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  The Golden Apples

  Eudora Welty

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  This collection of short stories of the Mississippi Delta by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author is “a work of art” (The New York Times Book Review).   Here in Morgana, Mississippi, the young dream of other places; the old can tell you every name on every stone in the cemetery on the town’s edge; and cuckolded husbands and love-starved piano teachers share the same paths. It’s also where one neighbor has disappeared on the horizon, slipping away into local legend.   Black and white, lonely and the gregarious, sexually adventurous and repressed, vengeful and resigned, restless and settled, the vividly realized characters that make up this collection of interrelated stories, with elements drawn from ancient myth and transplanted to the American South, prove that this National Book Award–winning writer, as Katherine Anne Porter once wrote, had “an ear sharp, shrewd, and true as a tuning fork.”   “I doubt that a better book about ‘the South’—one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life, and its special tone and pattern—has ever been written.” —The New Yorker

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  The Great Carbuncle

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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   This tale follows eight individuals all searching for the Great Carbuncle, a legendary red gemstone. These wildly disparate individuals camp together one night in the White Mountains, united by their shared desire for the stone. Each wants it for a different reason, though: fulfilment, knowledge, wealth, skepticism, inspiration, posterity, utility. The next morning, they all part ways to continue their quest, but who will be the first to the stone? 

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  The Friend of Women and Other...

  Louis Auchincloss

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  Short fiction examining the mysteries of human character, from a New York Times–bestselling author acclaimed as “among the best in American literature” (Kirkus Reviews).   In the title story, a teacher at a private girls’ school ruminates on a long career, wondering if he was right to encourage his students to find a life less constrained than the conventional one prescribed to them—or if he cruelly raised unrealistic expectations. In “The Country Cousin,” a delightful one-act play, a wealthy woman’s dependent niece unwittingly serves as the vehicle that reveals her rich relatives’ self-involvement. Ranging from a boyhood friendship tested by the fabrications of the McCarthy era to an Episcopal priest tormented by an autocratic headmaster, Louis Auchincloss’s fiction illuminates the complications that ensue when our perceptions of other people’s natures—as well as our own—are upended.   Praised by the Los Angeles Times as a writer “committed to examining the complicated layers of character, psychology, and society,” Louis Auchincloss presents a treasure trove of short fiction that showcases both his insight and his literary talent.

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  Washington Irving in London

  Washington Irving

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  Washington Irving's name is synonymous with such classics as "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  He established himself as one of early America's most treasured writers. His wit and satirical voice are the hallmark of his writing. Irving had the extraordinary ability to paint a picture in words on the canvas of the printed page. Although an American, he spent a good deal of time traveling in England and memorializing his experiences in some of the essays chosen for this collection.  With an emphasis on his time spent in London, the works include his observations on such diverse subjects as Westminster Abbey, British antiques and how one spends a Sunday in London.  This collection brings to life the London of a bygone era as seen through the eyes of a keen writer and observer of life.  - Summary by Greg Giordano

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  The Gift of the Magi

  O. Henry

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  The Gift of the Magi is an O. Henry short story in which a young couple are very much in love with each other but can barely afford their one-room apartment. For Christmas, they each make a sacrifice to purchase a gift for the other, with ironic results. 
  The moral of the story is that physical possessions, however valuable they may be, are of little value in the grand scheme of things. The true unselfish love that the characters, Jim and Della, share is greater than their possessions.  
  O. Henry ends the story by clarifying the metaphor between the characters in the story, Della and James (or Jim), and the Biblical Magi. The Gift of the Magi features O. Henry's characteristic twist ending and use of flowery diction.(Summary adapted from Wikipedia.org)

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  Lilac

  Hugh Walpole

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  Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day.Lilac is a multilayered tale of a marriage proposal. Frederick Anstey, an art dealer, asks his beloved Lily Brocket to marry him. But she is in a hurry to get away, as her Aunt Clara has appeared from out of town, and she promises to write him a letter by ten that evening to give her reply.In the intervening hours, as Frederick is tormented by doubts, he meets a series of his neighbours, each of whom sheds a different light on possible outcomes of his proposal to Lily.

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