A collection of short stories by a world-renowned naturalist and author of My Family and Other Animals introduces an eccentric cast of characters including a prize-truffling pig in France and an aging Memphis belle. Views: 285
The story of how Link Ferris finds a wounded dog by the roadside, and in nursing its injury realizes a sense of genuine companionship so new to his life that it serves as a stimulus to redemption. "He\'s learned me that livin\' is wuthwhile," is Ferris\'s plea when the owners, by right of purchase, claim him. Warm human interest, pathos, homely humor and an unexpected ending, make of it an exceptionally appealing dog story well worth placing beside "Lad" or "Bruce.” (cover image courtesy of Mark Forman) Views: 282
Louis Tracy (1863 - 1928) was a British journalist, and prolific writer of fiction. He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century. He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai. Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper - \'The Northern Echo\' at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire]; later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892-1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in \'The Sun\' and \'The Evening News and Post\'. Views: 281
The best and most interesting stories by Robert Aickman, a master of the supernatural tale, the uncanny, and the truly weird.Robert Aickman's self-described "strange stories" are confoundingly and uniquely his own. These superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the "void behind the face of order," is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the Thames, or is it even a river? What does it mean when a prospective lover removes one dress, and then another—and then another? Does a herd of cows in a peaceful churchyard contain the souls of jilted women preparing to trample a cruel lover to death? Published for the first time under one cover, the stories in this collection offer an unequaled introduction to a profoundly original modern master of the uncanny. Views: 281
Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by George Manville Fenn is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of George Manville Fenn then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. Views: 280
Originally titled Virunga, this is the story of Dian Fossey, the mountain gorillas’ greatest champion and martyr. Based on Fossey’s personal papers and on interviews with her colleagues, friends, and enemies, Gorillas in the Mist reveals one woman’s passion for life — and the creatures who share it with us. Views: 277
THE WINGS OF THE MORNING THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS THE WHEEL O' FORTUNE A SON OF THE IMMORTALS CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR THE MESSAGE THE STOWAWAY THE PILLAR OF LIGHT THE SILENT BARRIER THE "MIND THE PAINT" GIRL ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT THE TERMS OF SURRENDER FLOWER OF THE GORSE THE RED YEAR THE GREAT MOGUL MIRABEL'S ISLAND THE DAY OF WRATH HIS UNKNOWN WIFE THE POSTMASTER'S DAUGHTER THE REVELLERS Views: 273
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ...away. In support of this last fanciful idea there were plenty of loose rocks and splinters of stones that had fallen from above, mingled with others whose rounded shapes showed that they must have been ground together by the action of water. I did not think of that at the time, though I had good reason to understand it later on. The position was admirable, the ledge widening out considerably; we were safe from dropping arrows, and we had only to construct a strong breastwork, some five A COMING STORM. 211 feet long, to protect us from attack by the enemy. In fact in five minutes or so we were comparatively safe; in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour our breastwork was so strengthened that we began to breathe freely. By this time it was morning, but instead of its continuing to grow light down in the ravine, whose walls towered up on either side, the gathering light seemed suddenly to begin to fade away. It grew more obscure. The soft cool refreshing morning breeze died away, to give place to a curious sultry heat. The silence, save the rushing of the river, was profound, and it seemed at last as if it was to be totally dark. "What does this mean, doctor?" I said, as I glanced round and noted that the sombre reflection from the walls of the chasm gave the faces of my companions a ghastly and peculiar look. "A storm, my lad," he said quietly. "Look how discoloured the water seems. There has been a storm somewhere up in the mountains, I suppose, and now it is coming here." "Well, we are in shelter," I said, "and better off than our enemies." "What difference does that make?" grumbled Jack Penny in ill-used tones. "They can\'t get wet through, for they don\'t wear hardly any clothes. But, I say, ain\'t it time we had our breakfast? I\'ve given up my... Views: 271
Some facts about Billy Dickens:
He once saw a biker swerve across the road in order to run over a snake.
Later, that motorcycle somehow ended up at the bottom of a canal.
Billy isn't the type to let things go.
Some facts about Billy's family:
They've lived in six different Florida towns because Billy's mom always insists on getting a house near a bald eagle nest.
Billy's older sister is dating a jerk. It's a mystery.
Billy's dad left when he was four, and Billy knows almost nothing about him.
* Billy has just found his dad's address--in Montana.
