For nine years the popular website Futility Closet has collected arresting curiosities in history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and mathematics. This book presents the best of them: pipe-smoking robots, clairvoyant pennies, zoo jailbreaks, literary cannibals, corned beef in space, revolving squirrels, disappearing Scottish lighthouse keepers, reincarnated pussycats, dueling Churchills, horse spectacles, onrushing molasses, and hundreds more. Plus the obscure words, odd inventions, puzzles and paradoxes that have made the website a quirky favorite with millions of readers -- hundreds of examples of the marvelous, the diverting, and the strange, now in a portable format to occupy your idle hours.

Bradford, Ohio is noted in history as being a "railroad town." Locals tell a story of floating orbs and a sanitarium in town. Is this simply an urban legend or are there really ghostly orbs coming from the former location of a long-gone sanitarium filled with spirits of the past? "Bradford, Ohio: Floating Orbs & A Sanitarium" answers these questions

The first in a series, Bonnie Geyer Florek brings you Totally Haunted UK. It is packed full of exciting tales of ghostly sightings and experiences from the most haunted county in the UK, Cornwall. Impossible to include every story and sighting in this extensive collection, the most haunted and unusual encounters have been included. From a variety of Cornwall locations, you will read of eerie experiences of people who have visited Cornwall, from around the world.

More than six centuries ago a stranger stumbled on a village in a remote valley in Northern Italy, seeking refuge from vengeance in the world outside. But there was something different about the valley, something strange about its people. Nothing was as it seemed. Did chance take him there, or were greater forces at work, calling him to play a role? Guided by fate, he would find himself at the center of an ancient mystery--and for a time the heritage of civilizations would rest in his hands. Before he was done, he would devise a gift like none before and vanish into history, leaving behind the seeds of rebirth and hope for future generations...
Sanctuary of the Gods is vividly told, bringing history to life for its readers. The main story takes place at the dawn of the Renaissance, when European civilization was beginning its painful rise back towards the heights it had achieved in the days of Greece and Rome. There are also three detailed flashbacks to earlier periods: -A similar time more than 2,000 years before, when Greek civilization first began -The high point of Greek civilization in the age of Alexander The Great -Rome's decline, in the years following the Empire's conversion to Christianity. Sanctuary of the Gods is a story of survival against all odds, of human triumph over death and annihilation. It shows how a tiny village in Northern Italy became the last secret sanctuary of the old pagan religion, surviving through nine hundred years in hiding only to perish in the Black Death that swept Europe in 1348, and how, in those dark and terrifying days, a handful of survivors created the Tarot cards so that the heart of their religion would not perish with the sanctuary, butwould survive in a hostile world, its origins forgotten, until the time was right for its rediscovery.
For readers who are intrigued by the story and want to get to the heart of it, to discover the truth behind the things they've read, an appendix is provided. There, in 120 pages complemented by numerous illustrations, what at first seems too incredible to be anything but fiction is transformed by the evidence into compelling fact.
Sanctuary is beautifully written with a clarity that brings the past to life and holds the reader's interest from beginning to end. For a Pagan or Tarot enthusiast, or for lovers of historical fiction, its appeal is apparent. But the story is powerful, and even readers who have never been interested in these subjects will find the book hard to put down. It gains the readers's attention because the characters and scenes described are lively and interesting, and because its vision is fresh and new, entirely unexpected. Be prepared for some surprises: the view from the Sanctuary is not like anything you have ever seen before...

