Outros livros que poderiam interessá-lo

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  The Age of Perpetual Light -...

  Josh Weil

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  Short stories that “situate themselves as natural heirs to such masterpieces as Denis Johnson’s ‘Train Dreams’ and James Joyce’s ‘The Dead.’” —The New York Times Book Review   Beginning at the dawn of the past century, in the early days of electrification, and moving into an imagined future in which the world is lit day and night, each tale in The Age of Perpetual Light follows characters through different eras in American history: a Jewish dry goods peddler who falls in love with an Amish woman while showing her the wonders of an Edison Lamp; a 1940 farmers’ uprising against the unfair practices of a power company; a Serbian immigrant teenage boy in 1990s Vermont desperate to catch a glimpse of an experimental satellite; a back-to-the-land couple forced to grapple with their daughter’s autism during winter’s longest night.   From the prize-winning author of The Great Glass Sea, these stories explore themes of progress, the pursuit of knowledge, and humankind’s eternal attempt to decrease the darkness in the world.   “A rich, often dazzling collection of short stories linked by themes while ranging widely in style from Babel-like fables to gritty noir and sci-fi . . . engrossing, persuasively detailed, and written with a deep affection for the way language can, in masterful hands, convey us to marvelous new worlds.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review   “A storyteller of the first order.” —Joshua Ferris, author of the National Book Award finalist Then We Came to the End   “A spectacular talent.” —Lauren Groff, New York Times–bestselling author of Fates and Furies

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  The Cloak aka The Overcoat

  Nikolai Gogol

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  Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore.   
   
  His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre.  This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12.  Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters. 
   
  In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him. 
   
  Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals.  These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day.  He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity.  Eight stories were published as ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’.  Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature.   
   
  His success continued with his brilliant plays ‘The Inspector General’ and the comedy ‘The Marriage for the Theatre’, both being highly acclaimed.   
   
  In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post.  With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal ‘Dead Souls’, Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera.  
   
  In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43. 
   
  Gogol had a profound and enduring impact on literature which can be evidenced from his masterpiece, ‘The Cloak’, more popularly although wrongly translated as ‘The Overcoat’ published in 1841.  A hundred years later Vladamir Nabokov called it ‘The greatest Russian short story ever written.’

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  Christmas In Poganuc

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

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  This Christmas tale set in Colonial New England was originally published in the 1895 collection A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others. The short story takes place in a fictionalized version of Litchfield, Connecticut, the town where Stowe grew up, which is also the setting of her novel Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives. This version of Christmas in Poganuc was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

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  The Birth-Mark

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. 
   
  He was a mere four years old when his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron.  
   
  He was sent to college at his maternal uncle’s insistence. During these years he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future U S president Franklin Pierce. These friendships were lifelong and to have a crucial impact on his writings and career.  
   
  At college Hawthorne had made attempts at writing short stories and essays but without opportunities to publish. It was only in 1828 that he finally published his novel ‘Franshawe’ to little success and so he began work as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge.  
   
  Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.   
   
  Finally. in 1850 came spectacular literary and commercial success with ‘The Scarlet Letter’ followed by ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ the following year.  
   
  In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography of presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. After Pierce’s victory he was appointed consul in Liverpool, a position that offered prestige, money and fame. At the end of this appointment he returned several times to Europe before settling in Massachusetts and resuming writing and publication. 
   
  During the early 1860’s his health declined and on 19th May 1864 during a trip to Plymouth, New Hampshire. He was 59 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  
   
  The Birthmark is a classic tale from Hawthorne’s pen.  Georgina has a small red birthmark on her cheek.  Her husband, a brilliant scientist and philosopher becomes obsessed with what he thinks is this blemish on her beauty.

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  A Collection of Classic Short...

  Various Authors

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  An entertaining selection of short stories including tales by renowned storytellers O' Henry, George Eliot and Saki.

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  Bad Case of Loving You

  Kait Nolan

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  She loves weddings 
  As a romance author, Paisley Parish is a hopeless romantic. Seeing her friends exchange promises of forever does her heart good--even if the whole thing does highlight her own regrettably single status. But that's what cake and champagne are for. She just has to escape the douchecanoe who won't take no for an answer. 
  He hates weddings 
  Former Army Ranger Ty Brooks is happy to see his brother-in-arms starting his new life. He just wishes he was out of this monkey suit and miles away from the seemingly endless parade of guests. All this happily ever after isn't for him, but he's determined nothing's going to ruin Harrison and Ivy's special night. Especially the asshat who's cornered one of the female guests. 
  A blast from the past 
  The knight in a tux who shows up with a glass of champagne pretending to be Paisley's date is none other than the first love who broke her heart. Ty's older, hotter, and shocked to see her. It's clear the old chemistry is alive and kicking, and as they take a walk down memory lane, so are the feelings they both thought long dead and buried. Will the night be the closure they never got...or the start of a second chance? 
  Author's note: This short story is a prequel to the novel MADE FOR LOVING YOU.

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