Other books that might interest you

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - 1900s...

  Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, GK...

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  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. 
   
  This decade also heralds the debut of a new century but humanity has not lost its thirst for power, for glory either individually or collectively as nations.  Our wordsmiths also write this new century into history with stories of great beauty and narrative thrust, carving out characters to play roles in a rapidly evolving world that brings change to everyone. 
  1 - The Top 10 - The 1900's - An Introduction 
  2 - Pauls Case  by Willa Cather 
  3 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 
  4 - A Somewhat Improbable Story by G K Chesterton 
  5 - A Dark Brown Dog by Stephen Crane 
  6 - The Salvation of a Forsyte by John Galsworthy 
  7 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry 
  8 - Monkeys Paw by W W Jacobs 
  9 - Mezzotint by M R James 
  10 - To Build a Fire by Jack London 
  11 - Eves Diary by Mark Twain

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  The Call of the Wild

  Jack London

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  "The Call of the Wild" is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush - a period in which strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara Valley of California as the story opens.
   
  Stolen from his home and sold into service as sled dog in Alaska, he reverts to a wild state. Buck is forced to fight in order to dominate other dogs in a harsh climate. Eventually he sheds the veneer of civilization, relying on primordial instincts and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.
   
  The terrible, never relenting work of pulling sleds in sub-freezing temperatures combined with little food and rest quickly killed any dog not extremely tough. It almost kills Buck but his fierce determination to survive finally brings him through. London lived for most of a year in the Yukon collecting material for the book.

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  Easy Reading for ESL Students:...

  Johnny Bread

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  Easy Reading for ESL Students: Book 3 is a comprehensive reader designed especially for intermediate and advanced students of English as a Second Language. The book was developed and tested by full-time teachers of English. There are twelve stories accompanied by comprehension, vocabulary, speaking and writing exercises. The stories are short (400-500 words). Each story and its exercises can be completed in 60 minutes. An American doctor is captured by an Indian tribe and taken into their village in the middle of the rain forest. His chances to survive are very small. Then something unbelievable happens, and he becomes the shaman. A policeman is arresting a man on the street in the middle of the night. When he looks at the man’s face, he can’t believe his eyes. Who is that man?  
  After a road accident a group of children are stuck in the mountains. Their bus driver and their teacher are hurt. It is dark and cold. The children are frightened. A boy prays for a miracle, and then the miracle happens. It’s dark. A man is running in the forest. Suddenly he hears voices. He stops and goes to see who is speaking. Then a big adventure unfolds. This book is for everybody who wants to improve their English. It’s fun to learn English by reading interesting stories. The audio version of this book also comes with a PDF of the text of each story and accompanying exercises.
  An Open Book Audio production.

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  White Flame

  Jeffrey N. Baker

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  Rowan and his small team of mercenaries have been plucked from obscurity by the now-disgraced Lord Kael D'Alquid. Through his leadership, the group has risen into one of the most sought after teams in Tyr. Their latest mission seemed straight forward enough, plunder a caravan of its gold from the crazed Cult of Yuanti; worshippers of disease and rot. But when the promise of vast wealth turns up empty, Rowan learns that their leader Kael may not have told them the whole truth behind the mission...

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  The Wonder Garden

  Lauren Acampora

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  “In 13 sharply drawn linked stories, Acampora reveals the complexities beneath the polish and privilege of a prosperous Connecticut town.”—People   A man strikes an under-the-table deal with a surgeon to spend a few quiet seconds closer to his wife than he’s ever been; a young soon-to-be mother looks on in paralyzing astonishment as her husband walks away from a twenty-year career in advertising at the urging of his spirit animal; an elderly artist risks more than he knows when he’s commissioned by his newly-arrived neighbors to produce the work of a lifetime.   In her stunning debut collection, The Wonder Garden, Lauren Acampora brings to the page with enchanting realism the myriad lives of a suburban town and lays them bare. These linked stories take a trenchant look at the flawed people of Old Cranbury, incisive tales that reveal at each turn the unseen battles we play out behind drawn blinds, the creeping truths from which we distract ourselves, and the massive dreams we haul quietly with us and hold close.   Deliciously creepy and masterfully complex The Wonder Garden heralds the arrival of a phenomenal new talent in American fiction.   “Like Wharton, Acampora seems to understand fiction as a kind of elegant design.”—The New York Times Book Review   “Acampora is a brilliant anthropologist of the suburbs . . . [The Wonder Garden] is reminiscent of John Cheever in its anatomizing of suburban ennui and of Ann Beattie in its bemused dissection of a colorful cast of eccentrics.”—Boston Globe   “Intelligent, unnerving, and very often strange . . . as irresistible as it is disturbing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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  Bermetha and The Whale - A Short...

  Beard Bates

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  "Gritty...Grimey...Syrup-soaked and Jelly-filled. A punctured and oozing tale of true love, abuse, gluttony and unbelievable revenge, BERMETHA AND THE WHALE is the word-for-word transcription of an audio recording from an incarcerated man in 1980's Ohio. No price is too high to pay to be free from "The Whale," the world's most horrific individual. 
  A unique piece of American literary fiction. A short story in magical realism. A work by Beard Bates."

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