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  Love - From their pens to your...

  Guy de Maupassant

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  Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France.  
  Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. 
  After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.   
  Maupassant’s education was such that he rebelled against religion and other societal norms but a developing friendship with Gustave Flaubert began to turn his mind towards creativity and writing. 
  After graduation he volunteered for the Franco-Prussian war. With its end he moved to Paris to work as a clerk in the Navy Department.  Gustave Flaubert now took him under his wing.  Acting as a literary guardian to him, he guided the eager Maupassant to debuts in journalism and literature.  For Maupassant these were exciting times and the awakening of his creative talents and ambitions. 
  In 1880 he published what is considered his first great work, ‘Boule de Suif’, (translated as as ‘Dumpling’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Ball of Fat’, or ‘Ball of Lard’) which met with a success that was both instant and overwhelming.  Flaubert at once acknowledged that it was ‘a masterpiece that will endure.’ Maupassant had used his talents and experiences in the war to create something unique.  
  This decade from 1880 to 1891 was to be the most pivotal of his career.  With an audience now made available by the success of ‘Boule de Suif’ Maupassant organised himself to work methodically and relentlessly to produce between two and four volumes of work a year.  The melding of his talents and business sense and the continual hunger of sources for his works made him wealthy. 
  In his later years he developed a desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death as well as a paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth.  
  On January 2nd, 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat.  Unsuccessful he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris.  It was here on July 6th, 1893 that Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant died at the age of only 42.

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  The Tragedy of a Comic Song -...

  Leonard Merrick

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  The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Walter Besant.

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  Bliss Montage - Stories

  Ling Ma

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  "Narrator Katharine Chin nails the dark humor and flat tone of this bizarre and fascinating short story collection."- AudioFile A new creation by the author of Severance, Bliss Montage crashes through our carefully built mirages.What happens when fantasy tears the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end?In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. A woman lives in a house with all her ex-boyfriends. A toxic friendship grows up around a drug that makes you invisible. An ancient ritual might heal you of anything—if you bury yourself alive. These and other scenarios investigate the ways that the outlandish and the ordinary are shockingly, deceptively, heartbreakingly alike.A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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  The Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses.  Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place.  Gambling debts forced an abrupt change of path and he joined the army to fight in the Crimean War.  He was commended for his bravery and promoted but was appalled at the brutality and loss of life.  He recorded these and other earlier experiences in his diaries which formed the basis of several of his works. 
   
  In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. 
   
  His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’. After the war he travelled around Europe, visiting London and Paris and meeting such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Charles Darwin.  
   
  It was now that Tolstoy began his masterpiece, ‘War and Peace’. Published in 1869 it was an epic work that changed literature. He quickly followed this with ‘Anna Karenina’.  
   
  These successes made Tolstoy rich and helped him accomplish many of his dreams but also brought problems as he grappled with his faith and the lot of the oppressed poor. These revolutionary views became so popular that the authorities now kept him under surveillance.  
   
  He led a life of asceticism and vegetarianism and put his socialist ideals into practice by establishing numerous schools for the poor and food programmes. He also believed in giving away his wealth, which caused much discord with his wife.  
   
  His writing continued to bring forth classics such as ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ and many brilliant and incisive short stories such as ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need’.  
   
  In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church and controversially deselected for the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
   
  Whilst undertaking a pilgrimage by train in October 1910 with his daughter Aleksandra he caught pneumonia in the nearby town of Astapovo.  Leo Tolstoy died on November 9th, 1910, he was 82. 
  01 - Leo Tolstoy - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - Diary of a Lunatic by Leo Tolstoy 
  03 - A Dialogue Among Clever People by Leo Tolstoy 
  04 - Aloysha The Pot by Leo Tolstoy 
  05 - God Sees The Truth But Waits by Leo Tolstoy 
  06 - How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

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  I Am A Fish - Lessons from the...

  Amir Rimer

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  I Am A Fish: Lessons from the Whirlpool 
  In a world where survival means fighting the currents, one fish has learned the secret to freedom: Surrender. 
  Living next to a deadly whirlpool, our fish narrator witnesses countless humans battling the relentless pull, only to be dragged under by their fear and resistance. If only they understood the truth he has discovered – the only way out is to let go. 
  Through poetic storytelling and profound wisdom, I Am A Fish: Lessons from the Whirlpool takes readers on a philosophical journey, exploring life’s deepest struggles from a perspective we never knew we needed. This mesmerizing fable invites us to question our instincts, face our fears, and find peace amidst chaos.Learn how acceptance can be the key to liberation.Discover the power of letting go in a world that demands control.Find meaning in struggle and hope in surrender. 
  This isn’t just a story about a fish. It’s about all of us – the battles we fight, the fears we carry, and the peace waiting for us on the other side of surrender. 
  Dive into a tale that will change how you see life’s whirlpools forever. 
  Ready to Let Go and Live Freely?

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  From the Neck Up

  Peter Cheyney

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  “Say, Mr. Caution, don’t ya think I got swell legs? I just asked that big punk Gettzler for a raise an’ he says I’m goin’ bowlegged. I reckon he’s a lousy liar. What do you think?” 
  Sadie has got the swellest legs in Chicago, an’ when she does her act at the theatre, hard-boiled guys rush off home just outa sheer nervous energy. She has also got sex appeal plus, but no brains. From the neck up she is as dead as a piece of frozen Eskimo.  
  This is a classic short story featuring Peter Cheyney’s popular detective Lemmy Caution. 

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