Publisher: Bu Classics Books
Immerse yourself in the vibrant, multicultural tapestry of the Louisiana bayous where tradition and transformation collide. This collection explores the intricate lives of Creoles and Acadians, blending humor with the harsh realities of class and race. Kate Chopin’s sharp insight reveals the hidden desires and resilient spirits of a forgotten landscape.
Sherwood Anderson was born on 13th September 1876 in Camden, Ohio. When his father’s business failed the family was forced to move on a regular basis before finally settling in Clyde, Ohio. Anderson, one of 7 children, left school at 14 to take a number of jobs to help with the family finances. These were difficult years. He moved to Chicago in search of opportunities before joining the Army for the US-Spanish War of 1898. He then entered Wittenberg Academy in Springfield, Ohio to complete his education before moving back to Chicago to take up a writing job. In 1904 he married Cornelia Lane, her family had resources and Anderson was keen, with this family backing, to run a business. The early years of their marriage produced 3 children but a nervous breakdown in 1907 and another in 1912, despite his success as a business entrepreneur, resulted in him abandoning his family and deciding that a literary career would be best for him. A move back to Chicago resulted in a job in advertising, a divorce from Cornelia and marriage to Tennessee Mitchell. That same year his first book ‘Windy McPherson’s Son’ was released and in 1919, his most famous book, ‘Winesburg, Ohio’, a collection of short stories about life in an Ohio town was released. Anderson continued to write short stories, novels and non-fiction but his only true bestseller came with ‘Dark Laughter’. His influence on writers that followed, from Faulkner to Hemingway, was immense. He also married a further two times. Sherwood Anderson died in in Colón, Panama, on the 8th March, 1941. He was 64. An autopsy revealed that a swallowed toothpick had resulted in peritonitis. His headstone epitaph reads ‘Life, Not Death is the Great Adventure.’Show book
Title: Gabriel-Ernest Author: Saki (H. H. Munro) Narrator: Jonathan Dunne Original Publication: 1909 Public Domain: Yes Series Placement: Number 55 in the Timeless Terrors series Description: Gabriel-Ernest is one of Saki’s most unsettling tales — a quiet yet chilling brush with something wild, feral, and possibly inhuman hiding within the English countryside. The story begins when a landowner encounters a strange, naked boy in the woods, a youth who speaks calmly of hunting animals… and children. Though outwardly human, the boy’s presence carries an undercurrent of danger, his nature hinted at but never fully revealed. Taken into a household under the name Gabriel Ernest, he quickly becomes an eerie and disruptive force — a creature of the forest wearing the shape of a child. With its blend of wit, unease, and understated menace, Gabriel-Ernest stands as a prime example of Saki’s ability to inject horror into the everyday. The tension arises not from gore or spectacle, but from the chilling possibility that civilization is only a thin veil over something older and more predatory. Narrated by Amazon-bestselling horror author Jonathan Dunne, this performance brings Saki’s atmospheric dread and subtle terror to life. While the text is firmly in the public domain, this narration is an original performance and copyright © 2025 Jonathan Dunne. Part of Timeless Terrors, a series devoted to resurrecting the masters of the macabre and uncanny, Gabriel-Ernest remains a haunting reminder that not every monster announces itself — some simply walk beside us, smiling.Show book
"On the Gulls' Road" is a touching short story by Willa Cather, first published in McClure's in December 1908. A fellow painter visits the narrator, and is mesmerised by his painting of Alexandra Ebbling, a married woman, whom the narrator met on a ship from Genoa to New York City. On the ship, he and Mrs. Ebbling enjoyed many conversations about life, love, and personal experiences. The courtship goes on for the entire trip and grows stronger each day. The man is smitten by Mrs. Ebbling and cannot wait until the next time they meet. The man paints a picture of Mrs. Ebbling while they talk and enjoy the sunshine and the sea so he can always remember the woman. They tell each other things about their hopes and dreams. All the while Mrs. Ebbling knows that nothing can come of the affair. She is married and close to death. The man has high hopes for her to run away with him but she has to tell him that it can never happen. Mrs. Ebbling gives the man a gift that he is not to open until she tells him to. In the following winter, he is informed that she had died. Inside the gift she had given him, there is a letter from her thanking him for all the memories he gave her of a love that almost happened, along with a lock of her golden hair, a withered magnolia flower, and two pink sea shells. In the end, theirs was a love that stood the test of time, separation, and even death.Show book
