Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Rabbi in the Attic - And...

  Eileen Pollack

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “Never sentimental or simplistic, these low-key stories, written with a contemporary flair and humor, are a rich blend of moral and artistic sensibility.” —Kirkus Reviews   In an age of minimalists, Eileen Pollack is a writer of rare generosity. The women and men in The Rabbi in the Attic are complex, vivid people to whom something happens. Their stories take place in small towns in the Catskills, a laboratory of mutant mice in nowhere Tennessee, the backwoods of New Hampshire, the “City of Five Smells” in America’s heartland—worlds rendered with such love and intensity that the simplest objects seem magical. Many of the narrators look back on their pasts. But don’t expect to be lulled by nostalgia. Expect to laugh. To be jolted. And to be moved.   Like most of us, these characters are struggling to understand what they have gained and lost by abandoning the passions and moral certainties of youth. As the narrator of the first story discovers when “barbarian” rock fans invade her town, it can be terrifying to be knocked from the “tiny fixed orbit” of conventional life. But if a person can stretch her imagination far enough, she might also be able to glimpse an “elsewhere” beyond the boundaries of ordinary human limitations.   This battle between the real and ideal is taken to mythic heights in the title novella, in which a novice rabbi must try to evict her Orthodox predecessor from the house provided by her prickly congregation. Only when she tempers her enthusiasm for the new ways with compassion for those who follow the old ways can Rabbi Bloomgarten begin to care for their souls.   Eileen Pollack writes from a Jewish point of view, but her subject is the search for principles that we must all undertake in a world in which religious truths are no longer handed down from parent to child.   Just as one of her characters decides to become a “value assessor,” the author herself helps us to sort through the jumble of objects, ideas, and memories in our own attics. In doing so, she appeals to our minds and our hearts. Her characters teach us that imagination and empathy are our best hope if we are to understand—and perhaps transcend—the pain in our world. Her language is lyrical, rhythmic, and lush. The images in her stories—a chef’s severed hand, a plummeting air conditioner, a village sunk beneath a reservoir—will stay in your mind long after you have finished her book.

  Show book

• 

  He

  H.P. Lovecraft

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The narrator, forced to live in a big city, becomes increasingly disheartened and harbors growing hatred for this place. To summon beloved, historical visions of an ancient American town, he wanders the ancient, forgotten alleys at night. One night, he encounters a stranger who will show him peculiarities that exceed his wildest expectations.This story contains many autobiographical elements. The night encounter with a stranger offering to show unknown, old places really happened when Lovecraft was strolling with his wife in New York. Similarly, at some point, the narrator comes across Perry Street - a place that HPL discovered a little earlier after reading an article in the "New York Evening Post." Likewise, the narrator's longing for New England is nothing more than a reflection of the author's emotional state. You can find literary inspiration for this work in "The Chronicles of Rodriguez" by Lord Dunsany.

  Show book

• 

  New York Onions

  William Becker

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Inspired by a family member’s heroin overdose and near-death experience, NEW YORK ONIONS is a minimalistic, symbolic portrait of decay. Jessica buys onions every single day with money from under her mattress, then she paints, before finally passing out.

  Show book

• 

  Short Stories About Survival - A...

  Honoré de Balzac, Leo Tolstoy,...

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Our ‘fight of flight’ response is something hardwired into the primitive part of our brain.  Our need to survive, to outlive whatever danger poses, that immediate threat to our lives is little short of a marvel.  Everything else is abandoned in order to survive.  Whilst in modern times that ability has been somewhat modified and ‘reasoned’ away to an extent, in past years it’s what usually kept you alive. 
   
  In this volume people struggle valiantly to survive and to exist no matter the extent of the threat they face. In the words of our authors including William Hope Hodgson, Richard Connell, Jack London, Honore de Balzac and a wealth of others, they vividly demonstrate how or whether the participants survive … or fail.  
   
  01 - Short Stories About Survival - An Introduction 
   02 - The White Silence by Jack London 
   03 - A Passion in the Desert by Honoré de Balzac 
   04 - The Interlopers by Saki the pseudonym for H H Munro 
   05 - The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte 
   06 - Taman by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov 
   07 - The Great Slave by Zane Grey 
   08 - The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson 
   09 - The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell 
   10 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane 
   11 - To Build a Fire by Jack London 
   12 - The Snowstorm - Part 1 by Leo Tolstoy 
   13 - The Snowstorm - Part 2 by Leo Tolstoy

  Show book

• 

  In Bayswater - One family is...

  Mary Butts

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Mary Frances Butts was born on 13th December 1890 in Poole, Dorset. 
   
  Her early years were spent at Salterns, an 18th-century house overlooking Poole Harbour.  Sadly in 1905 her father died, and she was sent for boarding at St Leonard's school for girls in St Andrews. 
   
  Her mother remarried and, from 1909, Mary studied at Westfield College in London, and here, first became aware of her bisexual feelings.  She was sent down for organising a trip to Epsom races and only completed her degree in 1914 when she graduated from the London School of Economics.  By then Mary had become an admirer of the occultist Aleister Crowley and she was given a co-authorship credit on his ‘Magick (Book 4)’. 
   
  In 1916, she began the diary which would now detail her future life and be a constant reference point for her observations and her absorbing experiences. 
   
  During World War I, she was doing social work for the London County Council in Hackney Wick, and involved in a lesbian relationship.  Life changed after meeting the modernist poet, John Rodker and they married in 1918. 
   
  In 1921 she spent 3 months at Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Sicily; she found the practices dreadful and also acquired a drug habit.  Mary now spent time writing in Dorset, including her celebrated book of short stories ‘Speed the Plough’ which saw fully develop her unique Modernist prose style. 
   
  Europe now beckoned and several years were spent in Paris befriending many artists and writing further extraordinary stories.   
   
  She was continually sought after by literary magazines and also published several short story collections as books. Although a Modernist writer she worked in other genres but is essentially only known for her short stories.  Mary was deeply committed to nature conservation and wrote several pamphlets attacking the growing pollution of the countryside. 
   
  In 1927, she divorced and the following year her novel ‘Armed with Madness’ was published.  A further marriage followed in 1930 and time was spent attempting to settle in London and Newcastle before setting up home on the western tip of Cornwall.  By 1934 the marriage had failed. 
   
  Mary Butts died on 5th March 1937, at the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, after an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. She was 46. 
   
  Her story ‘In Bayswater’ grippingly describes a man’s friendship with a dysfunctional family he rents a room from.  As each facet reveals itself his opinion and decisions change, back and forth, this way and that….

  Show book

• 

  These Deathless Bones

  Cassandra Khaw

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "These Deathless Bones" is a short horror story by Cassandra Khaw, one of 35 entries in the audio horror anthology Come Join Us by the Fire. 
  A tale about the Witch Bride, second wife of a King, and the discord between her and her young stepson. 
  Come Join Us by the Fire, edited by Theresa DeLucci, is an audio-only horror anthology of 35 short stories from Nightfire Books, a horror imprint of Tor Books. The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of bestselling genre luminaries including China Miéville, Chuck Wendig, Richard Kadrey, and Victor LaValle; Shirley Jackson Award winners Paul Tremblay, Priya Sharma, and Sam J. Miller; Nebula Award winners Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kij Johnson; and many, many more.

  Show book