Publisher: Bu Classics Books
Dive into a versatile collection of tales ranging from high-seas adventure to political intrigue, showcasing the complex depths of the human psyche under extreme pressure.
Louisa May Alcott was born on 29th November 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She is most definitely a writer of her own experiences. Her father was a transcendentalist, philosopher and educational experimenter who founded, Fruitlands, a utopian community. Although poor, her liberal and progressive parents provided Louisa with much of her education, which was enhanced by many family friends that included Thoreau, Hawthorne and Emerson, a neighbour whose library she was often found reading in. She started writing stories as a way of providing the family with some financial stability. Times were difficult and the effects of poverty were always close at hand. During the Civil War she went to Washington to be a nurse and became ill with typhoid fever although she continued to write and build her success. However, the treatment for typhus gave her mercury poisoning which caused further health issues for the rest of her life and eventually contributed to her death. Alcott visited her father on his deathbed in Boston. Two days later on 6th March 1888 she also died resulting in a joint funeral.Show book
An ancient tradition… and a descent into something far older than memory. In The Festival, H. P. Lovecraft delivers a chilling tale of inherited ritual, hidden passageways, and the terrifying pull of the unknown. Returning to his ancestral town during the winter solstice, a lone traveler is drawn into a secretive celebration—one that reveals truths buried deep beneath history… and beneath the earth itself. As the night unfolds, curiosity gives way to dread, and the familiar becomes profoundly alien. With Lovecraft’s signature blend of atmosphere and cosmic horror, this story lingers long after the final moment. Expertly narrated by Craig Michael Beck, The Festival offers a haunting listening experience steeped in mystery, tension, and ancient fear.Show book
"Berry richly evokes Port William's farmlands and hamlets, and his characters are fiercely individual, yet mutually protective in everything they do. . . . His sentences are exquisitely constructed, suggesting the cyclic rhythms of his agrarian world." —New York Times Book Review A celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry, the five stories in Fidelity return listeners to Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, and the familiar characters who form a tight-knit community within.Show book
Join two of the protagonists of Legacy on their very first adventure. Chicago. When internationally-renowned thief and Crovir immortal Howard Titus hears of a hoard of gold and cash about to land in the vault of the First Chicago Bank, he has only one thought in mind. Getting his hands on the dough. On the night he breaks into the bank to carry out his carefully-laid plan, the Crovir thief comes face to face with a man who challenges everything he thought he knew about the immortal races and all his plans for his future. The Bank Job is a short story set in the riveting world of A.D. Starrling’s award-winning supernatural thriller series Seventeen.Show book
This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together a selection of tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination and saw the emergence of some of the world’s cleverest and most popular storytellers. This audio anthology brings together the majority of forgotten tales from the book Bodies from the Library, from the 1920s to the 1950s, by masters of the Golden Age including Cyril Hare, Freeman Wills Crofts and A.A. Milne, Most anticipated of all are the contributions by women writers: the first detective story by Georgette Heyer, unseen since 1923; an unpublished story by Christianna Brand, creator of Nanny McPhee; and a dark tale by Agatha Christie published only in an Australian journal in 1922 during her ‘Grand Tour’ of the British Empire. With other stories by Detection Club stalwarts Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington and John Rhode, plus Vincent Cornier, Leo Bruce, Roy Vickers and Arthur Upfield, this essential collection harks back to a time before forensic science – when murder was a complex business. This bestseller, curated by the top editor Tony Medawar, is a traditional anthology that brings back the thrill of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The book is a testament to the author's knack for suspense and crime, making it a must-read for all thriller enthusiasts. For fans of Michael Hague (The Reluctant Dragon), Robert Ingpen (Around the World in 80 Days), Page Publications (The Three Musketeers), General Press (The Great Gatsby), and Richard Osman (We Solve Murders).Show book
Mary Frances Butts was born on 13th December 1890 in Poole, Dorset. Her early years were spent at Salterns, an 18th-century house overlooking Poole Harbour. Sadly in 1905 her father died, and she was sent for boarding at St Leonard's school for girls in St Andrews. Her mother remarried and, from 1909, Mary studied at Westfield College in London, and here, first became aware of her bisexual feelings. She was sent down for organising a trip to Epsom races and only completed her degree in 1914 when she graduated from the London School of Economics. By then Mary had become an admirer of the occultist Aleister Crowley and she was given a co-authorship credit on his ‘Magick (Book 4)’. In 1916, she began the diary which would now detail her future life and be a constant reference point for her observations and her absorbing experiences. During World War I, she was doing social work for the London County Council in Hackney Wick, and involved in a lesbian relationship. Life changed after meeting the modernist poet, John Rodker and they married in 1918. In 1921 she spent 3 months at Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Sicily; she found the practices dreadful and also acquired a drug habit. Mary now spent time writing in Dorset, including her celebrated book of short stories ‘Speed the Plough’ which saw fully develop her unique Modernist prose style. Europe now beckoned and several years were spent in Paris befriending many artists and writing further extraordinary stories. She was continually sought after by literary magazines and also published several short story collections as books. Although a Modernist writer she worked in other genres but is essentially only known for her short stories. Mary was deeply committed to nature conservation and wrote several pamphlets attacking the growing pollution of the countryside. In 1927, she divorced and the following year her novel ‘Armed with Madness’ was published. A further marriage followed in 1930 and time was spent attempting to settle in London and Newcastle before setting up home on the western tip of Cornwall. By 1934 the marriage had failed. Mary Butts died on 5th March 1937, at the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, after an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. She was 46.Show book
