Other books that might interest you

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  Strawberry Delight

  L. Ann

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  When life gives you strawberries ... 
  Let Gabe give you orgasms. 
  You should read the full novel, Tattooed Memories, before reading this short story - unless spoilers don't bother you, in which case, please enjoy!

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  Noah's Ark

  C. J. Korryn

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  Called by God to live by a faith that falls dangerously close to insanity, Noah begins a grand project that will consume him. Noah refuses to listen to reason and insists that his faith is real. His family doubts him, and he is ostracized from his city. One by one, those that he loves begin to understand and grow a faith of their own that will forever change their lives. 
  As their world ends and a new world begins, so do their trials. Along with their new life at sea comes new adversity. Adversity that they had never imagined and new experiences that they would never forget.

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  The Crocodile - Legendary author...

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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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. 
   
  In the Crocodile a man is swallowed whole and through this Gogol explores themes and ideas that no other author would attempt. Absurdist genius.

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  The Striding Place - A Victorian...

  Gertrude Atherton

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  In Gertrude Atherton’s The Striding Place, the concept of identity and a lonely death are addressed. Weigall remembers talking with Wyatt about the soul and afterlife. Wyatt states, “If I had my way, I should stay inside my bones until the coffin had gone into its niche, that I might obviate for my poor old comrade the tragic impersonality of death.” The characters wonder about death and the destination of the human soul when it occurs. Weigall does not believe that the marshy bog, The Strid, has taken his friend, but when he sees a hand raised above the surface of the water, he knows it must be him and he desperately and quickly saves him. When he tries to resuscitate Wyatt, he sees that there is no face on the body. This is an extreme metaphor for the loneliness and/or mystery of death.

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  La Belle Dame Sans Merci

  John Keats

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  John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the great English Romantic poets. 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' is a haunting ballad describing a young knight whose very lifeblood and vitality have been drained by a beautiful but parasitic, fairylike vampire. This knight has now been left as an undead shell of his former self, alone on a barren hillside.

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  Stories To Scare You Witless

  Hector Hugh Munro, Wilkie...

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  Genuinely chilling narratives of paranormal phenomena, the returning dead, uncanny apparitions, sinister happenings and inexplicable events which make your blood run cold. Listen in the dark... if you dare! "What Was It?" - Fitz-James O'Brien "Laura" - Hector Hugh Munro "A Terribly Strange Bed" - Wilkie Collins "The Three Drugs" - Edith Nesbit  "The Philosopher's Joke" - Jerome K. Jerome "Sredni Vashtar" - Hector Hugh Munro  "The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot" - Ambrose Bierce "The Open Window" - Hector Hugh Munro  "Number Thirteen" - M.R. James "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" - Ambrose Bierce

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