Other books that might interest you

• 

  O Henry : Five Beloved Stories...

  O. Henry

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  O. Henry, the pen name for William Sydney Porter wrote over 600 short stories. Naturally I have my personal top 20 stories that just seem to stand out because of their form, writing style and ability to convey real personalities in a very few words. From these 20 I've chosen five that seem outstanding examples of the short story art form. Stories like The Gift of the Magi; The Cop and the Anthem; Man about Town; A Cosmopolite in a Cafe and Mammon and the Archer. So this is a collection of just five O.Henry stories that many people, including me, have loved and remembered over the years. And this time, thanks to LibriVox, I have the enormous pleasure of not just reading them to myself, but also the joy of reading them aloud! What fun, eh? 

  Show book

• 

  Untethered

  Philippa Holloway

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Dead birds fall from the sky, an octopus lies stranded on a beach, and a lost shoe becomes a public shrine ... Untethered, Philippa Holloway's first collection of short stories, provides an unflinching glimpse of daily life interrupted by unexpected events. Small intrusions into familiar spaces reveal nothing is as it seems. Sometimes it demands a change of viewpoint, sometimes a cutting loose to find freedom.
  
  From conflicted parental expectations to unwanted visitors, from discovering tiny human teeth in the garden to a brief encounter with a murderer over the kitchen table, these precise, realist tales scrutinise families and lovers, colleagues and strangers with a keen emotional depth and sharp observation. Each one is a vivid snapshot exposing the fragile ties that hold people together.
  
  Here we see how pigeons become terrible portents, dining tables become autopsy benches and confessionals, and a family is forced out of their home with just minutes to pack.

  Show book

• 

  It's A Fallen World

  Jack Webb

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  'It’s a Fallen World!' is a very unusual audiobook. Here you will find four flash fiction audio stories. Each story is only about seven minutes long. They are brought vividly to life with immersive, cinematic sound effects. For the full experience, please use personal listening devices. 
  This collection is perfect for the short Uber commute, a waiting room or wherever and whenever you need a break from the everyday boring reality. 
  This is darkly comedic satire at its best! It blends science fiction and spirituality with the absurd patterns of human behavior that we all notice but may not want to talk about. These stories dissolve the line between accepted reality and your imagination. 
  Sharp and unsettling yet strangely beautiful, It’s a Fallen World! invites you to step safely into the places your mind already wants to go. Once experienced, these stories call listeners back again and again to where reality meets the end of the road and the real truth is revealed.

  Show book

• 

  The Bone Picker - Native Stories...

  Devon A. Mihesuah

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Under the shadow of gray clouds, three children venture into the woods, where they spot the corpse of an old man on a scaffold. Suddenly a wild figure emerges, with long fingernails and tangled hair. It is the Hattak fullih nipi foni, the bone picker, who comes to tear off rotting flesh with his fingernails. Only the Choctaws who adhere to the old ways will speak of him. The frightening bone picker is just one of many entities, scary and mysterious, who lurk behind every page of this spine-tingling collection of Native fiction, written by award-winning Choctaw author Devon A. Mihesuah. 
   
   
   
  As a Choctaw citizen, with deep ties to Indian Territory and Oklahoma, Mihesuah grew up hearing the stories of her ancestors. In the tradition of Native storytelling, she spins tales that move back and forth fluidly across time. The ancient beings, we discover, followed the tribe from their original homelands in Mississippi and are now ever-present influences on tribal consciousness. 
   
   
   
  While some of the horrors told here are "real life" in nature, the art of fiction that Mihesuah employs reveals surprising outcomes or alternative histories. It turns out the things that scare us the most can lead to the answers we are seeking and even ensure our very survival.

  Show book

• 

  The Thing That Smelt - From...

  Christopher Blayre

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  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 Christopher Blayre.

  Show book

• 

  The Tug of Love - From their...

  Israel Zangwill

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Israel Zangwill was born in London on 21st January 1864, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.  
  Zangwill was initially educated in Plymouth and Bristol.  At age 9 he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east London. Zangwill excelled here.  He began to teach part-time at the school and eventually full time.  Whilst teaching he also studied with the University of London and by 1884 had earned his BA with triple honours in philosophy, history, and the sciences. 
  His writing earned him the sobriquet "the Dickens of the Ghetto" primarily based on his much lauded novel ‘Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People’ in 1892 and its glimpse of the poverty-stricken life in London's Jewish quarter. 
  As a writer he was keen to reflect on his political and social outlooks.  His simulation of Yiddish sentence structure in English aroused great interest. His mystery work, ‘The Big Bow Mystery’ (1892) was the first locked room mystery novel.   
  Zangwill was also involved with narrowly focused Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and later a territorialist. In the early 1890s he joined the Lovers of Zion movement in England. In 1897 he joined Theodor Herzl (considered the father of modern political Zionism) in founding the World Zionist Organization.   
  Zangwill quit the established philosophy of Zionism when his plan for a homeland in Uganda was rejected and founded his own organisation; the Jewish Territorialist Organization. Its stated goal was to create a Jewish homeland in whatever territory in the world could be found for them.  
  Amongst the challenges in his life he found time to write poetry.  He had translated a medieval Jewish poet in 1903 and his volume ‘Blind Children’ in 1908 was well received.  
  ‘The Melting Pot’ in 1909 made Zangwill’s name as an admired playwright.  When the play opened in Washington D.C., former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted, "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that's a great play."   
  Israel Zangwill died on 1st August 1926 in Midhurst, West Sussex.

  Show book