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  Her Lover - From their pens to...

  Maxim Gorky

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  Alexei Maximovich Peshkov was born on 28th March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. 
  Better known as Maxim Gorky he was orphaned at 11 and ran away from home at 12.  At 19 he had already attempted suicide and thereafter travelled, by foot, across the Russian Empire for 5 years. 
  His first book ‘Essays & Stories’ in 1898 was a sensation and so began a long career as an author of short stories, novels and plays.  Gorky saw writing as a moral and political act that would help to change the unjust world around him.  He was an ardent early advocate of the emerging Marxist movement and publicly opposed the Tsarist regime leading several times to his arrest.  
  In 1904 he began his own theatre but the censor banned every play and Gorky was forced to abandon the project. 
  But Gorky was a financially successful author, editor, and playwright and gave monies to political parties as well as for civil rights and social reform.  The brutal shooting of workers, which set in motion the Revolution of 1905, pushed Gorky more decisively toward radical solutions.  
  In 1906 he went to the United States to raise funds for the Bolsheviks. Those experiences including a scandal over travelling with his lover and not his wife deepened his contempt for the ‘bourgeois soul.’ 
  Gorky now moved to Capri in Italy, both for health reasons and to escape the increasingly repressive times in Russia.  
  An amnesty for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty saw him return to Russia in 1914. His politics remained close to the Bolshevik cause.  But soon, after the 1918 revolution, his essays referred to Lenin as a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression.  He was soon appealing to the outside world for food aid after the catastrophic crop failure. 
  In October 1921 Gorky returned to Italy, now in Fascist hands, and settled in Sorrento until 1932.  His health worsened with the onset of tuberculosis. 
  He wrote several successful books there but now decided to find an understanding with the communist regime. Stalin invited him home and his return was hailed as a major propaganda victory.  He was decorated with the Order of Lenin, and a province, a park, and various streets re-named in his honour. 
  But he had his faults too.  In 1933, Gorky co-edited a book on the White Sea-Baltic Canal and denied even a single prisoner died during its construction, but thousands had. As well, knowing that some Nazis were homosexual, a phrase was attributed to him that said ‘exterminate all homosexuals and fascism will vanish’.  Although he was himself was quoting another he was decidedly homophobic. 
  With the increase of Stalinist repression in 1935 Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest. 
  Maxim Gorky died on the 18th June 1936 from pneumonia.  He was 68. 
  Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's urn of ashes at his funeral.

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  The Tree

  H. P. Lovecraft

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  Title: The Tree 
  Author: H. P. Lovecraft 
  Narrator: Jonathan Dunne 
  Original Publication: 1921 
  Public Domain: Yes 
  Series Placement: Number 33 in the Timeless Terrors series 
  Description: 
  The Tree by H. P. Lovecraft is a haunting parable of art, envy, and the quiet vengeance of nature — a story where beauty and death grow from the same root. Set in ancient Greece, it tells of two sculptors, Musides and Kalos, whose friendship and creative genius draw the admiration of all who know them. Yet when jealousy, death, and strange growths intertwine, the boundaries between art and decay dissolve into something both poetic and terrible. 
  Lovecraft’s tale departs from his usual cosmic scale to reveal horror in the natural and the human — a mythic meditation on pride, mortality, and the price of creative rivalry. Beneath its serene surface lies a creeping inevitability, where the living and the dead are bound by the same relentless cycle. 
  Narrated by horror author Jonathan Dunne, this performance evokes the story’s classical rhythm and tragic atmosphere — the stillness of marble, the whisper of leaves, and the final, inescapable judgment of the earth itself. While the text itself is in the public domain, this narration is an original performance and copyright © 2025 Jonathan Dunne. 
  Part of Timeless Terrors, a series dedicated to resurrecting the great voices of the uncanny, The Tree stands as a tale of eerie beauty and timeless punishment — where the roots of envy reach far deeper than the grave. 
  Prepare for a story carved in stone and shadow, where art becomes epitaph and the living are outlasted by what they create.

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  Will You Read This Please?:...

