European Magic

From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature. Gabriel García Márquez, the renowned master of magical realism, vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, and overflowing with symbolic descriptions, the novel transports the listener to a world that is at once fanciful and real.

In this Lithuanian folktale, the king wants to know why the sun is red! He sends his horseman on a quest to find a house made of amber, inside which the answer lies. Follow along with him on his adventure!

In literary legend, Faustus is the quintessential occult personality of early modern Europe. The historical Faustus, however, was something quite different: a magus—a learned magician fully embedded in the scholarly currents and public life of the Renaissance. And he was hardly the only one. Anthony Grafton argues that the magus in sixteenth-century Europe was a distinctive intellectual type, both different from and indebted to medieval counterparts as well as contemporaries like the engineer, the artist, the Christian humanist, and the religious reformer.

Unlocking Secrets and Ancient Mysteries: When Eliza Bennett, a textile scientist fresh off a whirlwind European conference tour, lands on the sun-soaked shores of Santorini, she’s expecting a well-earned break. But when her charming, talking feline companion, Merlin, leads her to an old friend, Caleb, their holiday takes a thrilling turn. Caleb, driven by his grandfather’s lifelong quest, reveals a discovery that could change history: the keys to Atlantis II, hidden beneath the Aegean waves. Together, they embark on a quest to unlock its secrets before the malevolent Ambrosios and his ...

In this Welsh tale, Nel loves to knit stockings for her brothers as she walks her family’s land. One day, a fairy leaves her a gift—a golden chair! To keep the fairy from stealing it back, Nel must use her wit and knitting supplies to keep her chair safe while she and her family carry it home. Will Nel’s plan work? Or will the fairy steal the gift back?

A pine tree is unhappy with its needles and wishes for different types of leaves instead. A fairy grants the tree its wishes, but the results are disappointing.

Young Alice leads an ordinary sort of life until, one day, she follows a rabbit down a hole and embarks on a series of adventures with some of the most weird and wonderful characters anyone has ever encountered! She soon discovers that nothing is ordinary in Wonderland, least of all the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat, the Duchess, and the Mock Turtle.

Dorothy is a grieving housewife in the Californian suburbs. Her infant son, unborn child and dog have all just died; her husband is unfaithful; her only friend is an alcoholic. One day, she is doing chores when the radio announces that a green-skinned sea monster has escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research - but little did she expect him to arrive in her kitchen. Muscular yet gentle, vegetarian, sexually magnetic and excellent at housework, Larry the frogman is a revelation: and their passionate affair goes beyond their wildest dreams.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume One is a continent-hopping, century-spanning collection of 10 of the greatest classic novels ever written, from British, Irish, American, and German authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Joanne Froggatt, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Keeble, David Rintoul, and many more.

Step into the captivating world of The Magic Book, a mesmerizing tale by Evald Tang Kristensen brought to life by the evocative narration of Ian Michael Turrell. Rooted in Scandinavian folklore, this enchanting story weaves magic, mystery, and adventure into a timeless narrative. Follow the journey of a glowing ancient book that holds secrets capable of transforming lives and unraveling the mysteries of the mystical realm it inhabits.

"The Will of Fire: The Will of Monkey" swings into the latest uproarious adventure of Sonja Hrafndottir, where our fearless womanian warrior grapples with her inner beast and the chaos that comes with it. In this wild parody, Sonja is beckoned back to the lush canopies of Womania, where she must embrace the agile and potent form of the weremonkey. Amidst the treetops and Womanian lore, she learns to harness this newfound limberness and strength to confront a devious mortal who has absconded with the secrets to eternal youth. As Sonja and the ever-loyal Erik Uglason journey across diverse ...

The Essential Classics: Volume 1 brings together some of the most astute, gripping and tragic works written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, beautifully read by Miranda Raison, Pearl Mackie, Jonathan Keeble, Peter Noble, and Olivia Dowd. Spanning English, Russian and German literature, in this collection you will find the terrifying trials of iconic detective Sherlock Holmes, Dickens’s cutting social commentary in Bleak House, as well as classic coming-of-age narratives with The Magic Mountain and Tolstoy’s realist masterpiece in Anna Karenina.

You will have heard of Thor, Medusa and Hercules. But what about the myths of the British landscape? The Trojan heroes who wrestled giants. The Syrian sisters who found refuge on our lands. The dragons who slept in hollow hills. And the kings who communed with the dead... In this vivid mythology of Britain, children will discover enchanting tales of magic and adventure, giants and demons, princesses and prophecies.

Cerise is not a witch. She's an apprentice herbalist whose father is a wannabe warlock and fairy godmother is a madame. But Cerise has a closely guarded secret - the cherry lip-stain she manufactures and sells to the richest and most powerful women in the land is a potent aphrodisiac that makes the wearer irresistible. Of course, with such power comes responsibility, something Cerise did not consider while she was testing each batch of the product on the men of her home town. Soon, word of the magical make-up reaches the childless Queen Merewald, and she becomes determined to uncover the ...

At a time when nature's inner workings were largely a mystery, people from every walk of life who faced problems or circumstances they were powerless to control sought the help of 'cunning folk'. These wise women and men were often renowned for their skill at healing the sick or predicting the future, fortune-telling and divination, and for their knowledge of spells and potions. Occasionally and tragically, some were condemned as witches for using their powers for ill. But this has tended to obscure the fact that the magic they practised was a normal and accepted part of daily life.

Every child brought there by the wind made a mistake, but everyone gets a second chance.... Young Inka was upset with her mother and decided she wanted to disappear and live without her. Little did she know that her wish was about to come true. A dark wind swept Inka off her feet just a moment later and carried her to the Windy Lands, an inhospitable magical world.

Ausgewählte Alpensagen neuerzählt und musikalisch witzig und bunt umrahmt. Quadro Nuevo goes alpenländische Volksmusik sozusagen, was den Musikern einen Riesenspaß gemacht hat. Urige Geschichten von garstigen Hexen, waghalsigen Schmuggler-Burschen, verführerischen Bergfeen und dem geheimnisvollen Männle mit der Kraftwurzel...
Was man sich früher abends in der Stube zusammensponn wird hier durch die Sprechkunst der beteiligten Schauspieler und Kabarettisten lebendig. Dort, wo die Worte enden, erzählen die Töne weiter und die Geschichten spinnen sich in den Gedanken und Herzen kleiner und großer Zuhörer fort.

Could a Polish girl's mysterious radio change the outcome of WWII? Carrying her abducted parents’ wanted radio, Cesia flees her bombed Polish town in search of shelter. As possible allies or enemies close in, she begins to unravel mysteries about the red radio, a secrecy that could cost many lives if the device falls into the wrong hands. Yet, all her attempts to tune the device only produce a creepy static. However, somehow, as her fingers turn the dials it feels like the radio is responding. With her life in peril, one precarious question begins to burn: When the radio crackles . . . ...

Concierto para delinquir es una divertida aventura de exiliados. La historia se inicia en París y concluye en Puerto Galeón, un pintoresco puerto del Caribe, al que van a parar, un anarquista uruguayo - de profesión grabador y pintor - y un trotamundos español - que sobrevive del oficio de cuentero - para incendiar de amor, irreverencia y poesía a los habitantes del lugar.

Concierto para Delinquir es un exquisito relato del realismo mágico que nos llevará a situaciones inusuales llenas de humor, intriga, amistad, poder y odio.