Publisher: Open Road Media
More of Daniel Stern’s celebrated updates to classic talesThe stories of One Day’s Perfect Weather are original, but they flirt enchantingly with classic prose, poetry, and music. Inspired by sources as diverse as Robert Frost and Johann Sebastian Bach, Stern spins luminous short fiction that honors and expands upon its inspirations.
A selection of stories to entertain 5 Minute Short Stories for Children by Beatrix PotterShow book
This 1980s Carolina coast thriller “channels all the danger, intrigue, and thrills of a pirate’s life at sea for a twentieth-century criminal mystery” (Forward Reviews).On an old sailboat named for his departed wife—as well as a legendary pirate—criminal justice professor Hershel Barstow is saying his final goodbye with a trip through the North Carolina Intercoastal Waterway. He expects his solo trip aboard the Anne Bonny to be a quiet one. Then the mysterious and seductive Maggie Adelaide Moore appears in the water and climbs aboard. His reluctant offer to help the distressed woman soon brings trouble, entangling Hershel with a dangerous drug cartel. Now Hershel needs to call on old friends from his CIA days to stay safe and riddle out Maggie's mysterious past. In the weathered Anne Bonny, enemies could be lurking behind every river bend. Now Hershel must navigate his way through deadly waters on a quest for truth, safety, and justice.Show book
"Alyosha the Pot" is a short story written by Leo Tolstoy (1905) about the life and death of a simple, uncomplaining worker. It was published after Tolstoy's death in 1911 and received high praise from Tolstoy's contemporaries. Without ever calling Alyosha a holy fool, Tolstoy centers the story on his meekness, aloofness, and foolishness. Alyosha's simple life, soft-spoken manner, and calm acceptance of death epitomizes Tolstoyan principles.Show book
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on 11th November, 1821 to distinguished multi-ethnic parents from a Lithuanian background. His childhood years were at the family home in hospital grounds which also contained an orphanage, an insane asylum and a cemetery for criminals. The young Fyodor often disobeyed his father by talking to the ill in the hospital gardens. His health was compromised at age 9 when he experienced his first epileptic fit. By the time he was a teenager both parents had died and he was now enrolled in a military academy where he graduated and eventually became a Lieutenant in 1842. He left military service the next year. In 1846 he published his first novel ‘Poor Cow’ to great literary acclaim. His next was unable to emulate that success but his short stories helped provide an income. Life as an author was definitely difficult. As he began his next work he was arrested and incarcerated for treason and participation in the political and literary Petrashevsky Circle. Although the case was weak and unjustified he was sentenced to 4 years of hard labour followed by 5 years of military service in a Siberian regiment. Despite the undoubted hardships and setbacks in his life, and whether they helped or hindered his writing, his talents produced many exceptional works of literature including ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. Dostoevsky’s ability to get under the skin of his characters and show the inner workings of their mind was hugely influential and ahead of its time. Interwoven with this was the influence of the broader social, spiritual and political forces at work in a person's psyche. Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled financially and remained in poor health for much of his adult life. He died from a lung haemorrhage on 9th February, 1881. In the Crocodile a man is swallowed whole and through this Gogol explores themes and ideas that no other author would attempt. Absurdist genius.Show book
'The Undying Man' is a slight unfinished piece, drawing its inspiration from Shelley's 'Frankenstein' about the creation of life and the fear of death. It is interesting to speculate where Lawrence would have gone with the story but the sound of broken glass is the most likely ending.Show book
Dorothy Kathleen Broster was born on 2nd September 1877 at Devon Lodge in Grassendale Park, Garston, Liverpool. At 16, the family moved to Cheltenham, where she attended Cheltenham Ladies' College and then on to St Hilda’s College, Oxford to read history, where she was one of the first female students, although at this time women were not awarded degrees. Broster served as secretary to Charles Harding Firth, a Professor of History for several years, and collaborated on several of his works. Her first two novels were co-written with a college friend, Gertrude Winifred Taylor. With the Great War interrupting her literary ambitions she served as a Red Cross nurse at a Franco-American hospital, but returned to England with a knee infection in 1916. After the war, she moved near to Battle in East Sussex and took up writing full-time. In 1920 she at last received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Oxford. Her novels, mainly historical fiction, peaked in popularity with ‘The Flight of the Heron’, in 1925, a best-seller followed up by two sequels. As well as poetry and various articles she also wrote several short stories, the best known of which is a classic of weird fiction ‘The Couching at the Door’ in which an artist appears to be haunted by a mysterious entity. An intensely private individual many readers deduced from her name that she was both a man and Scottish. D K Broster died in Bexhill Hospital on 7th February 1950. She was 73.<Show book
