Publisher: Good Press
Paul is a schoolboy, described as tall and thin with strange eyes. He is facing the headmaster and several of his teachers, with whom he does not have a good relationship. All of them, in one way or another, find him difficult and disturbing to teach.
A series of short, fantastic narratives inspired by fifteenth-century tarot cards and their archetypical images. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff BookShow book
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play.Show book
From a decorated former Marine, CIA officer, and White House Fellow, a stirring debut novel, an incredible act of empathy and imagination, about a young Afghan orphan.Aziz and his older brother Ali are coming of age in a tiny village in the pine forests and endless mountains of eastern Afghanistan. There is no school, but their mother teaches them to read and write, and once a month she sends the boys on a two-day journey to the bazaar in Orgun. The family is not “large or prosperous,” but, inside their mud-walled\home, they have stability and routine. This is all destroyed in a single day when a convoy of armed men arrive in their village. Aziz and Ali elude these militants, but, in a random act of violence, their parents are taken from them. The boys make their way to Orgun, where they sleep among the orphans in the surrounding hills. They learn to beg, and, eventually, they earn work and trust from the local shopkeepers. Ali saves their money, and sends Aziz to school at the madrassa. When U.S. forces invade the country, the militants launch increasingly brutal attacks, and the brothers find themselves caught in a deadly conflict whose shape they barely comprehend. After Ali is horribly disfigured in a militant bombing, Aziz meets an Afghan wearing an American uniform in the hospital and is recruited into the Special Lashkar, a U.S. funded militia. Driven by a desire for revenge and a need to provide for his brother, Aziz—no longer a boy, but not yet a man—departs for the untamed border region to train as a soldier. Trapped in a conflict both savage and entirely contrived, Aziz struggles to understand his place in this world. Will he embrace the brutality of war or leave it behind, and risk placing his brother—and a young woman he comes to love—in jeopardy? A former Marine and CIA officer, Elliot Ackerman has written a gripping, morally complex debut novel, an astounding act of empathy and imagination about the duplicitous nature of war.Show book
A collection of six Edgar Allan Poe short stories. Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, and literary critic of the early 19th century. He is widely regarded as a central figure in the development of the American Romantic movement and is known for his dark, macabre tales and poems, including "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Black Cat." Poe's works have had a lasting impact on American literature and popular culture, and his writing style, which often features atmospheric suspense and the supernatural, continues to be imitated and referenced today.Show book
Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements. Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft. Many attempt, but few achieve.Show book
Based on Rudyard Kipling's own adolescent experiences, Stalky and Co. is a cunning story of mischievous nineteenth-century British schoolboys attempting scholastic mutiny. The faculty and headmaster of a boys' private school repeatedly pursue a trio of poetic pranksters-"Stalky," "Beetle," and "Turkey"-as they wage war on fellow students and the "establishment" with unwavering energy and creativity.Stalky and Co. is at times poignant in its realistic portrayal of boys negotiating manhood and hilarious in its illustration of their relentless attempts to beat the system, even in the face of creative punishment and a savvy housemaster. Listeners of all ages will delight in this tale of ingenious schemes and rebellious antics.Show book
