Other books that might interest you

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  Christs in the Tirol

  D H Lawrence

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  'Christs in the Tirol' is more of an essay on this peculiar art form than a short story, it is included in this series as forming part of Lawrence's record of his wanderings in Europe and partly as a record of Lawrence's attitude to religion and death and foreshadowing his own eventual suffering and death.

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  The Screaming Skull

  F. Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’.  
   
  Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome.  
   
  In 1879 he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881 he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University. 
   
  His family became increasingly concerned about his employment prospects.  After an attempt at a singing career as a baritone was ruled out, he was encouraged to write.  
   
  In December 1882 his first novel, ‘Mr Isaacs’, was published and was an immediate hit as was his second novel ‘Dr Claudius’ in 1883.  
   
  In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan and encouraged by his excellent start to a literary career they returned to Sant Agnello, Italy to make a permanent home, buying the Villa Renzi that then became Villa Crawford.  
   
  In the late 1890s, Crawford began work on his historical works which would later include ‘Corleone’, in 1897, the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.  
   
  Crawford is also exceedingly popular and anthologized as a short story writer of bizarre and creepy tales.   
   
  In 1908 came his classic ‘The Screaming Skull’. Without doubt its unsettling nature is heightened as the reader/listener is drawn into to the story by its narrator.  Everything is explained and plausible until, of course, it isn’t. 
   
  Francis Marion Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack.

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  Sparkling Cyanide - B2

  Agatha Christie

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  Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. 
  Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English. 
  Six people sit down for dinner at a table laid for seven. No one can forget the night exactly a year ago that Rosemary Barton died at this same table surrounded by the same people, her beautiful face turned blue with cyanide poison. 
  Rosemary had always been memorable – and people had strong reactions to her. Did one of the six people at dinner feel strongly enough about her to kill her?

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  The Five Jars

  M. R. James

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  The Five Jars is the only novel written by James, who is best known for his ghost stories. It is a peculiarly surreal fantasy apparently written for children. While he is out walking, the narrator is drawn to a remote pool, and finds a small box that has been hidden since Roman times. He gradually learns how to use its contents, fighting off a series of attempts to steal it, and becomes aware of a strange world hidden from our own. (Summary by Peter Yearsley)

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  Dubliners

  James Joyce

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  "Dubliners" is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They center on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences a life-changing self-understanding or illumination. 
   Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses. The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence and maturity.

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  The Butcher - A Cockney Killer...

  Will Patching

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  A dark and disturbingly twisted 'short shot':  
  Meet Antony Harding, psychopath. He'll make your skin crawl...  
  In this short story of some 46 minutes, the listener is taken deep into the mind of an unreformed and unrepentant serial killer—Antony Harding, aka 'The Butcher'. 
  This unique mini-thriller, written from a vicious murderer's perspective, is a first-person narration, performed by award-winning voice artist, Gary Furlong. 
  Strap yourself in for a ride on the dark side! But be warned—this author's warped fictional works are not for the faint-hearted. 
  'The Butcher' also plays a significant role as a devious villain in Mutilated, the second British crime thriller in The Remorseless Trilogy. This gritty full-length novel is performed by the same talented narrator, so if you feel the urge to hear more about sly reprobate Harding, you may do so... 
  Please note: The Butcher short story also appears in Will Patching's Short Shots: Blood on their Hands.

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