Other books that might interest you

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  A Parallel Life and Other Stories

  Robin Beeman

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  The acclaimed author of The Lost Art of Desire explores grief and longing in the face of illness in this “delicate, atmospheric” story collection (Kirkus). 
   
  In the ten spare yet surprising stories in this collection, Robin Beeman delves into the inner lives of ordinary women, revealing their passions and frustrations with the limitations of life. In “Life Signs,” a dying woman spends her final days camping on a beach with her husband. A man facing the death of his dog relives the traumatic loss of his father in “Secrets.” And in the title novella, a married librarian gets romantically involved with an insurance salesman whose wife is struggling with cancer.

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  A Case of Mamma's Love

  Tammie Painter

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  This case contains more than mementos. 
  Clara’s mom has always had a peculiar admiration for other people’s possessions.  
  At first, it was only small, insignificant things: a shirt, a hair clip, and the like. But over the years Mamma’s tastes have grown. 
  When Clara discovers an odd suitcase in the back of her mother’s closet and its connection to the objects her mamma adores, she has to ask herself just how far Mamma’s love will go. And whether it can be stopped. 
  A Case of Mamma's Love had the honor of taking 3rd prize in the 2019 Keats Soul Making Literary Competition sponsored by the League of American PEN Women. In 2020, the story was selected for the anthology XVIII by Underland Press. 
  Ready to see what’s inside? Then pick up your copy of A Case of Mamma’s Love to hear this quirky tale today!

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  Camp Echo

  Paul Theroux

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  Celebrated as the “Indiana Jones of American literature,” legendary author Paul Theroux has explored the world and shared his vision of it in more than 50 books of bestselling fiction and nonfiction. 
  In Camp Echo, his novella for Scribd Originals, Theroux delivers a compelling coming-of-age story about racism, masculinity, morality, and leadership. Inspired by his own experiences as a Boy Scout in the early 1950s, Theroux writes with precision and vivid detail, drawing from his days as a teen in the wilderness battling his own definition of what it meant to be a man. His is a tale both classic and decidedly of this moment, when prejudice and intolerance are again on the rise. 
  Andy Parent is a well-mannered, intelligent, and conscientious teenage boy who goes to summer camp to learn what all Boy Scouts were sent to camp to learn in the 1950s: strong values and character. Upon his arrival at Camp Echo, the camp director tells Andy and his peers that this summer program is meant “to give America a new generation of men of character, with ingrained qualities that make for good citizenship.” 
  Andy settles into his cabin with the other “P” boys: Paretsky, Pomroy, Pinto, Phelan, and Pagazzo. Between making lanyards, swimming, and learning to shoot, Andy learns just how little he knows of the world, and how hard it can be for anyone who seems “different” to fit in. As he witnesses bullying and bigotry—both from fellow campers and from the counselors tasked with teaching and protecting the boys—he is faced with the choice of whether to fall in line or remain true to himself. 
  Nostalgic and nuanced, Camp Echo invites readers to explore the formative experiences that turn a child into an adult. It is a work that will touch anyone who remembers the challenges of adolescence and recognizes the personal and societal trauma wrought by casual prejudice and other cruelties. A morality tale punctuated by the colorful humor and put-downs of adolescent boys, it challenges us to choose when to laugh and when to squirm. As with all great fiction, it is a timeless story, one that speaks as much to the times we’re living in as it does to the time in which it is set.

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  The City of Dreadful Night

  James Thomson

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  James Thomson was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland on the 23rd November 1834.   
   
  At the age of 8 his sister died and his father suffered a stroke.  Thomson was now sent south to be raised in a London orphanage, the Royal Caledonian Asylum on Chalk near Holloway.  Shortly thereafter he was given the news that his mother had also now died. It was a bleak beginning to the next chapters of his life and would undoubtedly go a long way towards shaping both his character and his future. 
   
  Thomson trained as an army schoolmaster at the Royal Military Asylum in Chelsea and served in Ireland.  After a decade of Army life he left the military and moved to London to find work as a clerk. 
   
  What Thomson also possessed was a powerful and unique writing gift.  Unfortunately, his own demons curtailed him from leaving a larger literary legacy.  But what he did leave are works that can be difficult but very rewarding, allowing us to observe, to understand and make sense of themes and issues that we might at first shy away from.  He also used the suffix B V (Bysshe – taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley and Novalis - the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) this was to avoid confusion with the earlier Scottish poet of the same name.  For Thomson life always had a complication. 
   
  Stories, essays and poems were submitted to various publications during his life and undoubtedly the creative high point of his life is ‘The City of Dreadful Night’.  Within its bleak verse are the struggles of Thomson’s own chaotic tortures with depression, insomnia and alcoholism in the uncaring world that surrounded him.  It was published to favourable reviews from the critics but by now Thomson’s health was rapidly declining. 
   
  James Thomson B V died, in London, at the age of 47, on 3rd June 1882, from a broken blood vessel in his bowel.

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  Twice Told Tales

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first was published in the spring of 1837, and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

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  Sketches by Boz Volume 1

  Charles Dickens

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  Charles Dickens started his literary career as a journalist reporting for ‘The Morning Chronicle,’ a profession which encouraged his observing eye. This collection of essays and short stories was first published in that journal and anticipates, and frequently demonstrates, the genius that was to come. The Sketches ‘Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday People’ are a valuable documentary account of existence in the great metropolis during the early part of the nineteenth century and exhibit to the full the waspish wit, joie de vivre and compassion, for which the author was known. From the humorous gossip of ‘The Curate’ to the informative ‘Scotland Yard’ and on to a campaigning descriptive piece about Newgate Prison, Dickens takes us on a rewarding journey across our capital city, enlivened by the quirks and foibles of its inhabitants. This is the first of several volumes of Dickens’ journalistic writing to be published in audio format by Assembled Stories. We are sure you will enjoy them.

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