Publisher: Booklassic
Dark Shanghai was written in the year 1932 by Robert Ervin Howard. This book is one of the most popular novels of Robert Ervin Howard, and has been translated into several other languages around the world. This book is published by Booklassic which brings young readers closer to classic literature globally.
This New York Times bestseller explores the life and many owners of an imaginary Vermeer painting in an “impressive debut collection” of linked stories (Publishers Weekly). A Dutch painting of a young girl survives three and a half centuries of loss, flood, anonymity, theft, secrecy, and even the Holocaust. This is the story of its owners whose lives are influenced by its beauty and mystery. Despite their many troubles and unsatisfied longings, the girl in hyacinth blue has the power to inspire love in all its human variety. This luminous story begins in the present day, when a professor invites a colleague to his home to see a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer—but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of events that trace the ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work’s inspiration. As the painting moves through each owner’s hands, what was long hidden quietly surfaces, illuminating poignant moments in multiple lives. Susan Vreeland’s characters remind us, through their love of this mysterious painting, how beauty transforms and why we reach for it, what lasts and what in our lives is singular and unforgettable. “Vreeland’s book is a work of art.” —New York PostShow book
Beautifully rendered and psychologically astute tales of life, family, and art from a true American master “The Sunday Painter,” a surprisingly comic tale, is the account of an amateur artist whose obsession with distilling his work to its most basic form—light—leads to a mental breakdown. “The First Day of School” is a moving and intimately observed portrait of the courage summoned by an African American family in the early days of integration. In “The Covenant,” a thirteen-year-old boy is confronted with his own mortality and instinctually redirects his anger and confusion elsewhere—the first lesson of adulthood. Beneath the deceptively anecdotal narration of “The Swimmers at Pallikula” lie deep truths about the absurdity of life and death and the eternal struggle for self-knowledge.As the editor of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, a founder of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), and a longtime teacher at the University of Iowa, Purdue University, and Brown University, R. V. Cassill influenced generations of American authors. In The Happy Marriage and Other Stories, this expert craftsman is at his most varied and vital.Show book
These stories about struggling artists are “a fierce and funny exploration of creation and its discontents” (Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal). Set in various creative communities—an art school, an illegal loft studio, a guerrilla street performance troupe—where teamwork and professional jealousy mix, these interconnected short stories by prizewinning author Anne Elliot follow artists as they grapple with economic realities and evolving expectations. A middle-aged poet, reeling from 9/11, fights homesickness, writer’s block, and ladybugs at an artist’s colony. A new empty-nester finds a creative outlet in her community garden, but gets tangled up in garden politics. As the characters pass through each other’s stories, making messes and helping mop them up, some find inspiration in accidents and others are ready to quit art completely. Together, they stumble through the creative process, struggling to make art and find the spark of something new and original within themselves. In a world where the odds of becoming a star are nearly impossible, The Artstars tells the darkly humorous yet moving stories of those who dare to dream.Show book
Willa Sibert Cather had Welsh ancestry but like her parents Charles and Mary, was born in Virginia, on 7th December 1873. Despite strong roots in the community, Willa was 9, when the family moved to Nebraska, to work the rich soil and avoid TB of which there were numerous outbreaks in Virginia. The vastness and drama of the Nebraska prairie and its’ extreme weather conditions as well as the many diverse cultures of the local families proved to be a major influence on her and can be evidenced in much of her later writing. Her first writing was for the local journal when she was at the University of Nebraska and later became the managing editor of the student newspaper. In 1896 she obtained work for a woman’s magazine in Pittsburgh and soon after became a regular contributor to the Pittsburgh Leader and wrote poetry and short stories for the Library, another local publication. Her first collection of short stories, ‘The Troll Garden’, was published in 1905 and contains several of her most famous including ‘A Wagner Matinee’ and ‘Paul's Case.’ As a writer Cather was now taking immense strides forward. Between 1913 and 1918 Cather wrote her Prairie Trilogy: ‘O Pioneers!’, ‘The Song of the Lark’, and ‘My Ántonia’ and in 1922 the Pulitizer Prize was hers for her novel ‘One of Ours’ set during WWI. Acknowledged as one of America's greatest writers’ further honours flowed. In 1943 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The following year Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. A determinedly private person, Cather destroyed many old drafts, personal papers, and letters. Her will would also restrict the ability of scholars to quote from personal papers that remained. On 24th April 1947, Willa Siebert Cather died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her Manhattan home. She was 73.Show book
Dmitri is a memory eraser, someone capable of removing memories from a person's mind. It's a grueling, difficult job but worth it for the burden he removes from others. But one patient may prove more than he can handle.Show book
Edgar Wallace (1875 - 1932) had no equal in the realm of the pure "thriller." "The Man of the Night" is a classic example of Wallace's genius. Stepping purposefully out of the dark shop, with a large sharp knife hidden under his coat, the wanted man met a stranger. But it was quite a different kind of stranger than he could have imagined... and what happens next is incomprehensible and inspiring.Show book
