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  Bedtime Stories For Adults -...

  Oscar Wilde

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  As a child being read to was one of the greatest joys imaginable.  A loved one would start a tale whilst you were all cosy warm in bed with the lights nodding off.  Anything could happen but sleep would come and dreams would start and all was good with the world.  Adults too long for reassurance, for comfort, for calm.  Sometimes they may get that.  But with classic authors such as Oscar Wilde, O Henry, Saki, Rabindranath Tagore and many others they may not.  Expect the unexpected. 
   
  1 - Bedtime Stories for Adults  - An Introduction 
  2 - Kabuliwallah by Rabindranath Tagore 
  3 - Springtime a la Carte by O Henry 
  4 - Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf 
  5 - Speed by Sinclair Lewis 
  6 - Tobermory by Saki 
  7 - The Ransom of Red Chief by O Henry 
  8 - The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde 
  9 - The Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather 
  10 - Transients in Arcadia by O Henry 
  11 - An Angel in Disguise by T S Arthur 
  12 - The Skylight Room by O Henry 
  13 - The Magic Shop by H G Wells 
  14 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry 
  15 - The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde 
  16 - The Great Good Place by Henry James

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  A Model Crime - From their pens...

  William Pett Ridge

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  William Pett Ridge was born at Chartham, near Canterbury, Kent, on 22nd April 1859.  
  His family’s resources were certainly limited. His father was a railway porter, and the young Pett Ridge, after schooling in Marden, Kent became a clerk in a railway clearing-house. The hours were long and arduous, but self-improvement was Pett Ridge’s goal.  After working from nine until seven o’clock he would attend evening classes at Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institute and then to follow his passion; the ambition to write.  He was heavily influenced by Dickens and several critics thought he had the capability to be his successor.  
  From 1891 many of his humourous sketches were published in the St James's Gazette, the Idler, Windsor Magazine and other literary periodicals of the day. 
  Pett Ridge published his first novel in 1895, A Clever Wife. By the advent of his fifth novel, Mord Em'ly, a mere three years later in 1898, his success was obvious.  His writing was written from the perspective of those born with no privilege and relied on his great talent to find humour and sympathy in his portrayal of working class life. 
  Today Pett Ridge and other East End novelists including Arthur Nevinson, Arthur Morrison and Edwin Pugh are being grouped together as the Cockney Novelists.   
  In 1924, Pugh set out his recollections of Pett Ridge from the 1890s: “I see him most clearly, as he was in those days, through a blue haze of tobacco smoke. We used sometimes to travel together from Waterloo to Worcester Park on our way to spend a Saturday afternoon and evening with H. G. Wells. Pett Ridge does not know it, but it was through watching him fill his pipe, as he sat opposite me in a stuffy little railway compartment, that I completed my own education as a smoker... Pett Ridge had a small, dark, rather spiky moustache in those days, and thick, dark, sleek hair which is perhaps not quite so thick or dark, though hardly less sleek nowadays than it was then”. 
  With his success, on the back of his prolific output and commercial success, Pett Ridge gave generously of both time and money to charity. In 1907 he founded the Babies Home at Hoxton.  This was one of several organisations that he supported that had the welfare of children as their mission.  
  His circle considered Pett Ridge to be one of life's natural bachelors. In 1909 they were rather surprised therefore when he married Olga Hentschel.  
  As the 1920’s arrived Pett Ridge added to his popularity with the movies. Four of his books were adapted into films.  
  Pett Ridge now found the peak of his fame had passed. Although he still managed to produce a book a year he was falling out of fashion and favour with the reading public and his popularity declined rapidly.  His canon runs to over sixty novels and short-story collections as well as many pieces for magazines and periodicals. 
  William Pett Ridge died, on 29th September 1930, at his home, Ampthill, Willow Grove, Chislehurst, at the age of 71. 
  He was cremated at West Norwood on 2nd October 1930.

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  Gauntlets and Conches - A Short...

  Gordon Bonnet, Marlon S Hayes

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  Since the beginning of human interaction, there have been storytellers who have spun tales to inspire and capture the imagination. In homage to Golding's Lord of the Flies and the act of flinging a gauntlet before a duel, these two writers, Gordon Bonnet, and Marlon S. Hayes, have shown their multi-genre talents. 
  Two guys in a bar, grandmas, fathers and sons, and myths are a few of the themes in this collection, and the results are noteworthy, entertaining, and soul filling. What if an opportunity arose to have a conversation with one's younger self? Or, what if the pictures on the wall started whispering warnings? Ever imagined how an orc might view humans? What about an epic road trip across America's heartland where anger and grief also ride along? Exactly. 
  It's a duel of well-written short stories, with each writer inspiring the other to continue to ascend with their storytelling skills. It's not a competition, simply an acknowledgement of each other's talents.

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  Zombie Santa Claus: Axe Murderer...

  Astrid Addams

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  Zombie Santa Claus: Axe Murderer Edition 
  It was Christmas Eve and the twins wanted to go and see Santa Claus. Mother wasn’t sure, but they’d been so good lately hadn’t they? After all, what was the worst that could happen? 
  Have you been naughty or nice? 
  Be warned because the naughty will be punished and only the weak scream. 
  Have you said something you shouldn’t have? 
  Be warned because Snitches get Gifted! 
  All author proceeds are being donated to Bacchus Residents Rescue.

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  Too Early

  Anton Chekhov

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  The story takes place in the village of Shalmovo, where two peasant sportsmen, Filimon Slyunka and Ignat Ryabov, are sitting in a pothouse turned restaurant. Slyunka is an old man who used to be a house-serf and now lives off his old wife's alms. Ryabov is a silent, sturdy peasant. Slyunka and Ryabov are trying to convince the innkeeper, Semyon Mitritch, to give them a gun that they had left as collateral. Semyon refuses, citing the Lenten season and the lack of game. Despite their pleas and promises to return the gun, Semyon remains firm in his decision. Slyunka and Ryabov leave the tavern and decide to go stand-shooting in the forest, hoping to find snipe. They walk to the forest, but find no snipe and decide to wait another five days before trying again. The story ends with the sportsmen walking home in silence. Overall, the story portrays a slice of rural life and explores themes of poverty, longing, and the connection between humans and nature.

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  The Wild Birds - Six Stories of...

  Wendell Berry

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  "Berry is a superb writer. His sense of what makes characters tick is extraordinary . . . Short stories don't get any better than these." —People 
   
   
   
  As part of Counterpoint's celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry comes this reissue of his 1986 classic, The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership. Those stories include "Thicker Than Liquor," "Where Did They Go?," "It Wasn't Me," "The Boundary," "That Distant Land," and the titular "The Wild Birds." 
   
   
   
  Spanning more than three decades, from 1930 to 1967, these wonderful stories follow Wheeler Catlett, and reintroduce listeners to the beloved people who live in Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.

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