Editorial: Salt
'Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere.'
My Gran used to say, “There are times when the only way out is a lead pill.” These are stories when things got that bad. A Lead Pill is the second collection of short stories from a HARD PLACE. Stories of loneliness and betrayal, of false hope and shattered dreams, of gifts and regrets, of love and accidental kindness. Each story follows separate paths that lead to the understanding that sometimes the only solution is a lead pill. A life of stacked years never knowing that it was all in service to a memory in Service Up. What do you do when life has outlived the reason to be alive in Tired of Living. Finding love in the strangest places can lead to some strange results in Passing it Forward. The desperate do desperate things that they soon come to regret in Haymaker. She wanted the power, she just didn’t want to be used by it in The Refusal. All your life you have wanted something but maybe you didn’t know what that was in The Touch. His love of numbers led him to ask for something that turned out to be something else entirely in Adding it up.Ver libro
Whirlaway is mind and body adventure of the double-edge 80s, a time of growth, beyond idealism and self-absorption of the 60s and 70s. Bolder reaching for the gold ring made success seem attainable. Many young folk enjoyed cocaine as a cultural stimulant, for encouragement, confidence and assurance, while it lasted. It cost a bit and a bit more but beat depression. The 80s also marked the beginning of the end for nature on Earth. Human population, doubling since the 50s, generated trash. The piles doubled, too, along with traffic and indiscriminate destruction. Free love or sex was still in, as pesky new diseases arrived. On the bright and risky side, the 80s held potential for those in need. A bold player could float a loan at a bank, of all places, with an application form. Most banks had loan apps on hand, easily submitted with personal tax returns. The P.O. had racks of blank tax returns. Natcherly, the numbers had to make sense. No problema, with alignment available at friendly accounting services. Freebooting and fun-loving, 80s life was for the spirited, high lifers to down and outers, whoever could reach to grasp and bring the prize home!Ver libro
The Top Ten - Saki - An Introduction The name H H Munro is obscured beneath the literary mantle of his nom de plume; Saki. A writer of his times, the stories perfectly portray society’s whims and tastes in a delicate yet at times, barbed humour. A divine wit who conjured words into quite extraordinary works. 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. 1 - The Top Ten - Saki - An Introduction 2 - The Lumber Room by Saki 3 - Tobermory by Saki 4 - The Open Window by Saki 5 - The Reticence of Lady Anne by Saki 6 - The Hounds of Fate by Saki 7 - Mrs Packletide's Tiger by Saki 8 - The Unrest Cure by Saki 9 - The Music on the Hill by Saki 10 - Sredni Vashtar by Saki 11 - The Interlopers by SakiVer libro
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.Ver libro
While a door that just won’t stay closed may not seem like the most terrifying of hauntings, being alone in a silent manor for days on end certainly adds to the atmosphere. A request to discover the reason for the obstinate door includes a cash motivation and newly unemployed Theophilus Edlyd readily accepts the challenge.The Open Door is a standalone enhanced audio tale from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.Ver libro
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" is a horror novel by English writer William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1907. Presented as a true account, the novel tells of the survivors of a shipwreck, whose journey back to civilisation is beset by strangeness. This is a recording of the original, unabridged text.Ver libro
