Other books that might interest you

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  Expiation

  E. F. Benson

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  Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost stories.Expiation is a real gem of a ghost story. Two old friends rent a lonely house in an idyllic but remote part of Cornwall. But within a short time of their arrival, they become aware of a mystery about the house.Why does the vicar behave so oddly when they enquire about a recent grave with the same family name as the owner of the house they have rented? Why does the housekeeper insist on the narrator's changing rooms suddenly? Why does the telephone keep ringing...even though it was disconnected more than a year ago?

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  Three Novellas

  Joseph Roth

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  This collection showcases the renowned author’s “genius for metaphor, his compassionate irony, and his historical and psychological insight” (The Wall Street Journal). 
   
  Austrian author Joseph Roth was one of Europe’s most powerful and perceptive literary voices during the turbulent period between WWI and WWII. This collection presents three of his most enduring works of fiction. “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” tells the story of a dissolute vagrant who is uplifted for a short time by a series of miracles. Written in the final days of Roth’s life, it is a novella of sparkling lucidity and humanity. “Fallmerayer the Stationmaster” and “The Bust of the Emperor” are Roth’s most acclaimed works of shorter fiction.

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  The Strange Truth About Us

  M. A. C. Farrant

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  Acclaimed author M.A.C. Farrant has been hailed as “a brave iconoclast” by Publishers Weekly and is well known for her pithy wit and maverick sensibilities. Broken into three sections, The Strange Truth About Us is a fusion of fragmented prose, probing questions and caustic satire. The result is both a meditation on absence and a commentary on the human penchant for complacency.

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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 Man of the Night

  Edgar Wallace

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  Edgar Wallace (1875 - 1932) had no equal in the realm of the pure "thriller."  "The Man of the Night" is a classic example of Wallace's genius.  Stepping purposefully out of the dark shop, with a large sharp knife hidden under his coat, the wanted man met a stranger. But it was quite a different kind of stranger than he could have imagined... and what happens next is incomprehensible and inspiring.

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  Japanese Baseball - And Other...

  W.P. Kinsella

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  Short stories filled with empathy, laughter, and a love of the game, from the award-winning author of Shoeless Joe.   W.P. Kinsella weaves his characters into the thrill of the game, be it in Japan, Central America, Canada, or the United States, with a variety of comic, tragic, and mystical results. This collection captures the dazzling wit, compelling insight, and obsession with baseball that have made Kinsella more popular than a ballpark frank.   “There is a new depth and gentleness to Kinsella’s storytelling here, a more subtle nuance than his readers may be accustomed to. In ‘The Kowloon Club,’ the baseball club is persuaded to hire a Feng Shui master to determine the site for their new park…‘The First and Last Annual Six Towns Old-Timers’ Game’ is vintage Kinsella…The final extra-base hit is a deeply felt, introspective look at the half-lived life of an umpire and the reasons he continues to be a part of the game, even when his marriage is going foul.”—Quill & Quire

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