Other books that might interest you

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  Love of Life (Unabridged)

  Jack London

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  Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.LOVE OF LIFE: They limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground.

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  Robinson Crusoe - Unabridged

  Daniel Defoe

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  Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe. It was published under the full title The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends decades on a remote tropical island, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers.

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  The Fisherman and His Soul -...

  Oscar Wilde

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  The Fisherman and his Soul is a fairy tale from Oscar Wilde. The protagonist, a young Fisherman, finds a Mermaid and wants nothing more than to marry her, but he cannot, for one cannot live underwater if one has a soul. He goes to his priest, but the priest tells him his soul is his most precious possession, and the soulless mermen are lost. He tries to sell it to merchants, who tell him it is not worth anything. He goes to a witch, who tells him his soul is his shadow, and says how it can be cut away with a viper-skin knife after he dances with her. After cutting his shadow and soul free from his body, his Soul tells him that the world is cruel and asks to take with him his heart to allay his fears. The Fisherman, however, refuses to give his Soul his heart, because his love needs it, and he sends the Soul away and joins his Mermaid under the sea…

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  Wind in the Willows AND The...

  Kenneth Grahame

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  British author Kenneth Grahame, during his brief career, managed to create two of the world's most beloved children's stories: the classic tale "The Wind in the Willows" and the novella "The Reluctant Dragon," each one a magnificent addition to any collection.  Here, these two famous stories are combined into one volume, presented in their original and unabridged format. First, Grahame's sprawling saga of life in the English countryside, "The Wind in the Willows," featuring the sensible and amiable Mole, the fiery and whip-smart Water Rat, the gruff and respectable Badger as well as the irrepressible and out-of-control Toad of Toad Hall, whose mad and impulsive behavior drives him to obsession, thievery, prison and escape! There are few more cherished children's books in the history of literature.  As an added bonus, however, we also include Grahame's story of friendship, love and compassion, the beautiful and elegiac novella "The Reluctant Dragon," wherein the main character - the Boy - discovers a friendly dragon living outside his small village. When the villagers learn of the dragon's existence, they recruit St. George himself to slay the monster, prompting the Boy to intervene and try to save his friend. A beautiful fable of love and friendship for children of all ages.

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  The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow on 11th November, 1821 to distinguished multi-ethnic parents from a Lithuanian background.   
   
  His childhood years were at the family home in hospital grounds which also contained an orphanage, an insane asylum and a cemetery for criminals.  The young Fyodor often disobeyed his father by talking to the ill in the hospital gardens.   
   
  His health was compromised at age 9 when he experienced his first epileptic fit. By the time he was a teenager both parents had died and he was now enrolled in a military academy where he graduated and eventually became a Lieutenant in 1842.  He left military service the next year. 
   
  In 1846 he published his first novel ‘Poor Cow’ to great literary acclaim.  His next was unable to emulate that success but his short stories helped provide an income.  Life as an author was definitely difficult. As he began his next work he was arrested and incarcerated for treason and participation in the political and literary Petrashevsky Circle. Although the case was weak and unjustified he was sentenced to 4 years of hard labour followed by 5 years of military service in a Siberian regiment.  
   
  Despite the undoubted hardships and setbacks in his life, and whether they helped or hindered his writing, his talents produced many exceptional works of literature including ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’.   
   
  Dostoevsky’s ability to get under the skin of his characters and show the inner workings of their mind was hugely influential and ahead of its time.  Interwoven with this was the influence of the broader social, spiritual and political forces at work in a person's psyche.   
   
  Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled financially and remained in poor health for much of his adult life.  He died from a lung haemorrhage on 9th February, 1881. 
   
  ‘The Dream of a Ridiculous Man’ is one of his many classic short stories that turn a splinter of the ordinary into the spiralling descent of chaos.

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  The Dorothy Parker Audio Collection

  Dorothy Parker

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  A variety of work from one of the most quotable of all twentieth-century authors—the inimitable Dorothy Parker 
  Author, poet, screenwriter and outstanding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker was known for her quick wit, keen observations, and remarkable insight into the human condition. Regarded as brilliant, but known to be an alcoholic and often depressed, Parker’s work pushes all buttons at once: humor, anger, love, pity and everything in bewteen…she pulled no punches, writing with pure, unadulterated passion; her work is timeless and as pertinent to today’s society as it was to that of the time she wrote. 
  Among the gems included in this collection are her first published short story, Such a Pretty Little Picture and her O. Henry Award winner Big Blonde, several other short stories, and, unlike other audio collections, some of her work, including her 1918 New Yorker piece on Tolstoy’s play Redemption and a 1927 Vanity Fair review of Emily Post’s Ettiquette.

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