Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

• 

  Lucky Breaks

  Yevgenia Belorusets

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Powerful, off-beat stories about women living in the shadow of the now-frozen, now-thawing war in Ukraine 
   
   
   
  Out of the impoverished coal regions of Ukraine known as the Donbass, where Russian secret military intervention coexists with banditry and insurgency, the women of Yevgenia Belorusets's captivating collection of stories emerge from the ruins of a war, still being waged on and off, ever since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Through a series of unexpected encounters, we are pulled into the ordinary lives of these anonymous women: a florist, a cosmetologist, card players, readers of horoscopes, the unemployed, and a witch who catches newborns with a mitt. One refugee tries unsuccessfully to leave her broken umbrella behind as if it were a sick relative; a private caregiver in a disputed zone saves her elderly charge from the angel of death; a woman sits down on International Women's Day and can no longer stand up; a soldier decides to marry war. Belorusets threads these tales of ebullient survival with a mix of humor, verisimilitude, the undramatic, and a profound Gogolian irony.

  Mostra libro

• 

  A Piece of Steak - American...

  Jack London

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  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.

  Mostra libro

• 

  Safe Enough - And Other Stories

  Lee Child

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Twenty crime stories by the creator of Jack Reacher, never before collected 
   
   
   
  For the past twenty years, Lee Child has been one of the bestselling authors in the world, thanks to the popularity of his iconic and instantly recognizable hero Jack Reacher. But even at the height of Reacher's fame, Child's short story writing was not confined to the series; throughout the course of his career, he published tales about a range of characters on both sides of the law, including assassins, a body guard, CIA and FBI agents, gangsters, and more. Meticulously plotted and packed with Child's trademark action and suspense, this collection shows the author's mastery of the short form. 
   
   
   
  In "Ten Keys," a drug-dealing hit man feels that he must unburden his fears and guilt to a stranger. A rookie cop in "Normal in Every Way" is assigned to the department's file room, where he makes connections to historic dates that could lead to solving crimes. A methodical bodyguard quits his job when he's outsmarted. A military mission is planned to perfection. A potential worker for the Manhattan Project is carefully surveilled by an FBI agent. A killer preys on other killers. Taken together, these stories are a riotous calamity of criminals and crime fighters; individually, they are expertly crafted, piercing tales that hit hard enough to leave a mark.

  Mostra libro

• 

  Arctic Sea - A Dan Lenson Novel

  David Poyer

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In the aftermath of a world war with China, Admiral Dan Lenson is assigned to set up a US Navy base on the rugged North Slope of Alaska, in response to Russian seabed claims that reach nearly to the US coast. Yet the current administration seems oddly reluctant to confront Russian aggression. At the same time, the International Criminal Court is accusing Dan of a war crime. Back in Washington, Blair Titus is running Jim Yangerhans’s campaign for president, while Dan’s daughter Nan battles disease in a radiation-soaked Midwest. But when Moscow plans to test the Apocalyps, a nuclear-powered citykiller torpedo, in the Arctic Sea, Dan is sucked into a perilous covert mission. Will a barely victorious America survive dangerous new threats… both from without and within?

  Mostra libro

• 

  A Danse-Macabre - From their...

  Bernard Capes

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Bernard Edward Joseph Capes was born on the 30th August 1854 in London.  He was one of 11 children. 
  His early work was as a journalist and this developed into writing many short stories for the periodicals of the time including Blackwood's, Cassell's, Cornhill Magazine, Illustrated London News, Macmillan's Magazine, Mall Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, The Idler, and The Queen. 
  It took him many years to decide that writing full-time could be a sustainable career path.  His initial success came with ‘The Mill of Silence’.  As well as being published it garnered second prize at a competition sponsored by the Chicago Record.  He exceeded that by winning it the following year with ‘The Lake of Wine’.   
  Capes quickly became both prolific and popular.  As well as his stories and articles for the periodicals he wrote around 40 volumes across novels, poetry, history as well as romance and mystery novels. 
  Bernard Capes died on 2nd November 1918 in the flu epidemic.

  Mostra libro

• 

  The Oval Portrait - The shortest...

  Edgar Allan Poe

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This is Edgar Allen Poe's shortest short story. Still, it is one of his most relevant works. It is a tale about an oval portrait hanging in a chateau that has a horrifying history. The painting is surrounded by mistery. After all, one can only wonder about what happened to the young girl depicted in the beautiful, yet haunting, painting. The Oval Portrait may present a brief text, but it is powerful enough to have inspired many authors, including Oscar Wilde and Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
  “On the face of it, The Oval Portrait is a moral, even a cautionary, fable about the tragic and dehumanizing effects of artistic obsession,” according to William Freedman, professor of English Literature at the University of Haifa. 
  Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, and literary critic. Poe is well known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. He was one of the America's earliest writers of short stories, and many consider him to be the inventor of the detective fiction. 
  Pete Cross is the winner of the Young Adult Audie Award 2022 for his narration of Ryan La Sala’s Be Dazzled.

  Mostra libro