Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Indian Orphan - From their...

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born on 14th August 1802 in Chelsea, London.  A precocious child she had her first poem published is 1820 using the single ‘L’ as her marker.  The following year her first volume appeared and sold well.  She published a further two poems that same year with just the initials ‘L.E.L.”  It provided the basis for much intrigue.  
  She became the chief reviewer of the Gazette and published her second collection, The Improvisatrice, in 1824. 
  By 1826, rumours began to circulate that she had had affairs.  For several years they continued to circulate until she broke off an engagement when her betrothed, upon further investigation, found them to be unfounded.  Her words reflect the lack of trust she felt “The mere suspicion is dreadful as death” 
  On June 7th 1838 she married George Maclean, initially in secret, and a month later they sailed to Cape Coast.  However the marriage proved to be short lived as on October 15th Letitia was found dead, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. 
  Her reputation as a poet diminished until fairly recently; her work felt to be simplistic and too simply constructed.  However when put into context it is more rightly seen as working on many levels and meanings as was needed for those more moral times.

  Show book

• 

  Bush Meat

  Mandy Sutter

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  For Sarah's family, memories of early Sixties Aba in south-eastern Nigeria are scorched onto their hearts. A days-old burial mound exposed as an 'exploded diagram' of bones picked clean by beasts. Adaku the Barbary duck with a 'melted face', who was conscripted into friendship by six-year-old Sarah in the first of a lifetime's unlikely alliances, forged by necessity and relocation. The narcotic puff let out from the freezer in the meat-man's shack off the Ikot Ekpene road, where Maureen, Sarah's lonely mother, gave up aspirations to be a 'proper oil company wife' to Jim, and risked buying 'bush meat'. The dry 'snakeskin' bark of the old iroko tree on the bend of the town's river, under whose shade Jim sought sanctuary from people, and whose 'two long white catkins the tree one day bestowed onto his head like confetti.'
  Back home, Jim swaps adventure and agency for woodwork and more whisky. Maureen, denying her love of Igbo crafts and cloth, considers reinventing herself as an Oxfam shop assistant. In the days before her grandmother's funeral, Sarah finds the platitudes of her father evasive compared to the wisdom and ritual taught by servant Chidike while burying the household monkey. Sarah's hard-won Nigerian barter goods, a silver thumb-ring and a dare taken to eat fried-fat market 'snack', become devalued. At Aba's Sancta Maria, unaccustomed food was a cone of hot roast groundnuts paid for by a penny with a hole. In Britain, 'unaccustomed' means milk with a 'thickened band of yellow'. Now, the currency is a dare Sarah first honours, then refuses.
  As people of that time and place are scattered like those bleached bones, Aba acts as centripetal force on their imagination. Today's city was a small town the like of which Tim Winton gnaws at from different angles in The Turning. Mandy Sutter's approach is similarly innovative. Her themes are substitution, racism, and whether the spirit can ever survive transaction.

  Show book

• 

  The Tractae Middoth - From their...

  M R James

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Montague Rhodes James is cited as perhaps the greatest English writer of ghost stories, an opinion few would disagree with. 
  James was born on 1st August 1862 at Goodnestone Parsonage in Kent, where his father was Curate but at age 3 the family went to live at Livermere, near Bury St Edmunds in East Anglia.  
  From early childhood he had a passion for mediaeval books and antiques. He was educated initially as a boarder at Temple Grove School in East Sheen, west London, before gaining a scholarship to Eton and thence Cambridge where he gained a double first, becoming a distinguished linguist and mediaevalist.  
  Before the Great War vacations were usually spent touring Europe absorbing cultures and references for his later writing. 
  A man of enormous knowledge it was said he timed his breakfast egg whilst he completed the Times crossword.  
  Many of his elegant yet terrifying tales were created by discarding the prevailing gothic cliches and placing his characters and narrative in a realistic setting.  Thereby the stories gained atmosphere and menace on a grand scale and he was famed as the originator of the antiquarian ghost story. 
  Although story-telling and writing these 30 or so tales was a hobby, when published their effect transformed the genre and still chill the bones in our more modern times. 
  James was also a medievalist scholar and translator whose work remains highly respected. He was also Provost of Eton College between 1918 and 1936. 
  M R James died on 12th June 1936 at Eton in Buckinghamshire.  He was 73.

  Show book

• 

  The Best That You Can Do - Stories

  Amina Gautier

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Winner of the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, a collection of short stories that elaborate the realities of a diasporic existence, split identities, and the beautiful potency of meaningful connections 
   
   
   
  Primarily told from the perspective of women and children in the Northeast who are tethered to fathers and families in Puerto Rico, these stories explore the confusion of being one person in two places—of having a mother who wants your father and his language to stay on his island but sends you there because you need to know your family. Loudly and joyfully filled with Cousins, Aunts, Grandparents, and budding romances, these stories are saturated in summer nostalgia, and place listeners at the center of the table to enjoy family traditions and holidays: the resplendent and universal language of survival for displaced or broken families. 
   
   
   
  Refusing to shy away from dysfunction, loss, obligation, or interrogating Black and Latinx heritages, Gautier's stories feature New York neighborhoods made of island nations living with seasonal and perpetual displacement. Like Justin Torres's We the Animals or Quiara Alegria Hudes's My Broken Language, it's the characters-in-becoming—flanked by family and rich with detail—that animate each story with special frequencies, especially for listeners grappling with split-identities themselves.

  Show book

• 

  The Sheep

  Saki Saki

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In this engaging narrative, Rupert finds himself increasingly frustrated with his future brother-in-law, whom he refers to as "the Sheep." This man, characterized by his ineptitude and constant apologetic demeanor, becomes a source of irritation for Rupert, especially as he prepares to marry Rupert's sister, Kathleen.

  Show book

• 

  The Monkey's Paw

  WW Jacobs

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Be careful what you wish for in this chilling audiobook adaptation of The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs. A classic tale of horror and fate, this suspenseful short story follows a family who comes into possession of a mysterious talisman that grants three wishes—but at a terrible cost. As their desires turn into nightmares, the eerie atmosphere and creeping dread will keep you on edge until the final moment. Perfect for fans of supernatural fiction, gothic horror, and classic ghost stories, this audiobook brings the timeless tale to life with gripping narration. Listen now and discover why some wishes are best left unmade.

  Show book