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  Diary of a Lunatic - From their...

  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.

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  The Canterville Ghost

  Oscar Wilde

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  A ghost determined to terrify. A family utterly unimpressed.
  When an American family moves into the ancient Canterville Chase, they encounter a ghost with centuries of experience in haunting—yet every attempt at horror is met with laughter, logic, and practical remedies. As comedy unfolds, Wilde blends sharp wit with unexpected tenderness, turning a traditional ghost story into a charming meditation on forgiveness and change.
  
  Celebrated as "one of the wittiest ghost stories ever written," this beloved classic sparkles with satire, clever dialogue, and Wilde's unmistakable humor. Beneath the laughs lies a surprisingly moving heart.
  
  If you love clever comedy, playful supernatural tales, and stories that charm as much as they amuse, this timeless short story is a delight from start to finish.
  
  Open the book—and enjoy a haunting that's more hilarious than horrifying.

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  Samson and Delilah

  D H Lawrence

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  'Samson and Delilah' is set against a Cornish backdrop. Lawrence and his wife tried to settle in Cornwall during the First World War but were hounded by the authorities and forced to leave. Lawrence pointedly describes the local people as' mindless' in this story. It is almost a Homeric story of a husband returning home after a long absence, having to fight to regain his wife. But in this story it is the wife who is the obstacle. But she succumbs to the man's physical presence as Lawrence demanded all women should if they were to attain happiness.

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  Vincente Blasco Ibanez - A Short...

  Vincente Blasco Ibanez

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  Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was born in Valencia, Spain on 29th January 1867.  
   
  At university, he studied law and graduated in 1888 but never felt the urgency to practice - he was more interested in politics, journalism, literature and women.   
   
  Politically he was a militant Republican partisan and, in his youth, founded a newspaper, El Pueblo (The People). The newspaper was taken to court many times and he made many enemies. In one incident he was shot and almost killed. In 1896, Ibáñez was arrested and sentenced to a few months in prison. 
   
  Despite this colourful background he found time to write novels. His first published work was ‘La Araña Negra’ (The Black Spider) in 1892, a work that he later repudiated although at the time it was a useful vehicle for him to express his anti-clerical views. 
   
  In 1894, he published ‘Arroz y Tartana’ (Airs and Graces), about a late 19th Century widow in Valencia trying to keep up appearances in order to marry her daughters well.   
   
  Ibáñez’s next sequence of books studied rural life in the farmlands of Valencia and failed to gain much of an audience.   
   
  His writing now took on a new direction with its now familiar sensational and melodramatic themes in 1908 with ‘Sangre y Arena’ (Blood and Sand), which follows the career of Juan Gallardo from his poor beginnings as a child in Seville, to his rise to becoming a famous matador in Madrid 
   
  However, his greatest success was ‘Los Cuatro Jinetes del Apocalipsis (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) in 1916, which tells a tangled tale of the French and German sons-in-law of an Argentinian land-owner who find themselves fighting on opposite sides in the First World War.  It was a literary and commercial sensation and became the best-selling book of 1919.  It also propelled Rudolph Valentino to stardom in the 1921 film. 
   
  Ironically his fame in the English-speaking world has come not as a novelist but as the stories behind some of Hollywood’s greatest silent movies. 
   
  Vicente Blasco Ibáñez died in Menton, France on January 28th, 1928, the day before his 61st birthday. 
   
  01 - Vicente Blasco Ibanez - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - Compassion by Vicente Blasco Ibanez 
  03 - Luxury by Vicente Blasco Ibanez 
  04 - Rabies by Vicente Blasco Ibanez 
  05 - The Last Lion by Vicente Blasco Ibanez 
  06 - The Windfall by Vicente Blasco Ibanez<

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  Bone Chilling Slenderman Stories

  Jack Goldstein, Jimmy Russell

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  Just before Jack Goldstein and Jimmy Russell published their last book about Slenderman, 101 Amazing Slenderman Facts, they were both found dead in suspicious circumstances. The book was published in their memories. What was not known at the time however was that two packages were making their way through the Royal Mail service. One was from Jimmy and addressed to Jack, the other from Jack addressed to Jimmy. Both packages contained worrying documents detailing the history of Slenderman, and including some terrifying stories. 
   
  This grisly collection of documents is offered to the reader in the hope they can make some sense of the killings, as well as finding out further information regarding the slim being. 
   
  Proceed with caution.

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  The Doorway Prince

  Dawn Blair

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  The king’s advisor has a problem. The dead king left no heirs. 
  Eclipse searches for the kingdom's next ruler, but his calculations are skewed and unfocused. He doesn’t understand why he can’t get a handle on them. Worse, the royal council presses him for a decision. 
  He has only a star to assist his way through these dark times, and it lights his way to a teen, frightened, alone, and sleeping in a doorway. 
  In escorting the boy to the back to the castle, the young man is genuinely afraid of crossing through doorways. In one moment, Eclipse has a hold of him, and in the next, the teen is gone. 
  Will the star guide Eclipse across time and space, against others who also pursue the teen, to find the boy who would be king? 
  Travel the Wells of the Onesong for an epic fantasy quick read adventure by the author of The Loki Adventures.

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