Publisher: BookRix
The diary of an ageless man, reveals his abundant life-experiences throughout the ages. Delve into a world, that has seen the Middle Ages, the French Revolution, the American Civil War and much more. Please review the book, if you liked it!
John Davys Beresford was born on 17th March 1873. His life was blighted by infantile paralysis which left him partially disabled. After an education at Oundle school he trained to be an architect. However, he quickly decided that his life was to be centred on a literary career. His first offerings were in drama and as a journalist. As well as being a book reviewer for the Manchester Guardian he contributed to New Statesman, The Spectator, Westminster Gazette, and the Theosophist magazine The Aryan Path. His spiritual journey in early adulthood had claimed him as an agnostic, in defiance of his clergyman father. This view he later abandoned in preference to describing himself as a Theosophist and a pacifist. As well as many novels, many themed with spiritual and philosophical elements. Beresford was also a gifted short story writer particularly across the science-fiction, horror and ghost genres. All of these elements helped him to obtain a prominent place in Edwardian Literary London. John Davys Beresford died on the 2nd February 1947. He was 73.Show book
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins was born on 9th February 1863 in Clapton, London. He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford. Hope trained as a lawyer and barrister and was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1887. Despite what was thought to be a promising legal career he had literary ambitions and wrote in his spare time. His early works appeared in various periodicals of the day but for his first book ‘A Man of Mark’ (1890), with no publisher interested, he published with his own resources. More novels and short stories followed, including the mildly successful ‘Mr Witt's Widow’ in 1892. Hope even found time to run as the Liberal candidate for Wycombe in the election that same year but was unsuccessful. His first major literary success came with ‘The Dolly Dialogues’, a collection of previously published magazine pieces followed very quickly by his instant classic, ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’. He now gave up the vestiges of his legal career to pursue writing full-time. Despite never again reaching the same pinnacle of success he was popular and wrote prolifically across novels, plays and of course, short stories though his writing output rapidly diminished after the war. In 1918 he was knighted for his contribution to propaganda efforts during World War I. His short stories are delicate, mannered and often surprising with their wit, humour and interplay of characters who say one thing and usually mean another. He was very definitely a writer of escapist rather than serious fare but they are no less enjoyable for that. Anthony Hope died of throat cancer on 8th July 1933 at his country home, Heath Farm at Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey. He was 70.Show book
David Herbert Lawrence was born on the 11th September 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, a coal mining town where the reality of a harsh life was only useful as experiences for future literary works. He was educated at Beauvale Board School and became the first local boy to receive a scholarship to attend Nottingham High School. After 3 years he became a junior clerk in Haywood’s surgical appliances factory. He was also attempting a literary career which, in the short term, led to a teacher training position in Eastwood and later a teaching qualification from University College, Nottingham. Lawrence’s first efforts were poems, short stories and a draft of ‘The White Peacock’. Moving to London and a teaching position in Croydon his writing attracted the attention of Ford Madox Ford, editor of The English Review, and he commissioned him to write ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’. Wanting to write full-time he now began work on what would become ‘Sons and Lovers. In 1912 he met the older and married mother-of-three Frieda Weekley. They eloped to Germany and here Lawrence could see for himself the growing tensions with France. So keen was his interest that he was arrested and accused of being a British spy. In early 1914 Frieda obtained her divorce and they returned to Britain to be married just days before the outbreak of war. Owing to her German parentage, and his own public dislike of militarism and violence, the couple were treated with contempt and suspicion throughout the war years. Despite this he continued to write but his reputation in England was so tarnished and, mirrored by his own disdain for the country, he and Frieda left England in November 1919, first for Europe and then America via Ceylon and Australia. They bought a ranch in Taos, New Mexico and visited Mexico several times. The third visit in March 1925 caused a near fatal attack of malaria. To convalesce they moved to Florence. Here he continued work on ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ which for many years would cause controversy. A renewed interest in oil painting resulted in an exhibition in 1929 which was raided by the police and several works were confiscated. D H Lawrence died of complications arising from a bout of tuberculosis on the 2nd of March 1930 in Vence, France. He was 44.Show book
In the heart of Mtdox where dreams intertwine with destiny, love finds its way through the corridors of youthful ambition and secret yearnings. Mtdox follows the journey of Emma, a spirited and determined student with a passion for art, and Lucas, the enigmatic school heartthrob with a hidden talent for music. As their paths cross in unexpected ways, they discover that their seemingly different worlds are more connected than they ever imagined.Show book
“A captivating exploration of gender dynamics, set against a background of the trying and confusing time of adolescence, when identity is in flux and everything in life is unstable and magical.” —Lydia Conklin, author of Rainbow Rainbow A fresh, thoughtful, and always surprising short story collection from a rising young star in the world of Japanese literature. Composed of the title novella and three short stories, People Who Talk to Stuffed Animals Are Nice sensitively explores gender, friendship, romance, love, human interaction and its absence, and how a misogynistic society limits women and men. In the title story, Nanamori and Mugito, two university students appalled by society’s gendered roles, rebel. Refusing to interact with other people they use stuffed toys for emotional support. Unlike Nanamori and Mugito, their fellow plushie society member Shiraki does not talk to plushies. Pragmatic, she accepts the status quo that boys sometimes make nasty jokes; she believes their behavior resembles the real world. In “Realizing Fun Things Through Water,” a young woman named Hatsuoka must contend with a mother-in-law who swears by cancer-preventing “hyper-organization” water, and a sister who writes fake news for a living. “Bath Towel Visuals” illuminates the mental cost of not just laughing along at mean humor, while “Hello, Thank You I’m Okay” follows a family’s response when their shut-in son announces he wants to throw himself a birthday party. Written in brisk and gentle prose, Ao Omae’s stories capture the subtleties and complexities of his characters’ inner world, individuals struggling to conform in an inflexible society little tolerant of difference. These stories, sometimes comical, sometimes bittersweet, and always thought-provoking, speak to the pain and desires of all who embrace nuance, repudiate traditional sex roles, and long for a gentler and more tolerant world.Show book
The final collection of fiction and essays by the most celebrated science fiction author of all time—including the Hugo Award–winning story “Gold.” Isaac Asimov is widely considered both the inventor of science fiction as well as the genre’s greatest practitioner. This wide-ranging collection is the final and crowning achievement of his fifty-year career as a writer. It includes an introduction by the renowned science fiction author Orson Scott Card. The first section contains stories that range from the humorous to the profound, at the heart of which is the title story, “Gold,” a moving and revealing drama about a writer who gambles everything on a chance at immortality: a gamble Asimov himself made—and won. The second section contains the grand master’s ruminations on the SF genre itself. And the final section is comprised of Asimov’s thoughts on the craft and writing of science fiction.Show book
