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  H2 etc - From their pens to your...

  A J lan

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  Leslie Harrison Lambert was born on 11th November 1883 in Nottingham.  
  After attending Rugby School he trained to be a surveyor. One of his passions was magic and such was his prowess that he joined The Magic Circle, and performed at society events. 
  By the beginning of World War I he was an amateur radio ham and volunteered to work at a coastguard station in Norfolk to intercept German radio transmissions. By November 1914 he was with the Admiralty at Naval Intelligence Room 40.  By 1919 this had become part of the new Government Code and Cypher School.  He was still there as World War II erupted across Europe and with many of his colleagues he transferred to Bletchley Park.  There, in Hut 8, he was quoted as saying that "in contrast to his outrageously unconventional stories" that he led his life on "a monotonously regular timetable". 
  Life outside the Intelligence services was very different.  He married but the couple had no children.  They lived at Holland Park with a second home at Potter Heigham for sailing on the Norfolk Broads.  Other interests were as an amateur radio operator, using the call sign G2ST, and an authority on food and wine. 
  He contacted the BBC to suggest he might tell one of his own short stories on the radio.  Thus was born A J Alan, and his broadcast of ‘My Adventure in Jermyn Street’, on New Year’s Eve, 1924.  It was an immediate success and although he only broadcast a handful of times a year he was one of the most popular radio personalities of the time.  He spent weeks working on each short story, honing his conversational style, making his stories seem like anecdotes that had peculiarly happened to him.  
  A live broadcast was, in fact, a performance.  He used cards to avoid any rustling noises and kept a candle lit in case the lights failed.  His attire was a dinner jacket with eye glass, and a slim black briefcase.  
  Many of his stories were subsequently printed in newspapers and magazines. 
  By 1937 his health had deteriorated and he reduced his radio work making his last broadcast on 21st March 1940.  
  A J Alan died on 13th December 1941.

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  3 Stories - Stream of...

  Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce,...

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  There is something about the number 3.    
   
  The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.   
   
  Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois.  It seems good things usually come in threes. 
   
  Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating. 
   
  From their pens to your your ears.   
   
  01 - 3 Stories - Stream of Consciousness 
  02 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 
  03 - The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf 
  04 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

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  The Remarkable Rocket - From...

  Oscar Wilde

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  Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland.  The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Trinity College and then at Oxford. 
  Wilde then moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles.  With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day. 
  His only novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with ‘Salome’ in 1891.  His society comedies were enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London. 
  Whilst his masterpiece, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, was on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel.  The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years hard labour. It was to break him. 
  On release he left for France. There he wrote his last work, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ in 1898.  He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line ‘Alas I am dying beyond my means’.

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  A Ballet of Lepers - A Novel and...

  Leonard Cohen

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  A never-before-published early novel and stories by the legendary musician, songwriter, and poet Leonard Cohen 
   
   
   
  The pieces in this collection, written between 1956 and 1961 and including short fiction, a radio play, and a stunning early novel, offer startling insights into Cohen's imagination and creative process. Cohen explores themes that would permeate his later work, from shame and unworthiness to sexual desire in all its sacred and profane dimensions to longing, whether for love, family, freedom, or transcendence. The titular novel, A Ballet of Lepers—one he later remarked was "probably a better novel" than his celebrated book The Favourite Game—is a haunting examination of these elements in tandem, focusing on toxic relationships and the lengths to which one will go to maintain them, while the fifteen stories, as well as the playscript, probe the inner demons of his characters, many of whom could function as stand-ins for the author himself. Cohen's work is meditative and surprising, offering playful, provocative, and penetrating glimpses into the world-weary lives of his characters, and a window into the early art of a storytelling master. 
   
   
   
  A Ballet of Lepers, vivid in its detail, unsparing in its gaze, reveals the great artist and visceral genius as never seen before.

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  Them Others - From their pens to...

  Stacy Aumonier

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  Stacy Aumonier was born at Hampstead Road near Regent’s Park, London on 31st March 1877. 
  He came from a family with a strong and sustained tradition in the visual arts; sculptors and painters. 
  In 1890 the teenage Aumonier attended Cranleigh School in Surrey. Although he would later write critically about English public schools (with articles for the London Evening Standard and New York Times) in how they tried to impose conformity on students, records indicate that he integrated well into Cranleigh. Aumonier was a passionate cricket player, belonged to the Literary and Debating Society, and, in his final year, became a prefect. 
  On leaving school it seemed the family tradition of the visual arts would be his career path. In particular his early talents were that of a landscape painter. He exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy in 1902 and 1903, and 1908. An exhibition of his work would later be held at the Goupil Gallery in London in 1911. 
  In 1907 he married the international concert pianist, Gertrude Peppercorn, at West Horsley in Surrey. She herself was the daughter of a landscape painter (Arthur Douglas Peppercorn, occasionally cited as ‘the English Corot’.) A son, Timothy, was born in 1921. 
  A year after his marriage, Aumonier began a brief career in a second branch of the arts at which he enjoyed outstanding success—as a stage performer writing and performing his own sketches.  
  The Observer newspaper commented that "...the stage lost in him a real and rare genius, he could walk out alone before any audience, from the simplest to the most sophisticated, and make it laugh or cry at will." 
  In 1915, Aumonier published a short story ‘The Friends’ which was well received (and voted one of the best short stories of 1915 by the Boston Magazine, Transcript).  
  Despite his age being 40 in 1917 he was called up for service in World War I. He began as a private in the Army Pay Corps, and then transferred as a draughtsman in the Ministry of National Service. 
  By now he had four books published—two novels and two books of short stories—and his occupation is recorded with the Army Medical Board as ‘author.’ 
  In the mid-1920s, Aumonier received the shattering diagnosis that he had contracted tuberculosis. In the last few years of his life, he would spend long spells in various sanatoria, some better than others. In a letter to his friend, Rebecca West, written shortly before his death, he described the debilitating conditions in a sanatorium in Norfolk during the winter of 1927, where the dampness was so severe that a newspaper left beside the bed would feel "sodden to the touch in the morning." 
  Shortly before his death, Stacy Aumonier sought treatment in Switzerland, but died of the disease in Clinique La Prairie at Clarens beside Lake Geneva on 21st December 1928. He was 55.

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  10 Boring Stories to Fall Asleep

  Jodie Crawford

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  Drift into deep sleep with intentionally mundane bedtime stories designed to silence racing thoughts and cure insomnia.
   
  When the day’s stress refuses to fade and your mind is trapped in a cycle of worry, finding true relaxation feels impossible. Embrace the soothing power of monotony through tales specifically crafted to cultivate a peaceful, heavy-lidded mood perfect for the restless sleeper.
   
  Immerse yourself in ordinary worlds where nothing urgent happens and conflict does not exist. From a librarian sorting archives to a traveler watching trains run on time, these low-stakes narratives provide a steady, hypnotic rhythm that signals your brain it is time to rest.
   
  What you will experience in this relaxation collection:
  
  Mindful Repetition: Experience the sedative effect of predictable patterns and gentle cycles designed to lower heart rates.
  Sensory Grounding: Focus on soft sounds like turning pages and rustling leaves to dampen nighttime anxiety.
  Mental Decompression: A deliberate narrative arc that transitions from mild curiosity to pure, thought-free stillness.
  
   
  Transform boredom into a therapeutic tool for wellness. Let go of the need for excitement and surrender to a comforting, uneventful journey toward a refreshing night of restorative slumber.

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