- Home
- Biographies & Memoirs
Black Cat Tales: Where the Spiders Dwell and Other Short Stories is a collection of nine spooky (and sometimes mischievous) short stories and flash fiction from Black Cat Tales.Black Cat Tales: Where the Spiders Dwell and Other Short Stories is a collection of spooky (and sometimes mischievous) short stories and flash fiction from Black Cat Tales.This book contains nine stories including:Leaving Giles; where Stephanie is desperate to leave her abusive husband but she's running out of options.Santa's Head Elf; where the shopping centre has closed for the night but horrors lurk behind the colourful shop fronts.Apocalypse; follows Tom as he as he sets out to rescue his girlfriend as a mysterious plague sweeps the country. Where the Spiders Dwell; offers a glimpse of the secret world of the spider. Views: 504
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author shares vivid memories of her childhood and recalls the experiences that set her on the path to a writing life.
Ever since she received Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall as a Christmas present in 1936, Antonia Fraser's deep love of history has been a constant in her remarkable life. The book made such an impression that it inspired her to write Mary, Queen of Scots thirty years later.
Born into British aristocracy, the author's idyllic early childhood was interrupted by a wartime evacuation to North Oxford. The relocation had profound effects on her life, not the least of which was her education at a Catholic convent and her eventual conversion from the Protestant faith to Catholicism. Her memories of holidays spent at Dunsany Castle and Pakenham Hall, a stint as "Miss Tony" selling hats in a London department store, and her early days working in publishing are all told in her singular, irresistible voice.
My History is a heartfelt memoir that is also a love letter to a British way of life that has all but disappeared. Anglophiles, history lovers, and Downton Abbey fans are sure to be enthralled. Views: 501
Written as both a recollection of the past, and as a warning for future generations, The World of Yesterday recalls the golden age of literary Vienna; its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall. Surrounded by the leading literary lights of the epoch, Zweig draws a vivid and intimate account of his life and travels through Vienna, Paris, Berlin and London, touching upon the heart of European culture. His passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the edge of extinction. This new translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell captures the spirit of Zweig's writing in arguably his most revealing work. Views: 500
Torn between loyalty to her sister and the man she loves, Damiah hopelessly pours out her heart to a golden canary - without realising that her little bird's song is full of the hope she lacks.Inspired by the twelfth century lais of Marie de France, this modern folktale tells of Damiah, a young woman torn between loyalty to her sister and the man she loves. One day she hopelessly pours out her heart to a golden canary - without realising that her little bird's song is full of the hope she lacks. Views: 500
Madeleine L'Engle's classic young adult books include A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Planet, and Certain Women. The Small Rain, an adult novel, focuses on Katherine Forrester, the daughter of distinguished musical artists, whose career as a concert pianist evolves through loves and losses. Katherine is a child growing up in a refined, yet bohemian, artistic ambience--theatrical as well as musical . . . . [Her] adolescence is lonely and difficult, but as Katherine advances to young womanhood, her heart as well as her talent is promisingly engaged (Publishers Weekly). Views: 499
An NYRB Classics Original
Stefan Zweig was particularly drawn to the novella, and Confusion, a rigorous and yet transporting dramatization of the conflict between the heart and the mind, is among his supreme achievements in the form.
A young man who is rapidly going to the dogs in Berlin is packed off by his father to a university in a sleepy provincial town. There a brilliant lecture awakens in him a wild passion for learning—as well as a peculiarly intense fascination with the graying professor who gave the talk. The student grows close to the professor, becoming a regular visitor to the apartment he shares with his much younger wife. He takes it upon himself to urge his teacher to finish the great work of scholarship that he has been laboring at for years and even offers to help him in any way he can. The professor welcomes the young man’s attentions, at least on some days. On others, he rages without apparent reason or turns away from his disciple with cold scorn. The young man is baffled, wounded. He cannot understand.
But the wife understands. She understands perfectly. And one way or another she will help him to understand too. Views: 497
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Colum McCann's TransAtlantic.