Let me attempt to take you by the Hand and show you a few things.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Biblioteca Curiosa: A Complete Catalogue Of All The Publications Of The Elzevier Presses At Leyden, Amsterdam, The Hague, And Utrecht, With Introduction, Notes, And An Appendix Containing A List Of All Works, Whether Forgeries Or Anonymous Publications, Generally Attributed To ..., Volume 2, Issue 2; Biblioteca Curiosa: A Complete Catalogue Of All The Publications Of The Elzevier Presses At Leyden, Amsterdam, The Hague, And Utrecht, With Introduction, Notes, And An Appendix Containing A List Of All Works, Whether Forgeries Or Anonymous Publications, Generally Attributed To These Presses; Edmund Goldsmid Edmund Goldsmid Privately printed, 1887 Art; Typography; Art / Typography; Netherlands; Printing

Actor John Wayne despised horses. He called them "filthy, disgusting creatures," and tolerated them only because western movies couldn't be made without them. Abraham Lincoln, famous for freeing the slaves, married into a family that owned slaves. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, was a proficient piano player. And speaking of Truman, did you know that the "S" in the middle of his name didn't stand for anything? Or did you know that actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld owned (at last count) 44 Porsches? Actor Ryan Gosling is adored by millions of women around the world. But most of them don't know Gosling used to be a member of the Mickey Mouse Club. So did Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, by the way. There are a lot more. 1001, to be exact. 1001 things you probably don't know about your favorite celebrities and famous people.

Trickster Theatre traces the changing social significance of national theatre in Ghana from its rise as an idealistic state project from the time of independence to its reinvention in recent electronic, market-oriented genres. Jesse Weaver Shipley presents portraits of many key figures in Ghanaian theatre and examines how Akan trickster tales were adapted as the basis of a modern national theatre. This performance style tied Accra's evolving urban identity to rural origins and to Pan-African liberation politics. Contradictions emerge, however, when the ideal Ghanaian citizen is a mythic hustler who stands at the crossroads between personal desires and collective obligations. Shipley examines the interplay between on-stage action and off-stage events to show how trickster theatre shapes an evolving urban world.

The earth is indeed an extraordinary planet and not just because of the infinite variety of life that it supports, the land itself is fabricated marvelously with wonders that possess inherent capacity to attract and allure people throughout the ages. The wonders of the world that are discussed in the book have been the subject of many books over the centuries, but our aim is to present something much more enlightening, stimulating, and engaging than straightforward description.

Mechele is young, attractive, and looking to cash in on her aesthetic assets when she moves from New Orleans to Alaska in 1994 to earn money for college tuition. Her charms ensnare the affections of three men, and the combined effects of jealously, lust, and greed take a deadly turn in this true crime story. Before a murder in the woods shatters her contented life, Mechele works as an exotic dancer at the Alaska Bush Company, where she spends her days pleasing a procession of hard-working men. John, Scott, and Kent are simultaneously smitten with Mechele, and offer affection in the form of lavish gifts and ultimately engagement rings. While the three men begin their affairs on the same path, violent murder blasts apart their parallel lives. One of the trio is shot in the back; another is accused of the murder. Dead Man's Dancer follows this murder case from 1996 throughout Mechele's tumultuous trial in 2006 that becomes a nationwide sensation. Shocking in its detailed portrayal of murder and convoluted love affairs, Dead Man's Dancer excites horror in readers that lingers far after the last page is turned.

They are tiny. They are tall. They are gray. They are green. They survey our world with enormous glowing eyes. To conduct their shocking experiments, they creep in at night to carry humans off to their spaceships. Yet there is no evidence that they exist at all. So how could anyone believe he or she was abducted by aliens? Or want to believe it? To answer these questions, psychologist Susan Clancy interviewed and evaluated "abductees"--old and young, male and female, religious and agnostic. She listened closely to their stories--how they struggled to explain something strange in their remembered experience, how abduction seemed plausible, and how, having suspected abduction, they began to recollect it, aided by suggestion and hypnosis. Clancy argues that abductees are sane and intelligent people who have unwittingly created vivid false memories from a toxic mix of nightmares, culturally available texts (abduction reports began only after stories of extraterrestrials appeared in films and on TV), and a powerful drive for meaning that science is unable to satisfy. For them, otherworldly terror can become a transforming, even inspiring experience. "Being abducted," writes Clancy, "may be a baptism in the new religion of this millennium." This book is not only a subtle exploration of the workings of memory, but a sensitive inquiry into the nature of belief.