Other books that might interest you

• 

  Bad Kansas - Stories

  Becky Mandelbaum

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The eleven stories in this Flannery O’Connor Award-winning collection explore Midwestern life “with heart and precision, and a fresh sense of humor” (Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted).   These beautifully crafted stories reveal the complicated underbelly of the country’s most flown-over state and the quirky characters that call it home. In this darkly humorous collection, Kansas becomes a state of mind as Mandelbaum’s characters struggle to define their relationship to home and what it means to stay or leave, to hold on or let go.   When a desperately lonely woman finds herself on a bad date with a rugged man, she must decide whether to sacrifice the life of a bear in order to keep the man’s affection. After having a nightmare about a mallard, a young man wakes to discover he’s choking the woman he loves. When his mother starts dating a slimy pizza parlor owner, a young boy must carefully consider his loyalties. The appealing and peculiar characters in Bad Kansas are determined to get what they want, be it love or sex or power, in a world determined to overlook them.

  Show book

• 

  The Connoisseur

  Perceval Gibbon

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Perceval Gibbon was born on the 4th November 1879 in Trelech, Carmarthenshire in Wales and, unusually, was partly educated at the Moravian School, in Koenigsfeld, Baden, Germany.  
   
  Gibbon’s early career was as a merchant seaman during which he travelled to Europe, Africa, and the Americas.  These early experiences were later reflected in his literary works. 
   
  He is perhaps best known for his 1912 novel ‘Margaret Harding’ but began his literary career as a poet with ‘African Items’ in 1903 followed quickly by two novels and then the first collection of his short stories in 1905: ‘Vrouw Grobelaar's Leading Cases’.  His short stories were much admired, and many contained cutting and ironic endings. 
   
  As a journalist he wrote for several newspapers including for the Rand Daily Mail and in the closing stages of the Boer War he wrote for the Natal Witness.  
   
  As the First World War began its titanic struggle across Europe Gibbon joined British Intelligence and was also a war correspondent with the Italian Army from 1917-1918.  
   
  By the end of the War he had advanced to the rank of Major in the British Royal Marines. 
   
  Perceval Gibbon died on the 30th May 1926.

  Show book

• 

  Mystery Writers of America...

  Michael Connelly

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  From Hawaii at the turn of the twentieth century to the post-Civil War frontier, from smoggy Los Angeles to the woods of Idaho, these gripping stories trace the perils and occasional triumphs of lawmen and women who put themselves in harm's way to face down the bad guys. Some of them even walk the edge of becoming bad guys themselves.In T. Jefferson Parker's "Skinhead Central," an ex-cop and his wife find unexpected menace in the idyllic setting they have chosen for their retirement. In Alafair Burke's "Winning," a female officer who is attacked in the line of duty must protect her own husband from his worst impulses. In Edward D. Hoch's "Friday Night Luck," a wanna-be cop blows his chance at a spot on the force-and breaks his case. In Michael Connelly's "Father's Day," Harry Bosch faces one of his most emotionally trying cases, investigating a young boy's death.The magnificent and never-before-published Connelly story alone is worth the price of admission and-combined with eighteen unexpected tales from crime's modern masters-makes this an unmissable collection.

  Show book

• 

  The Gifts of the Child Christ

  George MacDonald

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  It's the Advent season in London but all is not well in the Greatorex household.  All this will change with a surprise on Christmas morning. (Ann Boulais)

  Show book

• 

  The Music on the Hill; Cobweb;...

  Saki Saki

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Saki was the pen-name of Hector Hugh Munro. One of the wittiest of all short-story writers, he was born in 1870 in Burma where his father, a Scots army officer, was stationed. He was one when the family returned to England to live in North Devon. When his mother died his father, returning to serve in India, put Hector and his brothers and sisters into the care of his own mother and two sisters. The children’s childhood with their aunts was miserable. The aunts hated each other, quarrelled fiercely, and bullied the children mentally. They saw little of other children, and Hector’s main enjoyment was drawing. After some tuition with a governess he went to school in Exmouth, and later to Bedford Grammar School. In 1886 his father retired . A kindly man, he took the children to Normandy, to Dresden, to Prague , and to Davos, where they rode, climbed and played tennis, and Hector took lessons in pastel from a painter of birds of prey. As a young man, Hector went as a Police Official to Burma, but returned after two years, made ill by the climate. Recovering, he became a political correspondent for the Morning Post, living in the Balkans, in Warsaw, in Petersburg, and in Paris. He also began publishing the entertaining short stories that made him famous. In 1908 he settled in London, writing stories, playing bridge, and enjoying theatre and ballet. When the Great War broke out he enlisted in the ranks. On 14th November 1916, crouching with others in a shallow muddy shell-crater before an attack on Beaumont Hamel, he was heard to shout ‘Put that bloody cigarette out’ A moment later he was shot through the head.This volume includes four of his best loved stories: "The Man on the Hill", "The Cobweb", "The Interlopers", and "The Hounds of Fate", read by Patrick Barlow.Patrick has appeared on stage nationwide in such productions as Loot and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and his many television appearances include The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole and Victoria Wood - As Seen on TV, but he is probably best known for creating the character of Desmond Oliver Dingle, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of The National Theatre of Brent, that amazing two-man company which has presented on stage and television such productions as Charge of The Light Brigade, Zulu, The Messiah, and The Greatest Story Ever Told.

  Show book

• 

  Work Death and Sickness

  Leo Tolstoy

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Leo Tolstoy was one of the most famous Russian writers and thinkers esteemed as one of the greatest writers in the world.In the legend "Work, Death, and Sickness" Leo Tolstoy  speculates on the problem of people's happiness. South American Indians believed, that God made men so that they don't need to work.  But people were not happy, they had quarreled with each other. To bring them together, God made it impossible for people to live without working. They must  build houses, and grow plants, to not suffer  from cold and hunger. But people lived worse than before. They worked not all together, but in groups. And every group struggled against other groups. Then God decided to make so that people didn't know when they would die. They should not spoil the time of life in struggles.But it remained as bad as before. The strongest submitted those who were weaker. How did this story end? Get acquainted with the legend "Work, Death, and Sickness", to know it!A SmartTouch Media production.

  Show book