Other books that might interest you

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  Hello Darkness My Old Friend

  Rachel Lawson

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  a few short gothic Magicians poems and stories

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  The Loosened Cord

  Alexander W. Drake

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  Alexander W. Drake (1843-1916) was a successful American wood engraver and art collector and director of the art department for Scribner’s and Century magazines. The weird tales he wrote were collected by friends to memorialize him following his death.'The Loosened Cord' (1894) describes an elaborate dinner party which includes an unusual decoration - a small bird in a gilded cage attached to a balloon by a silk cord. The cord comes loose, and the cage floats away with its captive bird. What happens next to the bird is more than extraordinary.

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  A Little Journey

  Ray Bradbury

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  In this short science fiction story by the acclaimed author of Fahrenheit 451, an elderly woman in search of enlightenment buys a ticket on a rocket.“A Little Journey” (August 1951) marks Bradbury’s final contribution to the editorial decade of Horace Gold, the editor of Galaxy magazine. Like The Martian Chronicles and “The Fireman,” the story demonstrates Bradbury’s characteristic blending so early in his career of the sentimental and the transcendent, the homely and the mystical.  Bradbury’s old women in space and their strange outcome are reminiscent of his more famous story “Kaleidoscope” (published in The Illustrated Man) and its conclusion shows unusual if understated power. Bradbury’s “The Fireman” (the short-form version of Fahrenheit 451 which was doubled in length for its book publication in 1953) appeared in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy and further solidified Galaxy’s reputation, as a magazine of unprecedented originality and ambition. Gold’s commitment to the highly ambitious “The Fireman” was, then, courageous for its time and gave publicity to the editor’s insistence that Galaxy was an entirely new kind of science fiction magazine, one which was far more oriented toward style and controversial social extrapolation than the other markets ever had been. Although “The Fireman” and The Martian Chronicles had been published earlier to significant attention, Bradbury in 1951 was by no means a writer of substantial reputation, and his work was regarded by most science fiction editors and readers as marginal to the genre.

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  The Man in the Brown Suit - B2

  Agatha Christie

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  Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. 
  Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English. 
  Pretty, young Anne Beddingfeld comes to London looking for adventure. But adventure finds her when she sees a man fall off an Underground platform and die on the rails. 
  The police think the death was an accident. But who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body before running away? Anne has only one clue, but she is determined to bring the mysterious killer to justice. 
  Anne’s adventure takes her on a cruise ship all the way to Cape Town and on into Africa…

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  A Lottery Ticket

  Anton Chekhov

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  The lottery ticket by Anton Chekhov is a short story. As title suggests it revolves around probability of winning lottery. Ivan and his wife are from middle class background. However, at first skeptical Ivan soon finds hope when he sees probability of his wife, Misha has a chance of winning lottery,
  The moral of the story is that material possessions and wealth do not bring true happiness, and that greed can lead to bitterness and broken relationships. Instead, the story suggests that people should focus on the love and companionship they have in their lives, rather than obsessing over money and possessions.

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  A Piece of Steak - American...

  Jack London

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  John Griffith Chaney was born on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco.   
   
  His father, William Chaney, was living with Flora Wellman when she became pregnant.  Chaney insisted she have an abortion.  Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself.  Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged. 
   
  In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where now, calling himself Jack, he completed grade school. 
   
  Jack worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university.  He studied hard and borrowed the money to enrol in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley. 
   
  In 1897, at 21, Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and for the name of his biological father. He wrote to Chaney, then living in Chicago, who claimed he could not be Jack’s father because he was impotent and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men.  Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Other accounts suggest that his dire finances presented Jack with the excuse he needed to leave. 
   
  In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, which together with hip and leg problems he would carry for the rest of his life. 
   
  During the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels. 
   
  By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing.  A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a continuing and remarkable output of work. 
   
  In 1905 he married Charmian Kittredge who at last was a soul and companion who brought him some semblance of peace despite his advancing alcoholism and his incurable wanderlust. 
   
  Twelve years later Jack had amassed both wealth and a literary reputation through such classics as ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘White Fang’ and many others. He had a reputation as a social activist and was a tireless friend of the workers.   
   
  Jack London died suffering from dysentery, late-stage alcoholism and uremia, aged only 40, on November 22nd 1916 at his property in Glen Elen in California 
   
  In ‘A piece of Steak’ an ageing prizefighter seeks one last win. Not for glory, or to revisit fame, but simply to put food on the table and keep his family together.  But to do that he must beat a highly rated up and coming adversary.

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