Other books that might interest you

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  Our Mutual Friend

  Charles Dickens

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  A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, Our Mutual Friend revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the dust-heap's expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes change hands surprisingly, raising to new heights "Noddy" Boffin, a low-born but kindly clerk who becomes "the Golden Dustman." Charles Dickens's last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend encompasses the great themes of his earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveaux riches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With its flavorful cast of characters and numerous subplots, Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens's most complex—and satisfying—novels

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  Four Day Planet

  H. Beam Piper

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  The planet Fenris has an extremely slow rotation rate, causing days and nights lasting 1000 hours each...! This makes its population live underground but for sunrise and sunset. The story unfolds around a conflict between corrupt local politicians and the equivalent of earthly whale hunters. A robust and action-packed sci-fi tale by H. Beam Piper, published in 1961.

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  Pierre et Jean

  Guy de Maupassant

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  A vague jealousy, one of those dormant jealousies which grow up between brothers or sisters and slowly ripen till they burst, on the occasion of a marriage perhaps, or of some good fortune happening to one of them, kept them on the alert in a sort of brotherly and non-aggressive animosity. They were fond of each other, it is true, but they watched each other. Pierre, five years old when Jean was born, had looked with the eyes of a little petted animal at that other little animal which had suddenly come to lie in his father's and mother's arms and to be loved and fondled by them.  
  Jean, from his birth, had always been a pattern of sweetness, gentleness, and good temper, and Pierre had by degrees begun to chafe at everlastingly hearing the praises of this great lad, whose sweetness in his eyes was indolence, whose gentleness was stupidity, and whose kindliness was blindness. His parents, whose dream for their sons was some respectable and undistinguished calling, blamed him for so often changing his mind, for his fits of enthusiasm, his abortive beginnings, and all his ineffectual impulses towards generous ideas and the liberal professions. Since he had grown to manhood they no longer said in so many words: "Look at Jean and follow his example," but every time he heard them say "Jean did this - Jean does that," he understood their meaning and the hint the words conveyed.

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  In Bayswater - One family is...

  Mary Butts

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  Mary Frances Butts was born on 13th December 1890 in Poole, Dorset. 
   
  Her early years were spent at Salterns, an 18th-century house overlooking Poole Harbour.  Sadly in 1905 her father died, and she was sent for boarding at St Leonard's school for girls in St Andrews. 
   
  Her mother remarried and, from 1909, Mary studied at Westfield College in London, and here, first became aware of her bisexual feelings.  She was sent down for organising a trip to Epsom races and only completed her degree in 1914 when she graduated from the London School of Economics.  By then Mary had become an admirer of the occultist Aleister Crowley and she was given a co-authorship credit on his ‘Magick (Book 4)’. 
   
  In 1916, she began the diary which would now detail her future life and be a constant reference point for her observations and her absorbing experiences. 
   
  During World War I, she was doing social work for the London County Council in Hackney Wick, and involved in a lesbian relationship.  Life changed after meeting the modernist poet, John Rodker and they married in 1918. 
   
  In 1921 she spent 3 months at Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Sicily; she found the practices dreadful and also acquired a drug habit.  Mary now spent time writing in Dorset, including her celebrated book of short stories ‘Speed the Plough’ which saw fully develop her unique Modernist prose style. 
   
  Europe now beckoned and several years were spent in Paris befriending many artists and writing further extraordinary stories.   
   
  She was continually sought after by literary magazines and also published several short story collections as books. Although a Modernist writer she worked in other genres but is essentially only known for her short stories.  Mary was deeply committed to nature conservation and wrote several pamphlets attacking the growing pollution of the countryside. 
   
  In 1927, she divorced and the following year her novel ‘Armed with Madness’ was published.  A further marriage followed in 1930 and time was spent attempting to settle in London and Newcastle before setting up home on the western tip of Cornwall.  By 1934 the marriage had failed. 
   
  Mary Butts died on 5th March 1937, at the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, after an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. She was 46. 
   
  Her story ‘In Bayswater’ grippingly describes a man’s friendship with a dysfunctional family he rents a room from.  As each facet reveals itself his opinion and decisions change, back and forth, this way and that….

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  The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses

  Apuleius

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  This tale of a man who, when tinkering with magic, becomes changed into an ass is one of the most entertaining and remarkable stories from classic Latin literature. It is funny, bawdy and completely approachable - but also shows life from the point of view of a beast of burden in the Roman Empire of the second century CE.Lucius is an active young man enjoying life - and the favours of an attentive maid, one Fotis - when the temptation to experiment with a magic potion proves too great.Life is very different as a four-footed animal, and he goes from one drama to another, in danger of his life at one point, facing seduction at another.Within this account of these adventures, Apuleius (c124-c170 CE) places ribald stories which are more familiar through retellings by Boccaccio and Chaucer. But there are also passages of considerable literary beauty, particularly in the extended account of Cupid and Psyche.The Golden Ass, in this lively performance by Jonathan Keeble, is a delight from start to finish.Translation: Bohn (1853), revised for this production.

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  Rip Van Winkle

  Washington Irving

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  In New York's Catskill Mountains before the American Revolution, a Dutch-American villager named Rip Van Winkle falls asleep and wakes up twenty years later without realizing how much time has passed. Unaware that the Revolutionary War has taken place, he must come to terms with the changes he encounters. Washington Irving wrote “Rip Van Winkle” while living in England as part of the collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., alongside his other famous tale, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Irving later admitted that When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills. Since its publication in 1819, the story has become part of American pop culture and has been adapted many times for stage, film, radio, and television.

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