Publisher: 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.'
LibriVox’s Short Story Collection 040: a collection of 20 short works of fiction in the public domain read by a group of LibriVox members.Show book
A compendium of quotes and riffs by P.J. O'Rourke on subjects ranging from government to fishing to apps, to be published on what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday.When The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations was published in 1994, P. J. O'Rourke had more entries than any living writer. And he kept writing funny stuff for another twenty-eight years. Now, for the first time, the best material is collected in one volume. Edited by Terry McDonell, The Funny Stuff is arranged in six sections, organized by subject in alphabetical order from Agriculture to Xenophobia. From his earliest days at the National Lampoon in the 1970s, through his classic reporting for Rolling Stone in the '80s and '90s to his post-Trump, pandemic, new media observations of recent years, P. J. produced incisive, amusing copy. Not only did P. J. write memorable one-liners, he also meticulously constructed riffs that are still being quoted years later. His prose has the electric verbal energy of Tom Wolfe or Hunter Thompson, but P. J. is more flat out funny. And through it all comes his clear-eyed take on politics, economics, human nature—and fun. The Funny Stuff is a book for P. J. fans to devour but also a book that will bring new audiences and stand as testament to one of the truly original American writers of the last fifty years.Show book
In 2007, chef Grant Achatz seemingly had it made. He had been named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine in 2002, received the James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award in 2003, and in 2005 he and Nick Kokonas opened the conceptually radical restaurant Alinea, which was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine. Then, positioned firmly in the world's culinary spotlight, Achatz was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma-tongue cancer. The prognosis was grim, and doctors agreed that the only course of action was to remove the cancerous tissue, which included his entire tongue. Desperate to preserve his quality of life, Grant undertook an alternative treatment of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. But the choice came at a cost. Skin peeled from the inside of Grant's mouth and throat, he rapidly lost weight, and most alarmingly, he lost his sense of taste. Tapping into the discipline, passion, and focus of being a chef, Grant rarely missed a day of work. He trained his chefs to mimic his palate and learned how to cook with his other senses. As Kokonas was able to attest, the food was never better. Five months later, Grant was declared cancer-free, and just a few months following, he received the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef in America Award. Life, on the Line tells the story of a culinary trailblazer's love affair with cooking, but it is also a book about survival, about nurturing creativity, and about profound friendship. Already much-anticipated by followers of progressive cuisine, Grant and Nick's gripping narrative is filled with stories from the world's most renowned kitchens-the French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, el Bulli-and sure to expand the audience that made Alinea the number-one selling restaurant cookbook in America last year.Show book
Twelve Years a Slave is the true story of Solomon Northup: born a free black man in New York State, and sold into slavery after being tricked in 1841.Unable to convince anyone he is not a slave, Solomon spent 12 years in bondage, before finally being set free.Northup’s memoir, recounting details of the slave markets and the harsh life on plantations, was used in the struggle to abolish slavery in the United States.Show book
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on the 30th November 1835 and is far better known by his pen name of Mark Twain. An American writer and humorist of the first order he is perhaps best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and its sequel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ which are often described with that mythic line The Great American Novel. Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri which would later provide the backdrop to these great novels. Apprenticed to a printer he also became a typesetter and then a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi. Later, heading west with his brother Orion to make his fortune, he failed at gold mining and instead turned to journalism and thence his true calling as a writer of humorous stories where his wit and humor sparkled from every paragraph, his craft evident with every page and punctured target. A staunch supporter of copyright protections this helped him keep much of the wealth his writing created, though much money was also lost on investments that he pursued in his love for science and technology as well as investing in his own inventions. Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well. He died the day after its subsequent return on 21st April 1910, at his house, Stormfield, located in Redding, Connecticut. In this story Twain proposed that coming into possession of a million pound note should solve all of life’s problems, both big and small. And he’s right. For a time it does. But…. Yes, with Twain, there is always a but.Show book
My Secret Life, the anonymously written erotic memoirs of a Victorian English gentleman who refers to himself simply as 'Walter' is one of the most idiosyncratic and prurient books ever written. In this vast autobiographical confessional the author recounts, in meticulous detail, his sexual exploits throughout the course of a life devoted entirely to the pursuit of carnal knowledge. Through this compelling exploration of the author's sexual and moral behavior we are left with a uniquely entertaining insight into life behind the closed doors of Victorian society. My Secret Life is funny, sorrowful, suspenseful, compulsively readable, obscene, titillating, exciting and erotic...we are privy to the thoughts, emotions and memories of one of the most unusual, unsung and colorful characters of the Victorian era. Now, for the first time, the complete unabridged version of this unique and important text is being narrated and scored by film composer Dominic Crawford Collins as an 'audiofilm' (an audiobook in which the emotional landscape is explored through the music score). Each chapter of My Secret Life will be released at monthly intervals over the next ten to fifteen years culminating in a lifetime's work for the composer and what is likely to become the longest audio book ever to be produced.Show book
