Other books that might interest you

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  The Snowstorm - Author of War &...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses.  Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place.  Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War.  He was commended for his bravery and promoted but was appalled at the brutality and loss of life.  He recorded these and other earlier experiences in his diaries which formed the basis of several of his works. 
   
  In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. 
   
  His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’. After the war he travelled around Europe, visiting London and Paris and meeting such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.  
   
  It was now that Tolstoy began his masterpiece, ‘War and Peace’. Published in 1869 it was an epic work that changed literature. He quickly followed this with ‘Anna Karenina’.  
   
  These successes made Tolstoy rich and helped him accomplish many of his dreams but also brought problems as he grappled with his faith and the lot of the oppressed poor. These revolutionary views became so popular that the authorities now kept him under surveillance.  
   
  He led a life of asceticism and vegetarianism and put his socialist ideals into practice by establishing numerous schools for the poor and food programmes. He also believed in giving away his wealth, which caused much discord with his wife.  
   
  His writing continued to bring forth classics such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and many brilliant and incisive short stories such as ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’.  
   
  In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church and controversially deselected for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
   
  Whilst undertaking a pilgrimage by train in October 1910 with his daughter Aleksandra he caught pneumonia in the nearby town of Astapovo.  Leo Tolstoy died on November 9th, 1910, he was 82. 
   
  In this much acclaimed short story Tolstoy’s characters are engulfed by a huge snowstorm which descends upon them and puts the successful conclusion of their journey into perilous doubt.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edgar...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  In this small corner of the United States there is to be found a part of America that is both recognizable and yet distinct and of itself.  Whilst others pushed Westward these authors found much amongst their experiences that detailed and charted the world around them.  These are their stories. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - US Authors of New England - An Introduction 
  2 - The Yellow Wall Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
  3 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 
  4 - The Color Out of Space by H P Lovecraft 
  5 - Conversation on Conversation by Harriet Beecher Stowe 
  6 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  7 - The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell 
  8 - A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett 
  9 - The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale 
  10 - A Responsibility by Henry Harland 
  11 - A New England Nun by Mary E Wilkins Freeman

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  In Love

  D H Lawrence

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  ‘In Love’ handles a serious subject in a light, almost comic way. A couple are engaged but have no  sexual feelings for each other. The tensions, as they try to do what is expected of them, explode until a compromise is reached. But will the marriage last?

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  Sheridan Le Fanu - Six of the...

  Sheridan Le Fanu

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  Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. 
   
  Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. 
   
  In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. 
   
  These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master.

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  The Cone

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is credited as being the father of science fiction.'The Cone' is a sinister story of betrayal, revenge, murder and horror. The ironmaster who manages the huge blast furnaces outside Newcastle shows the friend who has betrayed him with his own wife around the ironworks. A very dangerous environment to be alone with an enemy....

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  Backwater Haven

  Steven Becker

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  Will the boom in Miami turn into a bust for Biscayne Bay? 
  Skyrocketing boat sales have made the waters of South Florida increasingly dangerous by turning quiet backwater coves into venues for huge sandbar parties—and not everyone is there for a good time. Along with the fun-seeking crowds comes the worst elements of Miami society. When a boat is found adrift in the national park with the body of a DEA agent aboard, Special Agent Kurt Hunter is caught in the crossfire between the city’s seedy underbelly and the natural habitat he’s sworn to protect. 
  To solve the murder, Kurt must investigate the in-crowd, only to find the case leads him deep into the sometimes dark history of the park’s out-islands. To make matters worse, he’s once again forced to navigate the political maze of the warring agencies involved. 
  In Backwater Haven, you’ll find the colorful characters, tropical locations, Florida history, and marine action that readers have come to expect in the Kurt Hunter Mysteries series.

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