Other books that might interest you

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  Listen to the Voice

  Iain Crichton Smith

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  These eighteen short stories by the Scottish poet and author of Consider the Lilies “focus on the ambiguities of the inner voice . . . with moments of searing emotion” (Independent on Sunday, UK). This collection of the best of Iain Crichton Smith’s short fiction beckons us to listen, not only to the voice of this impeccable author, but to the many voices, both public and private, that he conjures in his characters. Ranging from inner promptings towards self-discovery to the unconscious comedy of everyday speech and even the rantings of near madness, these stories display the peaks of Smith’s wry, surrealistic humor, and his confessional mode in examining the past. The longer stories, illustrative of Smith’s novels, are represented by ‘Murdo’ and the seminal ‘The Black and the Red’. There are also outstanding short pieces such as ‘Listen to the Voice’ and the poignant vignette, ‘The Dying’. This edition of Listen to the Voice includes an introduction by Douglas Gifford.“He has a dry pungent humor, a gift for comic invention and a welcome ability to laugh at himself and his background while making a serious point and taking us to conclusions that are anything but obvious.” —The Scotsman, UK

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  Just So Stories

  Rudyard Kipling

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  The Just So Stories for Little Children, first published in 1902, were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. They are a collection of fantastic stories, typically about how various animals came to be the way they are today. (Summary by Reynard with help from Wikipedia)

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  Goodman's Child

  Stuart Wakefied

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  "Moire stood in the croft house’s porch, watching Goodman leave, plotting her escape. 
  His boots—thick leather the colour of oak, paler at the toe and heel—crunched in the shoal of pebbles he’d salvaged from the shore behind the house. A slab of grass, the dry stone wall, then the shore. And then… 
  Moire had long since given up wondering what lay beyond the wall that marked the perimeter of her understanding because, once lured there by Goodman, she’d never been able to leave. A prison formed from Goodman’s lies. 
  For seven years, Moire’s thoughts returned to the sea’s powerful protection and of a freedom she hadn’t known in all those years." 
  Praise for Goodman's Child:  
  "It's beautifully written and observed on many different levels - from the descriptions of the Orkney landscape, to Moire's emotions, to making folklore a reality - it just flows and I love it!" – Kate Tenbeth, author of Burly & Grum and Unlucky Dip.  
  "…a thoughtful, beautifully written tale that evokes Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' or, perhaps more closely, Roger McGough's wonderful poem 'Angel Wings'" – Mark Watkins, co-author of Keeping Mum.

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  Angel in the Parlor - Five...

  Nancy Willard

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  This delightful collection brings together five short stories and eight essays on writing by Newbery Medal–winning author Nancy WillardNancy Willard’s gift for bringing out the whimsical in all of us illuminates this memorable anthology.“ ‘Who Invented Water?’ ” celebrates the craft and magic of creating children’s books. In “Becoming a Writer,” Willard admits she dislikes giving and receiving advice. She prefers telling a story, with real-life characters ranging from members of her own family to Jane Austen, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Charles Dickens on stilts. “The Well-tempered Falsehood” explores the fabulist art of storytelling; “The Rutabaga Lamp” is a dreamy, delightful riff on how to read and write fairy tales.   In an autobiographical piece, “Her Father’s House,” Erica, Theo, and their three-year-old son travel home for the funeral of Erica’s father. As the whole family gathers, the heroine is hit with an onslaught of memories, Willard style. “The Tailor Who Told the Truth” is Morgon Axel, who tells nothing but lies . . . until the day a wild boar comes into his shop.  This ebook includes an introduction by Robert Pack, former director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

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  Desiree's Baby

  Kate Chopin

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  Desiree's Baby BY Kate Chopin is about the daughter of Monsieur and Madame Valmondé, who are wealthy French Creoles in antebellum Louisiana. Abandoned as a baby, Desiree was found by Monsieur Valmondé lying in the shadow of a stone pillar near the Valmondé gateway. She is courted by the son of another wealthy, well-known and respected French Creole family, Armand. They marry and have a child. People who see the baby have the sense it is different. Eventually they realize that the baby's skin is the same color as a quadroon (one-quarter African)—the baby has African ancestry. At the time of the story, this would have been considered a problem for a person believed to be white.

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  The Mysteries of London Vol 1 of 4

  George W. M. Reynolds

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  The Mysteries of London is a penny dreadful or city mysteries novel begun by George W. M. Reynolds in 1844. Reynolds wrote the first two series of this long-running narrative of life in the seedy underbelly of mid-nineteenth-century London. Thomas Miller wrote the third series and Edward L. Blanchard wrote the fourth series of this immensely popular title. Michael Angelo in Penny Dreadfuls and Other Victorian Horrors writes: Reynolds had read Eugene Sue while in Paris and was particularly impressed by his novel Les Mystères de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris). It inspired Reynolds to write and publish a penny part serial The Mysteries of London (1845), in which he paralleled Sue's tale of vice, depravity, and squalor in the Parisian slums with a sociological story contrasting the vice and degradation of London working-class life with the luxury and debaucheries of the hedonistic upper crust. An early socialist and a Chartist sympathizer, Reynolds had a genuine social conscience, and he contrived to stitch into the pages of his books diatribes against social evils and class inequities. (79) Instalments were published weekly and contained a single illustration and eight pages of text printed in double columns. The weekly numbers were later bound in cloth covers with a fresh title page and table of contents and offered as complete works of fiction. After Reynolds quit The Mysteries of London, he began a new title: The Mysteries of the Court of London, which ran from 1848 until 1856.

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