Other books that might interest you

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  The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on 11th November, 1821 to distinguished multi-ethnic parents from a Lithuanian background.   
   
  His childhood years were at the family home in hospital grounds which also contained an orphanage, an insane asylum and a cemetery for criminals.  The young Fyodor often disobeyed his father by talking to the ill in the hospital gardens.   
   
  His health was compromised at age 9 when he experienced his first epileptic fit. By the time he was a teenager both parents had died and he was now enrolled in a military academy where he graduated and eventually became a Lieutenant in 1842.  He left military service the next year. 
   
  In 1846 he published his first novel ‘Poor Cow’ to great literary acclaim.  His next was unable to emulate that success but his short stories helped provide an income.  Life as an author was definitely difficult. As he began his next work he was arrested and incarcerated for treason and participation in the political and literary Petrashevsky Circle. Although the case was weak and unjustified he was sentenced to 4 years of hard labour followed by 5 years of military service in a Siberian regiment.  
   
  Despite the undoubted hardships and setbacks in his life, and whether they helped or hindered his writing, his talents produced many exceptional works of literature including ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’.   
   
  Dostoevsky’s ability to get under the skin of his characters and show the inner workings of their mind was hugely influential and ahead of its time.  Interwoven with this was the influence of the broader social, spiritual and political forces at work in a person's psyche.   
   
  Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled financially and remained in poor health for much of his adult life.  He died from a lung haemorrhage on 9th February, 1881. 
   
  ‘The Dream of a Ridiculous Man’ is one of his many classic short stories that turn a splinter of the ordinary into the spiralling descent of chaos.

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  The Curse of Stone

  JT Lawrence

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  A queen seeks to be cursed in this dystopian fairytale written by the (fictional) MillenniarellaBot AI after being fed classic fairytales and American stand-up comedy. 
  This story is from the collection Sticky Fingers 3, available on Amazon in ebook, paperback, and audiobook.

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  The Interruption

  W. Jacobs

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  W. W. Jacobs (1863-1941) is well known for humorous stories and for the most grisly of horror stories. The Interruption belongs very much in the latter category.Spencer Goddard's wife has died suddenly after a short and intense illness. Finally Goddard has his freedom and full use of his wife's wealth. But before he can begin to enjoy his new-found freedom, Hannah the cook begins to behave rather oddly. Goddard realizes that Hannah knows his secret...and a terrible power struggle begins.

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  H G Wells - Six of the Best -...

  H G Wells

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  Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. 
   
  Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. 
   
  In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. 
   
  These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master. 
   
   1 - Six of the Best - H G Wells - An Introduction 
  2 - H G Wells - An Introduction 
  3 - The Crystal Egg by H G Wells 
  4 - The Man Who Could Work Miracles by H G Wells 
  5 - The Sea Raiders by H G Wells 
  6 - The Magic Shop by H G Wells 
  7 - The Flowering of the Strange Orchid by H G Wells 
  8 - A Dream of Armageddon - Part 1 by H G Wells 
  9 - A Dream of Armageddon - Part 2 by H G Wells

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  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  H. Rider Haggard, Richard Le...

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  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

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  Parables Fables Nightmares

  Malachi McIntosh

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  A man jumps, the platform empties, then the stories begin. Filled with tales of tragedy, love, hope and frustration, Malachi McIntosh's debut collection of short stories offers surreal and satirical accounts of the many perils of contemporary life. From resistant mothers and unexpected corporate climbers, to doomed weddings and unwelcome visitors, these dark, comedic and uncanny stories contend with timeless concerns of parenthood, family, race and identity in the here and now.
  Whether characters are absorbed in social media or burying their grief, raising themselves up or taking others down, Parables, Fables, Nightmares brings a light to our interactions in an ailing world and heralds the arrival of a unique new voice in fiction.

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