Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  East of the Sun and West of the...

  Andrew Lang

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  "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" is a fairy tale from Norway. A poor family is visited one night by a white bear who promises to make them rich if they will give him their youngest daughter. At first the girl refuses, but over several days she is persuaded to go with the bear. She is carried away on his back to a marvelous castle, where she learns that the bear turns into a prince at night. Growing lonely at the castle, she persuades the bear to let her visit her family. The bear warns her not to let her Mother speak to her alone. But the girl is not able to resist her mother. The mother declares the bear must be a troll and gives her daughter a tallow candle with which to observe him at night—but on no account to spill any of the tallow. The girl waits until the prince is asleep and lights the candle. The prince is so handsome that she falls in love with him... but accidentally spills three drops of tallow on his shirt. The prince wakes up and is horrified at what she has done. Now he must return to his stepmother's castle which lies east of the sun and west of the moon and marry the troll princess who has a nose three ells long. The girl, devastated, determines to follow him, if only she can find the way...

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  The Magnet

  Barry Pain

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  Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his ghost and horror stories."The Magnet" is the uncanny story of a very unusual copycat mass murderer.

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  Told in the Coffee House

  Cyrus Adler

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  In the course of a number of visits to Constantinople, I became much interested in the tales that are told in the coffee houses. These are usually little more than rooms, with walls made of small panes of glass. The furniture consists of a tripod with a contrivance for holding the kettle, and a fire to keep the coffee boiling. A carpeted bench traverses the entire length of the room. This is occupied by turbaned Turks, their legs folded under them, smoking nargilehs or chibooks or cigarettes, and sipping coffee. A few will be engaged in a game of backgammon, but the majority enter into conversation, at first only in syllables, which gradually gives rise to a general discussion. Finally, some sage of the neighborhood comes in, and the company appeals to him to settle the point at issue. This he usually does by telling a story to illustrate his opinion. Some of the stories told on these occasions are adaptations of those already known in Arabic and Persian literature, but the Turkish mind gives them a new setting and a peculiar philosophy. They are characteristic of the habits, customs, and methods of thought of the people, and for this reason seem worthy of preservation. - Summary by Preface

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  Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics...

  Bliss Carman

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  Sappho lived six centuries before Christ, at a period when lyric poetry was peculiarly esteemed and cultivated at the centres of Greek life. The metropolis of this lyric realm was Mitylene of Lesbos, where, amid the myrtle groves and temples, Beauty and Love in their young warmth could fuse the most rigid forms to fluency. Here Sappho was the acknowledged queen of song.  Sappho's poetry was venerated for a thousand years, but almost all has been lost to us;  only two small odes and a few scintillating fragments surviving.  Mr. Carman seems to have imagined each lost lyric as discovered, then to translate it.  In the opinion of the reader of these poems, they approach "real poetry", which according to Robert Graves  (in "The White Goddess"), constricts the throat and makes a shiver run down the spine. - Summary by From Preface, and from Peter Yearsley

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  The Dream Woman

  Wilkie Collins

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  William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories and was a great friend and collaborator of Charles Dickens.The Dream Woman is a strange tale of a man who has a dream about a beautiful woman attempting to murder him in bed by stabbing him with a buck-handled clasp-knife. He relates the details of the dream to his mother, who makes careful note of every detail. Then one day he meets the woman of his dream....

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  The Good Life - Stories

  Erin McGraw

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  A collection of short stories that are “at once laugh-out-loud funny and utterly serious” (Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl).   “McGraw ably leavens heartbreak with humor . . . she renders quirky, refreshingly real characters—a mediocre ballet dancer who takes in a more successful dancer’s daughter; an insecure self-help author who’s thrown for a loop by a visit to her parents; a disillusioned bed-and-breakfast owner who flirts with moving to Aruba; Catholic priests who have trouble living up to their vows—on the verge of improving their lot in life. The happiness they catch glimpses of, though, frequently eludes their grasp . . . McGraw’s pitch-perfect dialogue and artful closeups on the telling, trying details of ordinary lives deliver stories that are easy to read but hard to forget.” —Publishers Weekly   “I love these stories about nice normal people trying—and failing—to cling to their fondest delusions.” —Molly Giles, author of All the Wrong Places

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