Other books that might interest you

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  The Business Man

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  "The Business Man" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe about a businessman boasting of his accomplishments. It was published in February 1840 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The story questions the concept of a self-made man.
  The narrator of the story is Peter Proffit, a "methodical" businessman by his own admission. He says a nurse swung him around when he was a young boy, and he bumped his head against a bedpost. That single event determined his fate: the resulting bump was in the area dedicated to system and regularity, according to phrenology.

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  The Vampire of Vespuccia - Story...

  Aleister Crowley

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  Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. 
  He was educated at Malvern College, Tonbridge School, Eastbourne College and finally Trinity College, Cambridge where he focused on his passions of mountaineering and poetry and published several volumes. 
  Life for Crowley was to abandon his parents’ Christian faith and instead to inject himself into Western esotericism.  In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was trained in ceremonial magic before studying both Hindu and Buddhist practices in India. 
  On his Egyptian honeymoon in 1904 he claimed contact with an entity―Aiwass―who gave him the sacred Book of the Law which served as the basis for the Thelema religion where he identified as its prophet.  During the Great War, which he spent in the United States, he claimed to be working for British Intelligence but by the 1920s he had decamped to pursue a libertine lifestyle in Sicily, and in the ensuing scandals was evicted by the Italian Government. 
  He divided the following two decades between France, Germany, and England, and the continuing promotion of Thelema. 
  During his life he gained widespread notoriety for his drug use, his bisexuality, and his alarming views on society.  In short, polite society frowned on his ways, his thoughts and his influence but to many others his stance had much of value.  Even after death he was a darling for the 60’s counterculture but his influence has since waned.   
  His literary works were both prolific and covered many topics.  In the early part of his career he published many poetry books, even plays, before his darker and more forceful works came to dominate his output. 
  Aleister Crowley died on 1st December 1947 at Hastings in England. He was 72.

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  200 Anniversary Collection

  Charles Dickens

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  The Charles Dickens 200th Anniversary Collection comprises short works, fiction, essays, poetry, letters, magazine articles and speeches. Here is a wonderful potpourri of all genres and periods of his writing. This first volume was released on Dickens' 200th birthday, February 7th 2012. 
   
   This precious audio work includes short stories including, amongst others, The Holly Tree, the first part of Holiday Romance and three pieces from Mugby Junction. Some items requiring a little further explanation are Prince Bull, written as a fairy tale, but in reality a scathing attack on the Government's handling of supplies to the troops in the Crimean War; Old Lamps for New Ones in which Dickens makes clear his low opinion of the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting; and Frauds on the Fairies, a polemic against George Cruikshank's bowdlerization of fairy tales for moralistic purposes, and the interesting revelation that 'product placement' is by no means a new phenomenon. 
   
  With narration by Emmy Award-nominated actor Geoffrey Giuliano.

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  Before Insulin - From their pens...

  J Connington

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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 J J Connington.

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  The Camel's Back

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Camel’s Back” is a sparkling Jazz Age comedy of pride, champagne, misunderstandings, and one extremely unfortunate camel costume. 
  Perry Parkhurst, a perfectly polished young lawyer from Toledo, reaches the end of his rope when a quarrel with his glamorous sweetheart, Betty Medill, leaves him heartbroken and humiliated. In a moment of wounded bravado, he lets himself be swept into an evening of reckless celebration—one that ends with him renting a shabby camel costume for a high-society circus ball. 
  What follows is a cascade of Fitzgerald-perfect chaos: mistaken identities, furious flirtations, a dancing camel, a drunken taxicab driver, and a cotillion gone completely off the rails. And at the heart of it all, a romance dangling between disaster and destiny. 
  Equal parts farce and charm, “The Camel’s Back” showcases Fitzgerald’s gift for sharp social satire, irresistible characters, and the comedic madness of love. Performed with rich personality by Tony J. Martin, this classic short story comes alive with all the wit, warmth, and wild energy of the Roaring Twenties. 
  A romp. A riot. A romance. And yes—there really is a camel.

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  A Tale of Two Cities

  Charles Dickens

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  ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…’ 
   Charles Darnay is an exiled French soldier. Sydney Carter, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer. In Dickens’ gripping, vivid historical drama the lives of these two men become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette, the daughter of a political prisoner. 
   The lives of Charles and Sydney are drawn from the calm, peaceful roads of London to the bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror. Soon they fall under the shadow of La Guillotine…

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