A unique love story, a tale of loss, a parable of Europe, this haunting novel is an examination of intimacy and betrayal in a community rarely captured so vibrantly in contemporary literature.
Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the traveling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as desire. As 1930s fascism spreads over Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romani harpists. Sharpened by the world of books, which is often frowned upon in the Romani tradition, Zoli becomes the poster girl for a brave new world. As she shapes the ancient songs to her times, she finds her gift embraced by the Gypsy people and savored by a young English expatriate, Stephen Swann.
But Zoli soon finds that when she falls she cannot fall halfway–neither in love nor in politics. While Zoli’s fame and poetic skills deepen, the ruling Communists begin to use her for their own favor. Cast out from her family, Zoli abandons her past to journey to the West, in a novel that spans the 20th century and travels the breadth of Europe.
Colum McCann, acclaimed author of Dancer and This Side of Brightness, has created a sensuous novel about exile, belonging and survival, based loosely on the true story of the Romani poet Papsuza. It spans the twentieth century and travels the breadth of Europe. In the tradition of Steinbeck, Coetzee, and Ondaatje, McCann finds the art inherent in social and political history, while vividly depicting how far one gifted woman must journey to find where she belongs. Views: 496
After journeymage Wren and Queen Teressa argue over wicked Hawk Rhiscarlan,Wren leaves the magic school seeking Prince Connor.Wren is aboard a smuggler,fighting pirates with magic when Teressa flirts with Hawk, who upsets her court as Tyron-the next Queen’s Mage-watches helplessly.Evil ex-king Andreus adds to the danger that the four friends must resolve—along with their personal conflicts. Views: 495
Repackaged in a new tie-in edition to coincide with the Netflix film produced and directed by Angelina Jolie, a moving story of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her triumphant spirit as she survived the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot’s brutal regime.
Until the age of five, Loung Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights, and sassing her parents. While her beautiful mother worried that Loung was a troublemaker—that she stomped around like a thirsty cow—her beloved father knew Loung was a clever girl.
When Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Ung’s family fled their home and moved from village to village to hide their identity, their education, their former life of privilege. Eventually, the family dispersed in order to survive. Loung trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, while other siblings were sent to labor camps. As the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia, destroying the Khmer Rouge, Loung and her surviving siblings were slowly reunited.
Bolstered by the shocking bravery of one brother, the courage and sacrifices of the rest of her family—and sustained by her sister’s gentle kindness amid brutality—Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life. Harrowing yet hopeful, insightful and compelling, this story is truly unforgettable. Views: 494
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
In 1831 Nat Turner awaits death in a Virginia jail cell. He is a slave, a preacher, and the leader of the only effective slave revolt in the history of 'that peculiar institution'. William Styron's ambitious and stunningly accomplished novel is Turner's confession, made to his jailers under the duress of his God. Encompasses the betrayals, cruelties and humiliations that made up slavery - and that still sear the collective psyches of both races. Views: 494
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them. Views: 491
"I mean, so what? Order, chaos, order, chaos. We have real problem here!" exclaims one character in Only a Lower Paradise, the comic, profound, and likely blasphemous story of heartache, emotional crisis, and the fickle quest for meaning in our post-post-modern world. The book begins with Martha, a guardian angel, being late for an assignment. What is going on in heaven?If you do not have the abilities to turn cliché gifts into unique gifts, you do not have achoice but to look for something unique. A unique gift is distinctive and can not bematched. Since it is uncommon, this type of gifts is not simple to forget. We cry when welose them or despise the ones who take them away from us. They enter into us and theirmemories are such that we desire to hold on to for life. We hate it when we see somethingthe same as them, due to the fact that we really do not desire them to be compared. Whenother deems them unimportant, we get harmed. Views: 491
It's a book about show business, where fame is the stock in trade. Each year there are hundreds of stagestruck kids arrive in New York determined to crash the theatre, firmly convinced they're destined to be famous Broadway stars or playwrights. Views: 489
