Other books that might interest you

• 

  Valley of Spiders The (Unabridged)

  H. G. Wells

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS: Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.

  Show book

• 

  The Gift of the Magi

  O. Henry

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This is a short story about a poor, young, married couple who both sell their most prized possession in order to purchase a holiday gift for the other. A lesson in sacrifice and the true meaning of giving is beautifully told in this classic tale with a heart wrenching ending.

  Show book

• 

  The Coin of Dionysius

  Ernest Bramah

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Ernest Bramah was born on 20th March 1868.  He was an intensely private man and very little about his life was ever released. 
   
  Bramah dropped out of Manchester Grammar school at sixteen, in almost all his subjects he was close to the bottom of his class, and took a job at a farm.  His father then invested substantial sums in setting him up with his own farm but Bramah’s long term interests were elsewhere. In his spare time he would write vignettes on local subjects and send them to The Birmingham News for publication. 
   
  In a now rather dramatic change of career he obtained the position of secretary to Jerome K Jerome and then to editing one of Jerome’s magazines.  Thereafter Bramah edited journals for a publishing firm that only ceased with its bankruptcy. 
   
  He obtained success in his own right with the creation of the storyteller Kai Lung with humourous tales set in China, usually laced with fantasy elements.  There seems to have been a certain vogue for stories with an oriental element at this time which Bramah was happy to take advantage of. 
   
  His career blossomed across many genres; in humour, science-fiction, and supernatural he was ranked with the very best of the day.  Even Orwell cited his work as an influence and as a predictor for the rise of Fascism and his own novel, 1984. 
   
  At a time when the English Channel had yet to be crossed by an aeroplane, Bramah foresaw aerial express trains traveling at 10,000 feet, a nationwide wireless-telegraphy network, fax machines and cypher writing typewriters similar to the German Enigma machine.   
   
  In 1914, Bramah created the blind detective Max Carrados. Despite the obvious obstacle to his deductive powers he was a literary and commercial success.   
   
  Ernest Bramah died in Weston-Super-Mare on 27th June 1942 at the age of 74.

  Show book

• 

  Vairagya Shatakam

  Bhartrhari

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Vairagya Shatakam is one of the best books that gives the true picture of Renunciation. The book talks on how a common man gets lured by the endless desires which when satisfied fetches him nothing but the desires again. It concludes saying how these unsatiable desires mislead the man from knowing his real nature-omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience! (Summary by Uday Sagar)

  Show book

• 

  Over an Absinthe Bottle

  W. C. Morrow

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  William Chambers Morrow (1854-1923) was an American writer, famous for his short stories of horror and suspense.'Over an Absinthe Bottle' is a peculiar horror story about a young man down and out in San Francisco who is slowly starving to death. Then he happens to meet a peculiar pale stranger who invites him to share a bottle of absinthe with him and then engages him in a terrifying game of dice, where the stakes rise with every throw....The tale takes a very strange turn at the end.

  Show book

• 

  The Age of Innocence

  Edith Wharton

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton's most famous novel, is a love story, written immediately after the end of the First World War. Its brilliant anatomization of the snobbery and hypocrisy of the wealthy elite of New York society in the 1870s made it an instant classic, and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. Newland Archer, Wharton's protagonist, is charming, tactful, enlightened-a thorough product of this society. He accepts its standards and abides by its rules, but he also recognizes its limitations. His engagement to the impeccable May Welland assures him of a safe and conventional future, until the arrival of May's cousin Ellen Olenska. Independent, free-thinking, and scandalously separated from her husband, Ellen forces Archer to question the values and assumptions of his narrow world. As their love for each other grows, Archer has to decide where his ultimate loyalty lies.

  Show book