Verlag: HarperCollins e-books
The lives of four unlikely friends intersect on the backstreets of New Orleans. Living amid poverty and violence, these fragile heroes of the American underclass redefine our notions of family, redemption, and love.
"Hearts and Hands" is a short story by O. Henry, published in 1910, which focuses on a train journey in which a pretty young woman makes the acquaintance of a former suitor who is handcuffed to another man. William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer born in Greensboro, NC, known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. O. Henry's stories are known for their naturalist observations, witty narration, and surprise endings.Zum Buch
"Before she tried to be a good woman she had been a very bad woman—so bad that she could trail her wonderful apparel up and down Main Street, from the Elm Tree Bakery to the railroad tracks, without once having a man doff his hat to her or a woman bow. You passed her on the street with a surreptitious glance, though she was well worth looking at—in her furs and laces and plumes. She had the only full-length mink coat in our town, and Ganz's shoe store sent to Chicago for her shoes. Hers were the miraculously small feet you frequently see in stout women. For she owned the House with the Closed Shutters, near the freight depot—did Blanche Devine".Zum Buch
Going Where They Belong is a collection of nine stories from late 20th- and early 21st-century America that voice the peculiarities and perceptions of ordinary, sometimes eccentric, people. A woman runs away after killing another woman; a homeless teenager takes care of his younger brother after their father disappears; an aging lesbian faces the disordered personality of her longtime partner. Most of the characters are plagued with inner instability and social marginality; all of them discover in themselves and others a caring humanity. By turns troubling, poignant, and whimsical, showing lives stricken by grief, turbulence, longing, and unfulfilled hopes, the book is ultimately uplifting and provides original, engaging storytelling.Zum Buch
Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator. Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism. In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s stories to plays and long novels is clearly seen, his writings beautifully enriched by his long and diversified life experience. After leaving university and visiting parts of Europe, mainly Switzerland, the young writer went to Canada and the United States where he took on jobs including work as a farmer, a bartender, a secretary, a journalist, a reporter, running a hotel and teaching the violin. He was voracious in meeting new people and absorbing new ideas. In his late thirties, he returned to England where he published two of his supernatural stories in Pall Mall Magazine. As more of his highly entertaining stories were published so did his reputation and his bank balance. All those years of curiosity and experiences were starting to emerge from his writing. In 1906, ‘The Empty House & Other Ghost Stories’ was published with tremendous success. Further volumes of short stories followed and with it a larger audience and bigger paydays. He also published children’s stories. Blackwood also had ideas for novels and to explore on a larger canvas the paranormal world and the relationship between man and metaphysical powers including, in 1911, ‘The Centaur’. With the outbreak of the First World War, Blackwood was assigned to British intelligence to write propaganda to support the war effort. He was a prolific author with a quite staggering output which was also to include many plays. The exact number of his works is unknown as he would frequently write a story for a newspaper or periodical at very short notice. In 1949, Blackwood was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his literary talents and his services during the First World War. Algernon Blackwood died on 10th December 1951 after a series of strokes. The mysteries of the natural world are enhanced by those of the Native American spirit world in this wonderfully descriptive short story of a man’s fishing expedition to Medicine Lake.Zum Buch
Personality Plus is an early novel by American author Edna Ferber. Originally published in 1914, Personality Plus is the second of three volumes chronicling the travels and events in the life of Emma McChesney. Ferber achieved her first successes with a series of stories centering around this character, a stylish and intelligent divorced mother who rises rapidly in businessZum Buch
'The Komarov Case'' - is an exciting story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891 - 1940), an outstanding writer, playwright and theatre worker. Moscow is in a cold sweat - people disappear one by one, and then the bags with their corpses are found in different parts of the city. According to the same mode of wounds and the method of tying of victims - all these murders is the work of the same person.Zum Buch
