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  The Birds of Paradise - A Novel

  Paula Scott

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  From the author of The Raj Quartet, a coming-of-age tale about a boy and his childhood friendships with a British diplomat’s daughter and the son of a Raj. 
   
  The Birds of Paradise is set in India when the British Raj still seemed a paradise, but a paradise that boy comes to recognize as already lost. As Scott weaves together themes of political and personal history, he makes us feel how the protagonist identifies with the beautiful, mysterious India of the Raj. With a keen eye for character and graceful prose, Scott captures the reverie of a youth complete with parades of elephants, garden parties, and the titular birds of paradise, who are stuffed trophies of an Indian prince, kept as decoration in a gilded cage. When the boy is sent away to England, he experiences his exile as both the personal wound of abandonment and the foreshadowing of the Partition. 
   
  Winner of the Booker Prize 
   
  Praise for The Birds of Paradise 
   
  “A rare literary bird, a novel that in a short space recreates a man’s lifetime. Using exotic backgrounds, it manages to say something useful about growing up—a process that only children believe takes place mainly in childhood.” —Time 
   
  “Scott’s vision is both precise and painterly. Like an engraver crosshatching the illusion of fullness, he selects nuances that will make his characters take on depth and poignancy.” —Jean G. Zorn, New York Times Book Review 
   
  “One of the best novelists to emerge from Britain’s silver age.” —Robert Towers, Newsweek 
   
  “Far more even than E. M. Forester, in whose long literary shadow he has to work, Paull Scott is successful in exploring the provinces of the human heart.” —Life

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  The Magic Shop

  H. G. Wells

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  Simple magic tricks are what a little boy is looking for when he drags his father into a quaint, old shop. The proprietor seems to be a master of illusion - a genius at slight of hand. But, as the son becomes mesmerized, the father feels an icy hand grip his heart.

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  Adventure of Wisteria Lodge The...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" is one of the fifty-six Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. One of eight stories in the volume His Last Bow, it is a lengthy, two-part story consisting of "The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles" and "The Tiger of San Pedro", which on original publication in The Strand bore the collective title of "A Reminiscence of Mr. Sherlock Holmes".Holmes is visited by a perturbed proper English gentleman, John Scott Eccles, who wishes to discuss something "grotesque". No sooner has he arrived at 221B Baker Street than Inspector Gregson also shows up, along with Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary. They wish a statement from Eccles about the murder near Esher last night. A note in the dead man's pocket indicates that Eccles said that he would be at the victim's house that night.

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  Casting the Runes

  M.R. James

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  An association rejects a paper entitled "The Truth of Alchemy." The author of the paper, Mr. Karswell, does not take the rejection well. After his appeals fail, he begins to make inquiries about the expert behind the decision. The expert, Edward Dunning, soon begins to experience strange and disturbing events. He eventually becomes convinced that Karswell has placed a curse on him."Casting the Runes" was published in 1911 as part of the anthology More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. It has been previously been adapted for film, television, and radio.

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  The Celebrated Jumping Frog of...

  Mark Twain

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  "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain. It was his first great success as a writer and brought him national attention. The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its original title) and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley. 
  Jim loves to gamble and will offer to bet on anything and everything, from horse races to dogfights, to the health of the local parson's wife. He catches a frog, whom he names Dan'l Webster, and spends three months training it to jump. When a stranger visits the camp, Jim shows off Dan'l and offers to bet $40 that it can out-jump any other frog in Calaveras County...

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  The Game Of Logic

  Lewis Carroll

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  The Game of Logic is a book written by Lewis Carroll, published in 1886. In addition to his well-known children's literature, Carroll was an academic mathematician who worked in mathematical logic. The book describes, in an informal and playful style, the use of a board game to represent logical propositions and inferences. Carroll incorporated the game into a longer and more formal introductory logic textbook titled Symbolic Logic, published in 1897. The books are sometimes reprinted in a single volume.

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