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  Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical

  Robert Shearman

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  The first love song in the world, as composed by a pig in the Garden of Eden. The Devil, alarmed when his hobby of writing romantic fiction begins to upstage his day job. Hearts kept in Tupperware boxes, small countries that vanish from the European mainland overnight, and a kidnapper who gets more than he bargained for when his victim associates him with George Clooney. It could only be Robert Shearman's 'Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical'. Six stories of the comic and the frightening and the downright weird, taken from his multi-award winning short story collection.Love Among the Lobelias performed by Toby HadokeLuxembourg performed by Jane GoddardPang performed by Toby HadokeGeorge Clooney's Moustache performed by India FisherSweet Nothings performed by Jane GoddardOne Last Love Song performed by India FisherWINNER OF THE READERS' AWARD IN THE EDGE HILL UNIVERSITY SHORT STORY COMPETITION!

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  The Legend of Saint Julian the...

  Gustave Flaubert

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  Gustave Flaubert was born on 12th December 1821 in Rouen, in Normandy, France.  
   
  A gifted child he began writing as early as eight. 
   
  He was educated at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen until 1840 and thence to Paris to study law, a city he disliked. He studied little, made few friends and preferred to spend his time writing. His first finished work was ‘November’, a novella, completed in 1842. By 1846 after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris and abandoned his law studies. 
   
  That same year he began a relationship with the poet Louise Colet which lasted eight years.  His politics developed in these years of revolutions throughout Europe as stridently against despotism, and as one who celebrated protest against the elite and the establishment. 
   
  In September 1849, Flaubert completed ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’. After 4 days reading it aloud to two friends, they advised him to destroy it and to focus his writing on day-to-day life rather than the fantastic. 
   
  A long journey to the Middle East brought encounters with both female and male prostitutes and a case of syphilis caught in Beirut.  On his return he began ‘Madame Bovary’ a work he would take 5 years to complete. When it was serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856 the government brought an immorality action against both publisher and author, but both were acquitted. This was the birth of French Realism and Flaubert, fastidious with every word, was becoming regarded as a literary genius. He wrote in sullen solitude, sometimes spending a week on a single page, avoiding the inexact, the abstract and the vague.   
   
  He visited Carthage in 1858 to conduct research for ‘Salammbô’, which took 4 years to complete.  ‘Sentimental Education’ took a further 7 and published only in 1869.  The next few years were difficult.  Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the War and his mother died pushing him into financial difficulty and this, together with failing health, especially venereal diseases, shortened his life. 
   
  He toiled on his unfinished ‘Bouvard et Pécuchet’ but did complete ‘Three Tales’ in 1877 from which ‘The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller’ is taken.  
   
  Gustave Flaubert died at Croisset from a cerebral hemorrhage on 8th May 1880. He was 58.

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  The Burglar in Short Order

  Lawrence Block

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  Four decades ago, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block introduced the world to one of his most beloved and enduring creations: Bernie Rhodenbarr, the clever, nimble-fingered star of novels such as Burglars Can't Be Choosers, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, and The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons. Called “the Heifetz of the picklock” by The New York Times, Bernie has stolen not only antiques, stamp collections, and priceless works of art but also millions of audiences' hearts. 
  Now, for all those craving more adventures of their favorite bookseller-by-day and burglar-by-night, The Burglar in Short Order for the first time ever collects all of Bernie's short-form appearances in one complete volume. From the story in which a prototype of Bernie first appeared (“A Bad Night for Burglars”) to his appearances in Playboy and (maybe? It's kinda complicated) Cosmopolitan...from an essay discussing Bernie's misadventures in Hollywood (how in the world did Whoopi Goldberg ever get cast?) to a piece commissioned by a European publisher for a tourist guide to New York...you'll find every published story, article, and stand-alone excerpt Bernie has ever appeared in—plus two new, unpublished pieces: an introduction discussing the character's colorful origins and an afterword in which the author, contemplating retirement, comes face to face with his own creation.  
  In all of mystery fiction, there has never been a character like Bernie—and in this, his dozenth book, he demonstrates all the charm and wit and kleptophilic ingenuity that has made two generations of audienes welcome their favorite burglar into their homes.

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  Some Dreams From Now - 135 Years...

  Theophilus Kwek

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  Lim Boon Keng. David Marshall. Chandran Nair. Ho Poh Fun. 
   
  Some Dreams From Now presents 70 defining pieces of writing from the Raffles Institution archives— many brought into the public eye for the first time—that trace the contours of Singapore’s history. 
   
  From youthful dreams of a freer and more peaceful society, to emerging voices that shaped the aspirations of a new nation, they tell the untold story of a school and its community at the heart of a changing city.

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  The One That Got Away - Stories

  Zoë Wicomb

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  These short stories from the award-winning South African author “combine the coolly interrogative gaze of the outsider with an insider’s intimate warmth” (J. M. Coetzee).   Zoë Wicomb’s debut short story collection, You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town, won critical acclaim across the globe as well as high praise from fellow authors including Toni Morrison, J. M. Coetzee, Bharati Mukherjee, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Now, after two novels, Wicomb returns to the genre that first brought her international acclaim.   Set mostly in the South African city of Cape Town, where Wicomb is from, and the Scottish city of Glasgow, where she now lives, this new collection of short stories straddles two worlds. With an array of expertly drawn characters, these twelve tales explore a range of human relationships: marriage, friendship, family, and the fraught yet often intimate relations between those who serve and those who are served.   Full of ironic twists, ambiguities, and moments of startling insight, The One That Got Away showcases this Windham Campbell Award–winning author at the height of her powers.   “An extraordinary writer . . . seductive, brilliant, and precious, her talent glitters.” —Toni Morrison

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  Dead at 44

  Anton Chekhov, D H Lawrence,...

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  Science, better diet, advanced medicines are all part of a process that in the modern age keep most of us going to a ripe old age. 
   
  In previous times some diseases could only be slowed and not defeated. There toil of relentless attack on our physical forms brought misery and decay.   
   
  Add to this that within our number some will self-destruct, demons will pursue their inner thoughts and life will be too painful to bear. Some may shuffle off the mortal coil for no discernible reason, but life will end early, they will not take up their three-score year and ten. 
   
  In this collection of short stories some of our most popular and well-known authors are grouped together with an unfortunate tag: dead at 44. 
   
  These authors are not run-of-the-mill or ten a penny; they are literary leviathans who left enduring works of literature and sadly may have left us many more had they lived. We will never know. 
   
  Death for these authors was usually due to many health issues but primarily: — 
  Anton Chekhov - Tuberculosis 
  D H Lawrence – Tuberculosis 
  F Scott Fitzgerald – Heart attack 
  Robert Louis Stevenson - Cerebral hemorrhage 
  Henry Harland – Tuberculosis 
   
  01 - Dead at 44 - An Introduction 
  02 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 
  03 - Odour of Chrysanthemums by D H Lawrence 
  04 - Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F Scott Fitzgerald 
  05 - Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson 
  06 - A Responsibility by Henry Harland

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