Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Head & Shoulders - A coming of...

  F Scott itzgerald

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  Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died.  Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained. 
   
  His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.   
   
  In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army.  In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre.  Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life.  For them this was The Jazz Age.  For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic. 
   
  He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names.  The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews.  As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.   
   
  Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936.  His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check.  His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents.   Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit. 
   
  The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers.  On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack.

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  The Decameron Volume II

  Giovanni Boccaccio

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  "The Decameron" is a collection of novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, written between 1348 and 1353. It is a masterpiece of Italian literature and a significant work of early Renaissance literature. The frame narrative of "The Decameron" revolves around ten individuals who flee plague-ridden Florence and take refuge in a villa in the countryside. To pass the time, they tell one another stories—100 in total—over the course of ten days. These stories encompass a wide range of themes, from love and morality to wit and humor, and they offer a vivid portrayal of Italian society in the 14th century.

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  A Perplexing Case - From their...

  H D Everett

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  Henrietta Dorothy Huskisson was born in January 1851 in Gillingham, Kent. 
  Little reliable information on her life is available and almost nothing on her early life.   
  The first concrete information concerns her marriage at age 18 to the solicitor Isaac Edward Everett. 
  It was only at the age of 44 that she began her literary career under the pseudonym of Theo Douglas, a popular device in a society that still frowned upon women writing for income. 
  During her lifetime she was a popular author and wrote 22 books and those were published by 17 different publishers. 
  Although she wrote some historical novels her main output was centered on fantasy and supernatural themes. 
  Henrietta Dorothy Everett died in Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire in September 1923.

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  The Prophet - A Loving Audio...

  Kahlil Gibran

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  Immerse yourself in a great book without reading a word.  
  Sit back, relax and enjoy a loving audio experience of profound insights that touch on themes of love, sorrow, self-discovery, freedom and many other interconnecting aspects of life. 
  This audiobook is orchestrated in the spirit of great tales told around a campfire. Atmospheric sounds and music start the listeners’ journey into a heartfelt narration of a beloved classic breathing new life into “The Prophet”.  
  Widely acclaimed for its ageless and universal wisdom on subjects such as marriage, work, pleasure, pain, friendship, beauty, and more. The Prophet is a source of inspiration for many seeking guidance on matters of the heart, soul, and daily living.   
  Premise: 
  After living 12 years on an island in exile, Almustafa (the prophet) prepares to finally return to his homeland. The people of the island gather to say goodbye as he shares insights into life based on their heartfelt questions and what he has learned living with them. 
  Indulge in an audiobook that doesn't just tell a story – immerse yourself in a symphony of words and emotions that resonate. Let the spoken word be a bridge between the pages of the Prophet and your soul. 

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  After the Race (Unabridged)

  James Joyce

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  James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 - 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.
  AFTER THE RACE: The cars came scudding in towards Dublin, running evenly like pellets in the groove of the Naas Road. At the crest of the hill at Inchicore sightseers had gathered in clumps to watch the cars careering homeward and through this channel of poverty and inaction the Continent sped its wealth and industry.

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  A Model Crime - From their pens...

  William Pett Ridge

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  William Pett Ridge was born at Chartham, near Canterbury, Kent, on 22nd April 1859.  
  His family’s resources were certainly limited. His father was a railway porter, and the young Pett Ridge, after schooling in Marden, Kent became a clerk in a railway clearing-house. The hours were long and arduous, but self-improvement was Pett Ridge’s goal.  After working from nine until seven o’clock he would attend evening classes at Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institute and then to follow his passion; the ambition to write.  He was heavily influenced by Dickens and several critics thought he had the capability to be his successor.  
  From 1891 many of his humourous sketches were published in the St James's Gazette, the Idler, Windsor Magazine and other literary periodicals of the day. 
  Pett Ridge published his first novel in 1895, A Clever Wife. By the advent of his fifth novel, Mord Em'ly, a mere three years later in 1898, his success was obvious.  His writing was written from the perspective of those born with no privilege and relied on his great talent to find humour and sympathy in his portrayal of working class life. 
  Today Pett Ridge and other East End novelists including Arthur Nevinson, Arthur Morrison and Edwin Pugh are being grouped together as the Cockney Novelists.   
  In 1924, Pugh set out his recollections of Pett Ridge from the 1890s: “I see him most clearly, as he was in those days, through a blue haze of tobacco smoke. We used sometimes to travel together from Waterloo to Worcester Park on our way to spend a Saturday afternoon and evening with H. G. Wells. Pett Ridge does not know it, but it was through watching him fill his pipe, as he sat opposite me in a stuffy little railway compartment, that I completed my own education as a smoker... Pett Ridge had a small, dark, rather spiky moustache in those days, and thick, dark, sleek hair which is perhaps not quite so thick or dark, though hardly less sleek nowadays than it was then”. 
  With his success, on the back of his prolific output and commercial success, Pett Ridge gave generously of both time and money to charity. In 1907 he founded the Babies Home at Hoxton.  This was one of several organisations that he supported that had the welfare of children as their mission.  
  His circle considered Pett Ridge to be one of life's natural bachelors. In 1909 they were rather surprised therefore when he married Olga Hentschel.  
  As the 1920’s arrived Pett Ridge added to his popularity with the movies. Four of his books were adapted into films.  
  Pett Ridge now found the peak of his fame had passed. Although he still managed to produce a book a year he was falling out of fashion and favour with the reading public and his popularity declined rapidly.  His canon runs to over sixty novels and short-story collections as well as many pieces for magazines and periodicals. 
  William Pett Ridge died, on 29th September 1930, at his home, Ampthill, Willow Grove, Chislehurst, at the age of 71. 
  He was cremated at West Norwood on 2nd October 1930.

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