Other books that might interest you

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  South of the Slot - Iconic...

  Jack London

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  John Griffith Chaney was born on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco.   
   
  His father, William Chaney, was living with Flora Wellman when she became pregnant.  Chaney insisted she have an abortion.  Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself.  Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged. 
   
  In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where now, calling himself Jack, he completed grade school. 
   
  Jack worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university.  He studied hard and borrowed the money to enrol in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley. 
   
  In 1897, at 21, Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and for the name of his biological father. He wrote to Chaney, then living in Chicago, who claimed he could not be Jack’s father because he was impotent and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men.  Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Other accounts suggest that his dire finances presented Jack with the excuse he needed to leave. 
   
  In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, which together with hip and leg problems he would carry for the rest of his life. 
   
  During the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels. 
   
  By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing.  A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a continuing and remarkable output of work. 
   
  In 1905 he married Charmian Kittredge who at last was a soul and companion who brought him some semblance of peace despite his advancing alcoholism and his incurable wanderlust. 
   
  Twelve years later Jack had amassed both wealth and a literary reputation through such classics as ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘White Fang’ and many others. He had a reputation as a social activist and was a tireless friend of the workers.   
   
  Jack London died suffering from dysentery, late-stage alcoholism and uremia, aged only 40, on November 22nd 1916 at his property in Glen Elen in California 
   
  In ‘South of the Slot’ Jack London reveals yet another facet of his writing talents. In turn of the Century San Francisco, a Professor of Sociology explores the working-class neighbourhoods gradually revealing an alter-ego with his Union loving personality and name.  The question is which is his real character.

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  Behind the Wall - From their...

  Violet Jacob

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  The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Violet Jacob.

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  The Best Years of Your Life - A...

  Halle Hill

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  A young woman who works admissions at a scam for-profit college is navigating the lies she sells for a living when she befriends an elderly applicant. The Best Years of Your Life is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect.

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  3 Stories About - Social...

  Mark Twain, Anton Chekhov, Mary...

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  There is something about the number 3.    
   
  The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.   
   
  Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois.  It seems good things usually come in threes. 
   
  Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating. 
   
  From their pens to your your ears. 
   
  01 - 3 Stories - Social Experiment 
  02 - The Million Pound Bank Note by Mark Twain 
  03 - The Bet by Anton Chekhov 
  04 - An Unexpected Fare by Mary Tuttiett writing as Maxwell Gray

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  Horrid Henry: Perfect Pets

  Lucinda Whiteley

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  All pets are Perfect Pets, but some are more perfect than others, as you’ll discover with this perfect collection of 11 Horrid Henry super stories performed by the show's full cast. Hamsters rule of course, even man eating ones, and there’s a catalogue (geddit?!) of near misses and triumphs to enjoy here. So let’s turn up the Horrid and enjoy these classic stories with "Name Game", "Petsitting Service", "Tickly Treat Thief", "Dinosaur", "Man Eating Hamster", "Glory Of All Hamsters", "So Not A Hamster", "Sock Sorter", "Mr Tiddler", "Pet Show" and "The Mole". Horridly Brilliant or Brilliantly Horrid? You decide!!

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  Night Side of the River - Ghost...

  Jeanette Winterson

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  A captivating collection of ghost stories from "one of the most gifted writers working today" (New York Times), The Night Side of the River is as ingeniously provocative as it is downright spooky. 
   
   
   
  In this delightfully chilling collection, the iconic Jeanette Winterson turns her fearless gaze to the realm of ghosts, interspersing her own encounters with the supernatural alongside hair-raising fictions. Lifting the veil between the living and the dead, Winterson spirits us away to a haunted estate that ensnares a nomadic young couple in its own dark past, a staged immersive ghost tour gone awry, a West Village séance that threatens the bounds between AI and reality, and a vacation home in the metaverse where a widow visits an improved version of her deceased husband. Gloriously gothic and unnervingly contemporary, Winterson examines grief, revenge, and the myriad ways in which technology can disrupt the boundary between life and death.

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