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  The Mirror of the Sea

  Joseph Conrad

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  "Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces that, friendly to-day, without changing their nature, by the mere putting forth of their might, become dangerous to-morrow, make for that sense of fellowship which modern seamen, good men as they are, cannot hope to know." In this volume of essays, more than in any other single work, we get to see clearly just what Joseph Conrad's years working on sail-powered ships meant to him — and they certainly meant a great deal to him, for all Conrad's subsequent fretting that he might be typed as "only" a writer of the sea. This collection is particularly renowned for the lengthy episode titled "The Tremolino", where Conrad gives us, in the character of the real-world Dominic, the model of his fictional Nostromo, as well as an account of personalities and gun-running activities he would later depict in "The Arrow of Gold".

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  Borrowed Time

  Jack Campbell

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  A collection of seven time-bending sci-fi stories by the author of the New York Times–bestselling Lost Fleet series—with new author’s notes for each story. 
   
  In “Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms,” a pair of time travelers get stuck in 1964—and in the bodies of their fifteen-year-old selves. It’s a terrible time to have other time travelers looking to kill you. SFRevu called this story “one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in a long time.” 
   
  In four interlinked short stories, a pair of Temporal Interventionists try to solve some of history’s greatest mysteries—from the origin of the Spanish Flu to an unexplained explosion in the world’s least-inhabited region in 1908. Why were ironclad warships being developed by both the South and the North at the exact same time during the American Civil War? And why don’t we know who fired the ‘shot heard ’round the world,’ the lone gunshot that started the American Revolution? 
   
  In “Joan,” a time-traveling researcher named Kate has gotten a little too close to Joan of Arc, both emotionally and temporally—and now has a chance to rescue her from being burnt at the stake. And in the final story, “Crow’s Feat,” a skeptical writer goes back to Elizabethan England to discover the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.

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  The Silver Mountain

  Maurice Baring

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  Maurice Baring (1874-1945) was an English short story writer, children's writer, novelist, travel writer and war correspondent during the First World War. The Silver Mountain is a fairy story about a king who sends his three sons on a quest. They are to search for the silver mountain. Whichever one of them finds it will inherit the kingdom. But they soon discover that everyone out in the world seems to be looking for the silver mountain, and nobody knows where it is.

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  Bran Mak Morn - The Last King

  Robert E. Howard

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  From Robert E. Howard's fertile imagination sprang some of fiction's greatest heroes, including Conan the Cimmerian, King Kull, and Solomon Kane. But of all Howard's characters, none embodied his creator's brooding temperament more than Bran Mak Morn, the last king of a doomed race.In ages past, the Picts ruled all of Europe. But the descendants of those proud conquerors have sunk into barbarism...all save one: Bran Mak Morn, whose bloodline remains unbroken. Threatened by the Celts and the Romans, the Pictish tribes rally under his banner to fight for their very survival, while Bran fights to restore the glory of his race.This collection gathers together all of Howard's published stories featuring Bran Mak Morn: "Men of the Shadows," "Kings of the Night," "A Song of the Race," "Worms of the Earth," "The Dark Man," and "The Lost Race."

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  Chelkash by Maxim Gorky - A...

  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.  
   
  In Gorky’s story, a thief, Chelkash, ensnares a young man into his scheme to steal silk from a ship.  When he then sells the stolen goods he is set upon by the young accomplice.  What happens then is as unexpected as it is remarkable.

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  The Pursuing Shadow

  Andrew Soutar

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  Andrew Soutar (1879-1941) was a British author and journalist best known for his novels and short stories.'The Pursuing Shadow' is the story of Spatz, an unscrupulous and self-absorbed businessman who has left a trail of devastation behind him in the form of destroyed business partners, one of who lost an arm as a result of a suicide attempt when cheated by Spatz. But karma catches up with everyone, and the amputee finally returns to find Spatz at the precise moment of his own downfall.

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