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  War and Peace Vol 1 - Dole...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  War and Peace (1869) is a classic novel by Leo Tolstoy, which is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements. The novel chronicles the history of the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families. Volume One begins in 1805 in Saint Petersburg, at a soirée. The plot moves to Moscow, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the more European society of Petersburg. The story continues at a country estate, and then Tolstoy describes the impending Russian-French war preparations. The major event in the book is the Battle of Austerlitz, portrayed as an early test for Russia, which ended badly because the soldiers fought for irrelevant things like glory or renown rather than the higher virtues which would produce, according to Tolstoy, a victory at Borodino during the 1812 invasion.

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  How I became a Secret Agent

  Dr. A. K. Graves

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  The mysterious man known as Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves was a double agent working for the German secret service and MI5 before the start of the first world war.In 1912 he was arrested in Scotland and imprisoned. But after 8 months he was mysteriously released and shortly afterwards appeared in New York, where he caused a sensation by publishing his memoirs of his service as a spy, which sold over 100,000 copies. His reminiscences are a fascinating insight into espionage in Europe at the end of the 19th century.

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  Classic Science Fiction

  Classics Editors of Canterbury

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  Nine classic works of speculative fiction from the earliest masters of the genre.Classic Science Fiction includes nine stories from masters of early science fiction: H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, Fitz James O’Brien, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Stanley G. Weinbaum. The exploration of new concepts and technologies has driven the genre since its earliest days, and these works demonstrate how science fiction evolved to encompass not only speculative science but also humanity’s role in the universe.

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  The Beauties

  Anton Chekhov

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  One great example of Chekhov's minimalism is found in The Beauties, a very short "story" - I use the term loosely, because it is really just two snapshots, two unrelated anecdotes in which a man describes seeing true beauty in two different women. These women are imperfect, yet enigmatically alluring.
  Chekhov's genius lies in the way he manages to convey with such apparent effortlessness a profound sense of the mystery of beauty, and of the sadness of those who observe and think. The narrator of this apparently inconsequential tale fixes on exactly the right details, from a myriad of possible ones, to strike at the heart. It's a masterpiece of minimalism.

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  Pigs is Pigs

  Ellis Parker Butler

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  Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937) was an American author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays. He is best known for his famous short story Pigs Is Pigs, in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs, which soon start proliferating exponentially.

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  Wodjabet

  C.E. Montague

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  Charles Edward Montague was born in London on New Year’s Day, 1867 and educated at the City of London School and then Balliol College, Oxford. 
   
  At university, Montague, a keen writer, wrote several literary reviews for the Manchester Guardian and was then invited for a month’s trial and, after impressing, to work there.   
   
  Montague and the editor, C. P. Scott shared the same political views and between them they turned the Manchester Guardian into a vibrant and campaigning newspaper.  They were for Irish Home Rule and against both the Boer War and the First World War. 
   
  But, after the war had begun, Montague believed that it was important to give full and unequivocal support to the British government.  Despite his age, 47, he was determined to serve. 
   
  Montague was soon promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and with it a transfer to Military Intelligence. The war also brought about a crisis in his faith and it was suitable resolved by Montague temporarily putting it to one side and carrying on with the fighting. 
   
  In November 1918 the war was over and Montague could now return home to his wife and family and also to the Manchester Guardian where he would continue to work until retirement in 1925.  
   
  For Montague the war had been corrosive but it had given him much to write about, both for the paper and also for his books, which he now hoped to spend more time on.  Among those to flow from his pen are the novels A Hind Let Loose and Rough Justice as well as collections of short stories, other essays and a travel book. 
   
  He finally retired in 1925, and settled down to become a full-time writer in the last years of his life.  
   
  Charles Edward Montague died in Manchester on May 28th, 1928 at the age of 61.

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