Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Last Cop and Other Stories

  Frank Zafiro

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Imagine, if you will:The last real cop in a changing world.A bottom-feeder fighting rumors.A meticulous P.I. battling story tropes.A revenge story involving a hamburger.The bittersweet nostalgia of a mob enforcer.A street racer trying to escape a small town.The confusing last words of a rich man.A surprise at the shooting range.A familiar robber.An untimely traffic stop.The confusing nuances of contemporary policing. 
  These are the characters and stories you will discover in this collection from award-winning crime fiction author, Frank Zafiro!

  Show book

• 

  The Return - From their pens to...

  Algernon Blackwood

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Algernon Blackwood was born on 14th March 1869 in Shooter’s Hill, South East London, to a religious middle-class family. His mother was a widowed Duchess and his father was a Post Office administrator.  
  Blackwood was interested in the paranormal and the supernatural at an early age, and had a thirst for anything on Buddhism, other Oriental philosophies, mysticism and occultism.  In his writings the weaving of the supernatural into his various works, from ghost stories and children’s stories to plays and long novels is clearly seen, his writings beautifully enriched by his long and diversified life experience.  
  After leaving university and visiting parts of Europe, mainly Switzerland, the young writer went to Canada and the United States where he took on jobs including work as a farmer, a bartender, a secretary, a journalist, a reporter, running a hotel and teaching the violin.  He was voracious in meeting new people and absorbing new ideas.  
  In his late thirties, he returned to England where he published two of his supernatural stories in Pall Mall Magazine. As more of his highly entertaining stories were published so did his reputation and his bank balance.  All those years of curiosity and experiences were starting to emerge from his writing. 
  In 1906, ‘The Empty House & Other Ghost Stories’ was published with tremendous success.  Further volumes of short stories followed and with it a larger audience and bigger paydays. He also published children’s stories. 
  Blackwood also had ideas for novels and to explore on a larger canvas the paranormal world and the relationship between man and metaphysical powers including, in 1911, ‘The Centaur’.  
  With the outbreak of the First World War, Blackwood was assigned to British intelligence to write propaganda to support the war effort. 
  He was a prolific author with a quite staggering output which was also to include many plays. The exact number of his works is unknown as he would frequently write a story for a newspaper or periodical at very short notice.  
  In 1949, Blackwood was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his literary talents and his services during the First World War.  
  Algernon Blackwood died on 10th December 1951 after a series of strokes.

  Show book

• 

  The Widow's Breakfast

  Joe Hill

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  From the New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Horns comes this e-short story—from Joe Hill’s award-winning collection 20th Century Ghosts. 
  Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945. . . . 
  Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. . . . 
  Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . . 
  John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead. . . . 
    
   

  Show book

• 

  Don Quixote

  Miguel de Cervantes

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading romances of chivalry that he determines to become a knight errant and pursue bold adventures, accompanied by his squire, the cunning Sancho Panza. As they roam the world together, the aging Quixote's fancy leads them wildly astray. At the same time the relationship between the two men grows in fascinating subtlety. Often considered to be the first modern novel, Don Quixote is a wonderful burlesque of the popular literature its disordered protagonist is obsessed with.

  Show book

• 

  Little Novels of Italy

  Maurice Hewlett

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Ten Italian tales of the Renaissance: a duchess, a poet, a knife, a bargain in a church porch. Hewlett was Keeper of the Land Revenue Records before The Forest Lovers made him famous in 1898; he wrote Italy as a place where beauty and murder are administrative facts, and his prose is deliberate, mannered and very much in command of itself.

  Show book

• 

  The Three Hermits - From their...

  Leo Tolstoy

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses.  Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place.  Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War.  He was commended for his bravery and promoted but was appalled at the brutality and loss of life.  He recorded these and other earlier experiences in his diaries which formed the basis of several of his works. 
  In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. 
  His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’. After the war he travelled around Europe, visiting London and Paris and meeting such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.  
  It was now that Tolstoy began his masterpiece, ‘War and Peace’. Published in 1869 it was an epic work that changed literature. He quickly followed this with ‘Anna Karenina’.  
  These successes made Tolstoy rich and helped him accomplish many of his dreams but also brought problems as he grappled with his faith and the lot of the oppressed poor. These revolutionary views became so popular that the authorities now kept him under surveillance.  
  He led a life of asceticism and vegetarianism and put his socialist ideals into practice by establishing numerous schools for the poor and food programmes. He also believed in giving away his wealth, which caused much discord with his wife.  
  His writing continued to bring forth classics such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and many brilliant and incisive short stories such as ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’.  
  In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church and controversially deselected for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
  Whilst undertaking a pilgrimage by train in October 1910 with his daughter Aleksandra he caught pneumonia in the nearby town of Astapovo.  Leo Tolstoy died on November 9th, 1910, he was 82.

  Show book