  Joanna Cannon

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  ‘Moving and vital’ i NEWS 
  ‘A beautiful book’ EVENING STANDARD 
  ‘Deserves to be read by as wide an audience as possible’ DAILY MIRROR 
  How do we give a voice to those who so often remain unheard? Will You Read This, Please? is a frank and impactful collection of twelve stories written in conjunction with our best British writers, including Tracy Chevalier and Clare Mackintosh, based on the lived experience of people who have faced mental illness in the UK. 
  Edited by Sunday Times bestselling author Joanna Cannon, the stories told here are powerful, resonant and heart-breaking. This is a ground-breaking and unforgettable collection, shining a light on the stigma and isolation of living with mental illness, while also showing the strength and resilience of the human spirit. 
  The anthology, curated by the Sunday Times bestselling author, Joanna Cannon, is a top pick in the literary fiction genre. It provides a biographical insight into the medical struggles of mental illness, making it a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the human spirit's resilience. 
  For fans of Elizabeth Strout (Tell Me Everything), Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin), Rachel Joyce (The Homemade God), Marianne Cronin (Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love), and Clare Leslie Hall (Broken Country). 
  HarperCollins 2023

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  One Hand Screaming - 20 Haunting...

  Mark Leslie

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  "A wonderfully weird gallop through nightmare country. Dark, often hilarious, twisted, and filled with magic. Loved every single story" 
  - Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of NecroTek and The Dragon in Winter 
  For centuries, philosophers have pondered the Zen Buddhist koan: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" What, then, is the sound of one hand screaming? 
  Within these stories you will find . . .a bookstore that keeps more than dusty old tomes on its shelves . . .a phantom limb that can reach into the next world . . .the exquisite taste of a book-aged skull . . .a comic that colors people's lives with terror . . .graves unable to hold their wares . . .a collector of haunted artifacts who gets more than he bargains for . . .a deserted northern highway that brings back a man's worst childhood fears . . .bogeymen, anthropomorphic terrors, and more . . . 
  In 2004 Mark Leslie released his first collection of chilling fiction and disturbing poetry in a volume called One Hand Screaming. Twenty years later, this special anniversary edition that is more than twice as long as the original includes all the stories and poems from the first edition plus new ones published in the past twenty years along with all new pieces crafted specifically for this volume. This collection includes previously published award-nominees alongside original and never-before published works. 
    
  This haunting collection of tales read by Mark Leslie, Eric Bryan Moore, Scott Overton, Aaron Fors, Chris Humphreys, and Shaun Smith are sure to bring a delicious shiver to any fan of The Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, and Black Mirror. If, that is, you're interested in opening your imagination to the sound of those silent screams.

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  A Legend - From their pens to...

  Alexander Kuprin

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  Alexander Kuprin was born in Narovchat, Penza in Russia on 7th September 1870. 
  At 3 his Father died and he and mother moved to Moscow. By 10 he was enrolled at the Second Moscow Military High School and there his interest in literature began. The Alexander Military Academy followed and two years later he was a sub-lieutenant and posted to an Infantry Regiment for a further four years. 
  Despite his duties he was a now a keen writer and published his first short story at this time. His military duties also garnered him experiences for his breakthrough work ‘The Duel’.  Leaving the military he left for Kiev to work for local newspapers.  He continued to publish both stories and novels and by 1901 he was in St Petersburg becoming part of a group that included Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreyev.  
  In the years that followed further controversial works and acclaim followed.  His comments on the regime meant he was also put under secret police surveillance.   
  As World War I erupted, Kuprin opened a military hospital but was then given command of an infantry company in Finland. He was soon discharged on grounds of ill health.  
  The October Revolution saw him praise Lenin, but he warned that the Bolsheviks threatened Russian culture and might cause further widespread suffering to the peasants.  As Civil War raged he took his family to Helsinki and then on to Paris. 
  Exile saw his talents decline further and his succumbing to alcoholism. He became lonely and withdrawn. The family's poverty increased his malaise.   
  In May 1937, the Kuprin’s returned to Moscow.  He now saw his work published but wrote almost nothing new.  In 1938 his health rapidly deteriorated.  Already suffering from a kidney problems and sclerosis, he had now developed cancer of the oesophagus.  
  Alexander Kuprin died on 25th August 1938.

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  The Second Customer and the...

  Fergus Hume

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  Written in the Victorian era, a smart, attractive and resourceful Gypsy pawn shop owner named Hagar, clears an innocent person framed for murder.

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