Publisher: Next Chapter
Rattlesnakes interrupt the poker game at Wade's lodge, leaving several people dead. After one of the surviving players gets murdered at the hospital, Wade gets on the case. Suspects range from the hospital nurse to an old foe, Woody. Wade has his hands full in this race against time to catch the killer. But who was the intended victim, and who wanted them dead?
In this “candid, perceptive and intelligent” trio of novellas, the acclaimed travel writer presents tales of Westerners transformed by sojourns in India (Independent, UK). These three intertwined novellas by the author of The Great Railway Bazaar capture the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity that mark today’s India. Theroux’s Westerners risk venturing far beyond the subcontinent’s well-worn paths to discover truth, peace, or woe. A middle-aged couple on vacation veers heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds succor in Mumbai’s reeking slums. And a young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore. We also meet Indian characters as singular as they are reflective of the country’s subtle ironies: an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest young striver whose personality is rewired by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and others. As ever, Theroux’s portraits of people and places explode stereotypes to exhilarating effect.Show book
Six outstanding tales of suspense and adventure by the master storyteller. "Markheim" "The Bottle Imp" "The Body Snatcher" "The Suicide Club – Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts" "The Suicide Club – The Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk" "The Suicide Club – The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs"Show book
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. 1 - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 2 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostovesky 3 - An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyveskey 4 - Bobok by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 5 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 6 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 1 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 7 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 2 by Fyodor DostoyevskyShow book
This is the quintessential holiday poem telling of a visit from Santa Claus, complete with eight reindeer and a bundle of presents.Show book
Henry St. Clair Whitehead (1882-1932) was an American clergyman, teacher and a writer of horror fiction and fantasy, best known for his creepy tales of magic and voodoo.'Passing of a God' is a voodoo story set in the West Indies which tells of an American who presents himself at the hospital in Port au Prince with a huge tumour in his abdomen.The surgeon there agrees to operate...but discovers there is something very peculiar and sinister about the tumour...and about the story his patient tells him about how he came to visit the hospital.Show book
