Publisher: Reading Essentials
In this witty classic short story Babette’s Feast, a mysterious French housekeeper, who is taken in by two Danish sisters, wins the lottery and as a gesture of gratitude prepares an extravagant and sumptuous feast for a gathering of religious, ascetic, aging villagers and, in doing so, introduces them to the true essence of charity and grace.
A glimmering collection of new short fiction from the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author of How It All Began In such acclaimed novels as The Photograph, Family Album, and How It All Began, Penelope Lively has captivated readers with her singular blend of wisdom, elegance, and humor. Now, in her first story collection in decades, Lively takes up themes of history, family, and relationships across varied and vividly rendered settings. In the title story, a Mediterranean purple swamp hen chronicles the secrets and scandals of Quintus Pompeius's villa, culminating with his narrow escape from the lava and ash of Vesuvius. "Abroad" captures the low point of an artist couple's tumultuous European road trip, trapped in a remote Spanish farmhouse and forced to paint a family mural and pitch in with chores to pay for repairs to their broken-down car. Other stories reveal friends and lovers in fateful moments of indiscretion, discovery, and even retribution - as in "The Third Wife," when a woman learns her husband to be a serial con artist and turns a house hunting trip into an elaborately staged revenge trap. Each of these delightful stories is elevated by Lively's signature graceful prose and eye for the subtle yet powerfully evocative detail. Wry, charming, and keenly insightful, The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories is a masterful achievement from one of our most beloved writers.Show book
Alfred McLelland Burrage was born in 1889. His father and uncle were both writers, primarily of boy’s fiction, and by age sixteen, A. M. Burrage had joined them and quickly became a master of the market, publishing his stories regularly across a number of publications. By the start of the Great War, Burrage was well established. In 1916 he was conscripted to fight on the Western Front, his experiences becoming the classic book War is War by Ex-Private X. For the remainder of his life, Burrage was rarely printed in book form but continued to write and be published on a prodigious scale in magazines and newspapers. His supernatural stories are, by common consent, some of the best ever written. Succinct, yet full of character, each reveals a twist and a flavor that is unsettling … sometimes menacing … always disturbing. Included stories: The Witch of Oxshott Smee The Hawthorn Tree The Attic Browdean FarmShow book
They’ve helped orchestrate the perfect day for countless couples. Now twelve new couples will find themselves in the wedding spotlight in the second Year of Weddings novella collection.Sometimes the road to happiness is paved with youthful mistakes.Hope Prentiss didn’t go to the Harmony High School senior prom. Instead, she and John Burke drove to Boise and got married. At eighteen. But when Hope panicked after saying “I do,” the mail-order preacher assured her he just wouldn’t send in the paperwork. No forms, no marriage, no problem. Right? Well . . .Now, ten years later, Hope discovers that her prom-night wedding counted—and, as fate would have it, the jilted John Burke has just ridden back into town. And he’s staying with her Aunt Verna at the inn where she and Hope host weddings. Though Hope thinks she wants an annulment, a little time with John makes her think twice . . . and emotions between the more-or-less Mr. and Mrs. Burke reach a boiling point a soon as they get a moment alone. With annulment out the window, Hope finds herself staring in the face of a divorce. But after spending some time with John and helping plan a Christmas wedding for a mystery couple, Hope begins to wonder if she really wants a divorce … or a real wedding of her own.Show book
Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction.'The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes' is the strange tale of an inexplicable case of a scientist who, after an accident with a magnet and a flash of lightning, finds that his eyes no longer see the world where the rest of his body is but another part of the world altogether - a southern hemisphere island inhabited by penguins.Show book
A heart-opening tale of transformation.One winter evening a shoemaker finds a mysterious stranger naked and freezing by a shrine in his small village. The shoemaker rescues the man, and takes him home. Though the stranger won’t say where he came from, Simon invites him to work beside him, and stay with his family. As the story unfolds, the stranger transforms, and ultimately reveals an astonishing and deeply moving secret.Late in Tolstoy’s life, after he had written his great masterpieces War and Peace, and Anna Karenina, he underwent a spiritual transformation. Though he was perhaps the most famous figure in Russia at the time, he felt his life was devoid of real meaning. He looked toward religion. But finding a disconnect between the actions of the Church and the teachings of Jesus, he left religion behind, and began to forge a unique spiritual path all his own.It was during that late period that he gave us a series of short stories, spiritual in nature, several of which are true gems. What Men Live By is perhaps the most shining example of these.This gentle tale is narrated by Max Highstein with sensitivity and warmth. Highstein’s original music score also graces the hour long program, artfully supporting Tolstoy’s brilliant storytelling. This is a special recording you’ll want to sit back and enjoy again and again, and share with your friends and family.Show book
In this short story collection, girls and women tackle complex forms of love and desire as they explore the world. A girl afflicted with pyrokinesis tries to control her fire-starting long enough to go to a dance with a boy she likes. A woman trapped in a stalled marriage is excited by an alluring ex-con who enrolls in her YMCA cooking class. A teen accompanies her mother, a prestigious poet, to a writing conference where she navigates a misguided attraction to a married writer—who is, in turn, attracted to her mother—leaving her “inventing punishments for writers who believe in clichés as tired as broken hearts.” In this affecting collection, Katie Cortese explores the many faces of love and desire. Featuring female narrators that range in age from five to forty, the narratives in Make Way for Her speak to the many challenges and often bittersweet rewards of offering, receiving, and returning love as imperfect human beings. The stories are united by the theme of desperate love, whether it’s a daughter’s love for a parent, a sister’s for a sibling, or a romantic love that is sometimes returned and sometimes unrequited. Cortese’s complex and multilayered stories play with the reader’s own desires and anticipations as her characters stubbornly resist the expected. The intrepid girls and women in this book are, above all, explorers. They drive classic cars from Maine to Phoenix, board airplanes for the first time, and hike dense forests in search of adventure; but what they often find is that the most treacherous landscapes lie within. As a result, Make Way for Her explores a world of women who crave knowledge and experience, not simply sex or love. Praise for Make Way for Her “Cortese (Girl Power and Other Short-Short Stories, 2015) tells stories of young women on the cusp of adulthood, struggling to understand the social world . . . . A welcome addition to the burgeoning canon of finely wrought female stories.” —Kirkus Reviews “Offers enticing glimpses of curiously compact, womencentric fictional universes, generally focused on girls, teenagers, women, and the men who affect?but not necessarily impact?their lives. Cortese’s writing is smoothly compelling and adapts from voice to voice.” —Foreword Reviews “Heartening, and unusually thoughtful, this collection of stories places the young women, their feelings and minds (not just their bodies) at the center.” —Crystal Wilkinson, recipient of the 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for The Birds of Opulence “This collection is not about understanding our young people. It’s about living and breathing inside their bodies and heads. Salinger can step aside now. Make way for Katie Cortese!” —Dennis Covington, author of Salvation on Sand MountainShow book
