Other books that might interest you

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  The Goophered Grapevine

  Charles W. Chesnutt

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  The Goophered Grapevine is the first short story from The Conjure Woman, published in The Atlantic in August 1887, told to the narrator by Julius McAdoo, a former enslaved man who lives on the plantation that the narrator, John, and his wife, Annie, visit one day. Set in Patesville, North Carolina, John and Annie moved there for an improvement in his wife's health and to seek other business opportunities. Knowing that the couple wanted to purchase the property, McAdoo advises them not to do so, informing them that when Dugal McAdoo, the previous master, purchased the property, it was very rich in wine production because of its vineyards. To protect his grapes from being stolen, Master McAdoo consulted with a conjure woman, Aunt Peggy, who placed a curse on the vineyard and warned the slaves that whoever stole them, would die within a year. Henry, a new slave, did not know of the curse, and when he ate the grapes, he was cursed to age when the leaves of the vines withered and once the vines died, so did Henry. Suffering the loss of his slaves and his vineyard, Master McAdoo left the vineyard abandoned after the war to the current state in which the couple found it. McAdoo warns the couple against purchasing the property due to it still being cursed, but the narrator buys the vineyard regardless.

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  Life in Ten Chapters

  Stewart Scott

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  This series of stories address everyday issues sympathetically and with excellent character development whilst depicting people which many readers will identify with as the storylines are creatively and skillfully intertwined.  This eclectic collection of stories expresses all of the human emotions of the characters with great sensitivity and with pathos.

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  Imaginative Woman An - From...

  Thomas Hardy

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  Thomas Hardy was born in the hamlet of Upper Bockhampton about three miles east of Dorchester in Dorset, England, on 2nd June 1840.  
  Despite a fairly wide education and being an avid reader his parents thought it unlikely he would lead a successful scholarly or clerical career and he was apprenticed in 1856, at age 16, to a local architect whose speciality was in church restoration.  Hardy’s only opportunity to read was in the morning before work between the hours of five and eight.  
  On the back of a failed love affair he moved to London and spent five years working as an assistant to the architect Arthur Blomfield, also a restorer and designer of churches. Hardy though had by now become disillusioned with institutionalised forms of Christianity and abandoned any lingering hopes of ordination in the Anglican Church.  However, his writing of poetry was now flourishing, although it was still rejected for publication.  
  His novel ‘Desperate Remedies’, was published anonymously in 1871 and he now resolved to write full time though he was not yet in a position to achieve financial security or literary success. His second novel, ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’, appeared in 1872 and in 1873 ‘A Pair of Blue Eyes’, the most autobiographical of his works arrived. With ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ in 1874, came critical acclaim, public attention and financial success. This was repeated in 1878 with ‘The Return of the Native’, and the ensuing years saw him rise to ever greater popularity.  
  His classic ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ arrived in 1886 and 5 years later ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’. The latter only saw publication after extensive alterations to its plot and the deletion of long passages to lessen the shock to the prudish Victorian audience who were dismayed by the seduction and ruin of a young girl by a rakish aristocrat.  
  ‘Jude the Obscure’, his last novel, suffered the same fate when it was published in 1895.  The uproar so disturbed him that he returned to poetry. In 1898 he had an earlier poetry collection, ‘Wessex Poems’ published. 
  Hardy spent the years between 1903 and 1908 writing ‘The Dynasts’, an epic poem on the Napoleonic Wars. 
  In his twilight years came honours and awards from the great and the good in recognition of his stature as one of the most outstanding of British authors across novels, short stories and poetry. George V conferred on him the Order of Merit in 1910. 
  From 1920 to 1927 he worked, in secret, on his autobiography, which was later published after his death as the work of his second wife, Florence Hardy.  
  Thomas Hardy OM died on the 11th January 1928. 
  His heart was buried alongside his first wife in Stinsford churchyard, Dorchester.

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  The Beautiful and Damned

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  The Beautiful and Damned is a powerful and haunting novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that explores the glamour, excess, and moral decay of America's Jazz Age. First published in 1922, the novel traces the rise and fall of a young, privileged couple whose lives are shaped by wealth, ambition, and self-indulgence.
  
  Anthony Patch, a Harvard graduate and heir to a vast fortune, and his wife Gloria Gilbert, a stunning and spirited socialite, embody beauty, confidence, and youthful promise. Together, they drift through a world of parties, luxury, and idle dreams, convinced that success and happiness are inevitable. Yet as the years pass, their reliance on inherited wealth and fleeting pleasure begins to erode their sense of purpose, discipline, and love.
  
  Through lyrical prose and sharp social observation, Fitzgerald examines themes of greed, entitlement, marriage, and the corrosive effects of materialism. The novel exposes the emptiness beneath a life devoted to pleasure and the quiet tragedy of wasted potential. As Anthony and Gloria wait for fortune to secure their future, time slips away, revealing the devastating cost of complacency and moral neglect.
  
  The Beautiful and Damned is both a romantic tragedy and a biting critique of a generation intoxicated by wealth and status. Rich in emotional depth and psychological insight, the novel stands as one of Fitzgerald's most honest portrayals of the Jazz Age and remains a timeless meditation on ambition, love, and the consequences of living without purpose.

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  The Men Return

  Jack Vance

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  The Men Return by Jack Vance is a haunting science fiction novella about survival in a shattered reality where logic, nature, and humanity itself have been distorted. As one of the last Relicts, Finn must navigate a world of strange Organisms, collapsing order, and the fragile hope of rebuilding civilization.

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  The Pigeon - and other Stories

  E.B. Harding

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  Some questions never announce themselves. 
   
  A pigeon on a distant ledge. 
   
  A mind that begins to drift away from itself. 
   
  The lingering scent of lavender that refuses to let the past remain buried. 
   
  In these three quietly unsettling stories, E.B. Harding explores the fragile space between ordinary moments and the profound questions they awaken. 
   
  In The Pigeon, an ordinary morning becomes the beginning of an unexpected existential journey when a young web designer becomes inexplicably obsessed with a pigeon perched on a building across the street. As the bird disappears—and later returns—he is forced to confront uncertainty, anxiety, and the uncomfortable realization that life cannot always be explained. 
   
  In Dissociate, reality itself begins to fracture as memory, identity, and perception slowly separate. What begins as a subtle unease grows into a deeply personal exploration of consciousness and the fear of becoming a stranger to yourself. 
   
  In Lavender, a familiar scent unlocks emotions that have waited quietly beneath the surface for years, revealing how memory can comfort, deceive, and ultimately reshape who we are. 
   
  Written with restraint, warmth, and quiet humor, these stories examine the moments most people overlook—the conversations, routines, and ordinary encounters that unexpectedly reveal something essential about being human. 
   
  For readers who enjoy thoughtful literary fiction, psychological fiction, and contemplative stories in the tradition of writers such as Raymond Carver, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Fredrik Backman, The Pigeon and Other Stories is a meditation on identity, memory, love, and the search for meaning in everyday life.

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