Other books that might interest you

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  A-Birding on a Bronco

  Florence A. Merriam

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  Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey was an American ornithologist and nature writer. She started observing bird behavior at a time when most bird study was based on collections and skins. By 1885, she began to write articles focusing on protecting birds. Her introduction of a birdwatching field guide, aimed at living birds, is considered the first in the tradition of modern bird guides. She wrote the first of these at the age of 26, initially as a series of notes in the Audubon Magazine and later as books. In "A-Birding on a Bronco," she writes an engaging memoir about her several trips to study birds on a ranch in California in the late 1800's.

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  The Tell-Tale Heart & The Black Cat

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  The Tell-Tale Heart is a clever classical gothic horror story birthed in 1843, by the quintessential short story extraordinaire, Edgar Allan Poe. In this thrilling rollercoaster tale, we are granted access to the workings of the narrator’s heart - namely the confessions of the heart as well as the lack of having one.The unnamed dubious narrator and the obsessive loquacious speech ignite an array of topical themes including empathy, delusions of grandeur as well as its next of kin - mental health.Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy is rightfully etched in the Western canon and his prowess is often imitated but never duplicated. That simply is not possible given his unique adroitness in the short story genre. It is nonetheless lamentable that he only received his proverbial flowers for his spellbinding storytelling, posthumously. Without question, The Tell-Tale Heart accounts for a sizeable and significant part of his belated bouquet.1843 also gave birth to The Black Cat. This is arguably Poe’s darkest literary piece which bleeds the themes of brazen blame gaming, alcoholism, domestic violence and the inescapability of one reaping what one has sown. Sheer suspense on steroids!The Paperback version also includes an excellent bonus section entitled - 'His Penmanship Bled Alcohol'.

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  Two Tales from Sir Arthur Conan...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a British author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction. Here are two of his best stories, The New Catacomb and The Beetle-Hunter.

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  Christmas Stories - Tales of Joy...

  Willa Cather, Louisa May Alcott,...

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  Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters are with us every day.   
   
  Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas, seem amplified, we seem more tender to their touch, their words. 
   
  Whether it’s a long-lost returning soldier wondering how best to return to the arms of his family without too great a risk of shock …….   
   
  Or a prodigal son whose taken path has driven pain into his own and others hearts…..  
   
  Or a murderer carrying out his thoughtless deed but then enmeshed in a dialogue for salvation….. 
   
  These stories reveal much about the human condition. The landscape of our lives reveals that we all have choices, and how we use those choices influences, nourishes, or decays those around us. 
   
  These stories are tidings of both joy and of terror . 
  1 - Christmas Short Stories. Tales of Joy and Terror - An Introduction  
  2 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoevsky 
  3 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry 
  4 - What the Bells Saw and Said by Louisa May Alcott 
  5 - The Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather 
  6 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov 
  7 - The Dead by James Joyce 
  8 - Christmas Eve in War Times by Edward Payson Roe 
  9 - Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson

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  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...

  Mark Twain

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  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.

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  Cardenio - Shakespeare's 'lost...

  William Shakespeare

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  Set in the heat and dust of Andalusia in seventeenth-century Spain, Cardenio is the story of a friendship betrayed, with all the elements of a thriller: disguise, dishonour and deceit.
  A woman is seduced, a bride is forced to the altar, and a man runs mad among the mountains of the Sierra Morena.
  The history of the play is every bit as thrilling, and this text is the result of a masterful act of literary archaeology by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran, to re-imagine a previously lost play by Shakespeare.
  Based on an episode in Cervantes' Don Quixote, the play known as Cardenio by Shakespeare and John Fletcher was performed at court in 1612. A copy of their collaboration has never been found; however, it is claimed that Double Falshood by Lewis Theobald is an eighteenth-century adaptation of it.
  Since Theobald's play misses out some crucial scenes in the plot, Doran has turned to the Cervantes original to supply the missing episodes, using the original English translation by Thomas Shelton (1612) that Fletcher and Shakespeare must themselves have read.
  Cardenio re-opened the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's fiftieth birthday season in 2011.
  'an extraordinary and theatrically powerful piece... the play works beautifully' - Guardian

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