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24th 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family. His early years in Buffalo, New York showed him to be a boy of high intelligence and drive with a thirst for literature. In 1908, his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, and the family returned to Minnesota. Here Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy, in St. Paul, until 1911. At 13 he was published in the school newspaper, it was, of all things, a detective story. In 1911, aged 15, he was sent to the prestigious Newman School, in Hackensack, New Jersey. And, after graduating in 1913, he decided to continue at Princeton University. Here he firmly dedicated himself to writing. Unfortunately his writing pursuits came at the expense of his coursework. In 1917 he dropped out to join the U.S. Army. However this service to his country came with the very real fear that he might perish in the trenches of Western Europe with his literary dreams not yet begun. So he spent the weeks before reporting for duty at work on a novel entitled The Romantic Egotist. Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan, in Alabama. It was there that Fitzgerald met the love of his life; Zelda Sayre, the "golden girl," of Montgomery youth society. The war ended before Fitzgerald could be deployed, and he moved to New York City hoping to start a career in advertising that would be lucrative enough to convince Zelda to marry him. Unable to convince her that his means were enough to support her she broke off the engagement. Fitzgerald returned to his parents in St. Paul, to revise The Romantic Egoist, now recast as This Side of Paradise. His revised novel was accepted by Scribner's and published in 1920 becoming an instant success. It launched Fitzgerald's career as a writer and provided a steady income suitable for Zelda's ambitions. The engagement resumed and they married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, their only child, was born on October 26, 1921. Inspired by the parties he had attended visiting Long Island's north shore Fitzgerald began planning the greatest of his novels, The Great Gatsby, in 1923, wanting to produce "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Published in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly; only 20,000 in its first year. Today, it is considered a literary classic and one of a small circle vying for the title "Great American Novel". Fitzgerald continued to supplement his income by writing short stories for magazines and to sell his stories and novels to Hollywood. He called this "whoring". In February 1932, Zelda was hospitalized with schizophrenia. Fitzgerald rented a house nearby and worked on his latest book, Tender Is the Night, and finally published it in 1934. Fitzgerald's heavy and excessive drinking had now developed into alcoholism and with recurring financial difficulties, the emotional toll of Zelda's mental illness, this meant several difficult years. In 1937, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood. His income improved and he began to work in the film industry. He found movies beneath his talents, but was once again in perilous financial straits, and so spent the second half of the 1930s in Hollywood, working on a triangle of short stories, scripts for MGM, and his final novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon. In 1939, MGM ended the contract, and Fitzgerald became a writer for hire. Still an alcoholic, he now became estranged from Zelda and developed a relationship with Sheilah Graham, the Hollywood gossip columnist. They quickly became lovers. In this last period of his life his alcoholism had left him physically wrecked. After suffering a heart attack, in Schwab's Drug Store, he was ordered to avoiShow book
Sunrise is a collection of interconnected stories continuing Erika Kobayashi's examination of the effects of nuclear power on generations of women. Connecting changes to everyday life to the development of the atomic bomb, Sunrise shows us how the discovery of radioactive power has shaped our history and continues to shape our future. In the opening, eponymous story "Sunrise," Yoko, born exactly two years and one day after Nagasaki was decimated, mirrors her life to the development of nuclear power in Japan. In "Precious Stones," four daughters take their elderly mother to the restorative waters of a radium spring, exchanging tales of immortality. In "Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey," a woman goes into labor during the final days of WWII. And finally, "The Forest of Wild Birds" shows Erika visiting the site of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, touring grounds that were once covered in green. Translator Brian Bergstrom returns in this collection, bringing to life Kobayashi's unsettling, lasting, and striking prose. The stories in Sunrise force a reckoning with the lasting effects of known and unknown histories and asks how much of modern life is influenced by forces outside of our control.Show book
As a window into the magic and potential of the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp's fourth short story collection is hilarious and heartbreaking. A teenaged boy confesses to a vicious assault on a cross-dressing classmate; Lance tells the sensual story of becoming much closer to his wife's dear friend Juanita; while a reluctant giant catches up with gangsters Torchy and Sfen in a story with shades of supernatural and earthly menace. Night Moves continues to explore the incredible lives of Indigenous characters introduced in The Lesser Blessed , Angel Wing Splash Pattern , The Moon Of Letting Go, and Godless but Loyal to Heaven . If this is your first time to Fort Simmer and Fort Smith, welcome. If it's another visit, come on in: we've left the lights on for you.Show book
