous Human Combustion becomes unmanageable. There are some terrifying truths to uncover and a man on fire. He stands burning at the foot of her bed.

An argument for a Copernican revolution in our consideration of mental features—a shift in which the world-brain problem supersedes the mind-body problem. Philosophers have long debated the mind-body problem—whether to attribute such mental features as consciousness to mind or to body. Meanwhile, neuroscientists search for empirical answers, seeking neural correlates for consciousness, self, and free will. In this book, Georg Northoff does not propose new solutions to the mind-body problem; instead, he questions the problem itself, arguing that it is an empirically, ontologically, and conceptually implausible way to address the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms of the relationship between world and brain; philosophers should consider the world-brain problem rather than the mind-body problem. This calls for a Copernican shift in vantage point—from within the mind or brain to beyond the brain—in our consideration of mental features. Northoff, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, explains that empirical evidence suggests that the brain's spontaneous activity and its spatiotemporal structure are central to aligning and integrating the brain within the world. This spatiotemporal structure allows the brain to extend beyond itself into body and world, creating the “world-brain relation” that is central to mental features. Northoff makes his argument in empirical, ontological, and epistemic-methodological terms. He discusses current models of the brain and applies these models to recent data on neuronal features underlying consciousness and proposes the world-brain relation as the ontological predisposition for consciousness.

A New York Times Bestseller • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, TIME, The A.V. Club, Buzzfeed, and PopSugar “I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire.” —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishman is in Trouble, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang, a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with a remarkable ability. Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth. Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for? With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet—a most unusual story of parental love.