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  Great Gatsby The: Original 1925...

  Francis Scott Fitzgerald

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  The Great Jazz Age Novel_______The 1925 Original Version, with Classroom History_______The Great Gatsby is considered F. Scott Fitzgerald's magnum opus, exploring themes of decadence, idealism, social stigmas, patriarchal norms, and the deleterious effects of unencumbered wealth in capitalistic society, set against the backdrop of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. At its heart, it's a cautionary tale, a revealing look into the darker side to the American Dream."When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men..."

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  Billionaire Boyfriend - Pleasure...

  Jan Springer

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  When famous interior decorator Lily Tiffany receives a diamond-encrusted key with an invitation to a private island estate, she’s excited that her sexy billionaire boyfriend is surrendering her to his dark desire of sharing her with another man...

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  Russian Short Story The - Volume...

  Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol

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  The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length.  Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature. 
   
  Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story.  These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.   
   
  The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own.  It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity. 
   
  In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire. 
   
  The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.  
   
  Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced. 
   
  01 - The Russian Short Story - Volume 1 - An Introduction 
  02 - The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin 
  03 - The Stationmaster by Alexander Pushkin 
  04 - The Blizzard by Alexander Pushkin 
  05 - The Coffin Maker by Alexander Pushkin 
  06 - The Shot by Alexander Pushkin 
  07 - St Johns Eve by Nikolai Gogol 
  08 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  09 - Old Fashioned Landowners by Nikolai Gogol 
  10 - The Nose by Nikolai Gogol

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  The Top 10 Short Stories – The...

  Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  In these Isles of Imperial Empire the English language is now the lingua franca of the globe.  But between the Home nations tensions remain, they rise and fall, all is not well.  Authors born abroad and returning have new views, unique, a little off-kilter and literature feeds well on this fuel.  Together the men of these islands produce literature of quite sumptuous quality. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - The British & Irish Men - The 19th Century - An Introduction 
  2 - The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson 
  3 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 
  4 - The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy 
  5 - The Canterville Ghost - Part 1 by Oscar Wilde 
  6 - The Canterville Ghost - Part 2 by Oscar Wilde 
  7 - The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling 
  8 - The Dream Woman by Wilkie Collins 
  9 - The Story of B24 by Arthur Conan Doyle 
  10 - The Inconsiderate Waiter by J M Barrie 
  11 - Lost Hearts by M R James 
  12 - Youth - Part 1 by Joseph Conrad 
  13 - Youth - Part 2 by Joseph Conrad

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  A Dead Woman's Secret - From...

  Guy de Maupassant

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  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France.  
  Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. 
  After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.   
  Maupassant’s education was such that he rebelled against religion and other societal norms but a developing friendship with Gustave Flaubert began to turn his mind towards creativity and writing. 
  After graduation he volunteered for the Franco-Prussian war. With its end he moved to Paris to work as a clerk in the Navy Department.  Gustave Flaubert now took him under his wing.  Acting as a literary guardian to him, he guided the eager Maupassant to debuts in journalism and literature.  For Maupassant these were exciting times and the awakening of his creative talents and ambitions. 
  In 1880 he published what is considered his first great work, ‘Boule de Suif’, (translated as as ‘Dumpling’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Ball of Fat’, or ‘Ball of Lard’) which met with a success that was both instant and overwhelming.  Flaubert at once acknowledged that it was ‘a masterpiece that will endure.’ Maupassant had used his talents and experiences in the war to create something unique.  
  This decade from 1880 to 1891 was to be the most pivotal of his career.  With an audience now made available by the success of ‘Boule de Suif’ Maupassant organised himself to work methodically and relentlessly to produce between two and four volumes of work a year.  The melding of his talents and business sense and the continual hunger of sources for his works made him wealthy. 
  In his later years he developed a desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death as well as a paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth.  
  On January 2nd, 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat.  Unsuccessful he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris.  It was here on July 6th, 1893 that Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 42.

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  All's Fair and Other California...

  Linda Feyder

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  In this debut collection of richly evocative short stories, writer Linda Feyder portrays a diverse group of protagonists seeking fulfillment and connection in sunny California. She sketches her characters – of different ages, genders, and classes – with pitch-perfect honesty as they reassess their identities or confront the exact moment they face the fragility of life or themselves. A teenage girl travels to California from New York for an uneasy visit with the father she hasn't seen for years. A young man is disqualified from the Naval Aeronautical program and returns to his sister's home, where he struggles with his identity. A couple moves to the California desert for the warm climate a doctor prescribes and makes an unlikely friendship with a bullied albino boy. Girlfriends working together at a horse stable realize the nature of their friendship is changing when one of them decides to pursue her first sexual experience. Kirkus Review writes: “A beautifully rendered collection from a writer to watch.” 

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