Beyond Bizarre

The author of The Book of the Bizarre returns with a new compendium of freaky facts, terrifying trivia, and true stories that are stranger than fiction. In Beyond Bizarre, Varla Ventura presents an all-new batch of nightmarish tales that teem queasy diseases and paranormal encounters—not to mention the outrageous, outlandish, and the simply strange. Arranged into thirteen chilling chapters like Haunted Hollywood, Tales from the Cryptids, Bride of the Bizarre, and It’s Enough to Make You Hurl, Beyond Bizarre tackles everything from female pirates and creepy candy stripers to psychic predictions, virgin shark births and much, much more. A word of warning: this book is not for the faint of heart!

The sequel to the best-selling The Book of the Bizarre, Beyond Bizarre offers up scores of new freaky facts, terrifying trivia, and stranger-than-fiction stories. Arranged into 13 chilling chapters like Haunted Hollywood, Blood Red Crosses and Gross Anatomy: Hospital Horrors, Bride of Bizarre, and Tales from the Cryptids, Beyond Bizarre tackles everything from female pirates and creepy candy stripers to psychic predictions and virgin shark birthsand much, much more.

From the Norman Invasion in 1066 to the eve of the First World War, Stick a Flag in It is a thousand-year jocular journey through the history of Britain and its global empire. The British people have always been eccentric, occasionally ingenious and, sure, sometimes unhinged – from mad monarchs to mass-murdering lepers. Here, Arran Lomas shows us how they harnessed those traits to forge the British nation, and indeed the world, we know today. Follow history’s greatest adventurers from the swashbuckling waters of the Caribbean to the vast white wasteland of the Antarctic wilderness, like the British spy who infiltrated a top-secret Indian brothel and the priest who hid inside a wall but forgot to bring a packed lunch. At the very least you’ll discover Henry VIII’s favourite arse-wipe, whether the flying alchemist ever made it from Scotland to France, and the connection between Victorian coffee houses and dildos. Forget what you were taught in school – this is history like you’ve never heard it before, full of captivating historical quirks that will make you laugh out loud and scratch your head in disbelief.

Get ready for a very weird ride with the stories in this book. Each is designed to twist your mind as you wander the border land between fact and fiction, reality and imagination, reason and insanity. Aliens, vampires, ghouls, ghosts, zombies, and unbalanced lunatics all await you within these pages. Share the fates of the heroes and victims as they battle incomprehensible forces. Feel your pulse pound as you turn the pages, wondering what awaits you ahead. The author invites you to share in the weird visions inside. All you have to do is open the cover....

LONGLISTED FOR THE FT/OPPENHEIMERFUNDS EMERGING VOICES AWARD 2016 'Toptas seems to me Orhan Pamuk's equal ... He strikes me as just as gifted a writer' Sydney Morning Herald Thirty years after completing his military service Ziya flees the spiralling turmoil of one of Turkey's great sprawling cities to seek a serene existence in a dream-like village. Kenan – an old friend from the army – is there to greet him. However, the village does not provide the total isolation Ziya years for and he is forced back through the tangled web of his memory in search of his lost family and the reason why Kenan feels so extravagantly indebted to him. Reckless masterfully blurs the boundaries between memory and reality to create a gripping tale that introduces a major writer to English-language readers.

Carter and Kat think they know every tree, river, and rock within five miles of their homes, but this section of wood, completely devoid of life, was not supposed to exist. Stepping through a doorway into a bizarre world filled with darkness, terror, and death, they embark on a quest to discover the greatest treasure of all.

Enjoy an Outlander-meets-Frozen romantic comedy from a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author! Adventurer Lance Desmond needs to produce a fortune before his arch-rival collects the bounty on his head. He risks an ancient curse to retrieve treasure hidden within icebound Castle Cavanaugh, only to become trapped inside. Not with the gold he so desperately needs, but with medieval Princess Marigold who's been cooling her heels since...well, medieval times. The lonely princess refuses to acknowledge the blossoming attraction between them. Not just because she deserves a better future than a penniless rogue. But because at midnight, he'll vanish like all her other would-be heroes. And the evergreen in the parlor will have one more figurine hanging from its boughs... A previous edition was published as Let It Snow.