Publisher: Qasim Idrees
Anthem takes place in a dark, dystopian future. Collectivism and socialist economics have driven mankind to a technological standstill. The individual is not acknowledged in this society, the word "I" having been eliminated from speech altogether. Rand explores the tension between collectivism and individualism and equates the errors or triumphs of these with socialism and capitalism.
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the eleventh of the twelve stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story was first published in Strand Magazine in May 1892. A banker, Mr. Alexander Holder of Streatham, makes a loan of £50,000 to a socially prominent client, who leaves a beryl coronet - one of the most valuable public possessions in existence - as collateral. Holder feels that he must not leave this rare and precious piece of jewellery in his personal safe at the bank, and so he takes it home with him to lock it up there. He is awakened in the night by a noise, enters his dressing room, and is horrified to see his son Arthur with the coronet in his hands, apparently trying to bend it. Holder's niece Mary comes at the sound of all the shouting and, seeing the damaged coronet, faints dead away. Three beryls are missing from it. In a panic, Mr. Holder travels to see Holmes, who agrees to take the case.Show book
The Dancing Girls is a short story collection by author Edna Ferber. The other stories in the collection are: Old Lady Mandle, Long Distance and One Hundred Percent. As almost always with the great Edna Ferber, the stories celebrate the ordinary humanity in all its fragility and resilience facing most of the things life throws at it...Show book
O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories, known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings. "Between Rounds" is the tale of a lost child, the six-year old son of the owner of a boarding house with a colourful and ecclectic range of boarders. For the brief period of the child's absence the inhabitants pause in their regular activities and relationships. The interlude is described in a warm and gently humorous manner.Show book
The old man Malakhin, accompanied by his rather useless son Yasha, makes a journey to Saint Petersburg in a freight train with the view of selling his cattle. Everybody around is bent on extorting the money from him. The train driver simply refuses to move the train without being paid, and the uber-conductor has to have his reward too. Malakhin is so distressed as to file a written complaint to the police, still he throws his money around, even on the occasions when this does not seem necessary. Four days later, after having bribed his way to the capital, he sells his starved-out animals, loses a great deal of money but is greatly relieved to see his totally meaningless mission completed.Show book
The lives of Miss Adela Quested and those around her are forever changed when she befriends a young doctor named Aziz during a trip she and her companion Mrs. Moore make to India. The unlikely friendship between Adela and Aziz eventually culminates in a disastrous expedition to the Marabar caves, during which she offends him, an action which leads to false accusations, arrests, and a litany of miscommunications. Set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s, this classic novel explores the difficulties that arise from class differences and cultural misunderstandings as well as the impact our actions have on others.Show book
The story follows Captain Elias Stormfield on his extremely long cosmic journey to heaven; his accidental misplacement; his short-lived interest in singing and playing the harp (generated by his preconceptions of heaven); and the obsession of souls with the "celebrities" of heaven, like Adam and Moses, who according to Twain become as distant to most people in heaven as living celebrities are on Earth. Twain uses this story to show his view that the common conception of heaven is ludicrous and points out the incongruities of such beliefs.Lots of his usual barbed humor hereShow book