This summer, Billy will fly across the country, hike a mountain, float a river, dodge a grizzly bear, shoot down a spy drone, save a neighbor's cat, save an endangered panther, and then try to save his own father. Views: 269
Should a gal ever accept a date with a man how admits he will try to seduce her? That's all I'll tell you. Click the blue below to see why. Here it suffices to say that the story is short and free. Why read a summary when with little more effort you can read the whole thing? If you can't spare a moment more, you shouldn't be wasting time reading fiction anyway. Go back to work!"One can not judge a book by its cover." So we are told. But a cover is usually the only thing a reader has to base a judgment on. Smashwords tries to aid readers by providing summaries, one short, one long, for each book it distributes. For non-fiction this works well. But this, it seems to me, defeats the whole purpose of fiction. After all, one reads a story to find out what will happen. It’s the uncommon twists and turns that make a story interesting. But if a summary has told all this beforehand, what fun is to be had in the reading? Therefore, no summary of the present short story is given. It's short and it’s free! So read the whole thing and see if you like it. I ask you to do this because I think it is the best book judging method. To find fiction you like you must first read around enough to learn something of the style and stories of different authors. Then you can judge books, not by their cover, but by the your opinion of the writer. I'd like to help you do this. The present short story is one of several which I will make available free at Smashwords. Read a few (or all of them) and decide if you like them. It won't cost you a dime. If you like them, you can then purchase some of my not free (but still inexpensive) longer stories. All these stories are of one particular kind. To reflect this similarity all have the same cover picture, the Kitty & Rose shown above. So after you’ve read a few, you can, in fact, judge them by their cover. The common theme of the Kitty & Rose stories is human sexuality. This is not unusual. Most fiction concerns sex in one way or another; ranging from romances so sedate and demure an extraterrestrial could never know sex is at the root of everything described, to erotica so unrestricted even an extraterrestrial might blush. Kitty & Rose stories are in the middle of this range. All deal with human sexuality, but none do so explicitly. Rather, they are seemly. The dictionary gives three meanings for seemly: Attractive or agreeably fashioned; Decorous or conventionally proper; and Appropriate or suited to its purpose. With respect to appropriateness, seemly sex stories range from the humorous to the inspirational, but all concern human sexuality. So they are clearly appropriate. These stories are also seemly in the decorous and conventionally proper sense. For, while they treat sex candidly, they do not do so graphically. There is nothing pornographic nor erotic in any seemly sex story. Of course, different persons’ opinions about this may differ. A few consider frank pornography decorous. At the opposite extreme are those like the abbot of the monastery where the great biologist Gregor Mendel did his epochal research. This abbot thought Mendel’s studies were decidedly indecorous because they involved the sex of pea plants! Finally, there is the principal sense of seemly, attractive and agreeably fashioned. Like every author I exert my every effort and ability trying to make these stories seemly in this regard. But like every author, I must await your determination of the degree of my success. Since both of us will be pleased if you find them attractively seemly, I very much hope you do.Happy reading!BobbyBP:.S. This is Kitty & Rose free short story 14, uploaded 3-8-17. Views: 264
Selections from 30 of the poets of the Guerilla Poetics Project.Presenting work by such underground luminaries as David Barker, justin barrett, Luis C. Berriozabal, JJ Cambell, Alan Catlin, Leonard J. Cirino, Glenn W Cooper, Christopher Cunningham, Soheyl Dahi, Dave Donovan, Doug Draime, Nathan Graziano, S.A. Griffin, Christopher Harter, Richard Krech, Mike Kriesel, Ellaraine Lockie, Adrian Manning, Hosho McCreesh, Brian McGettrick, Amanda Oaks, Bob Pajich, Kathleen Paul-Flanagan, Michael Phillips, Sam Pierstorff, C. Allen Rearick, Charles P. Ries, Ross Runfola, William Taylor, Jr., and Don Winter, the GPP Reader delivers the very best in small press poetry. GPP Poets and Operatives have covertly smuggled over 50,000 beautiful, letterpress broadsides into bookstores and libraries worldwide, and have been written about in the Wasatch Journal, Utne Reader, Poets & Writers, and featured in Quercus Review #7. Open the right book, and the GPP might just find you. Views: 262
First published in 1916. Louis Tracy (1863 - 1928) was a British journalist, and prolific writer of fiction. Views: 262
On this speck of volcanic soil in the middle of a vast sea, a complete, unique and peaceful world was created slowly and carefully. It waited there for hundreds of thousands of years for an annihilating invasion of voracious animals for which it was totally unprepared, a cohort of rapacious beasts led by the worst predator in the world, Homo sapiens . . . In an incredibly short space of time, a number of unique species had vanished . . . ' Mauritius, the green and mountainous island in the Indian Ocean, was once the home of the ill-fated dodo, and by the 1970s it still had many unique but endangered species, hanging onto their existence by their fingernails.When Gerald Durrell went to rescue some of these creatures from extinction, he experienced danger and discomfort, but enjoyed the adventures greatly. He spent nights in the jungle looking for bats and pink pigeons, and climbed near-vertical rock faces to find Telfair's skinks and Gunther's geckos, spending his spare time exploring the enchanted worlds of the coral reefs with their many species of multicoloured fish. By the end of his trip, he had an extraordinary collection of animals to take to his Jersey sanctuary from where the progeny could, in time, be restored to Mauritius. Views: 260
The Argentine pampas and the Chaco territory of Paraguay provide the setting for The Drunken Forest. With Durrell for interpreter, an orange armadillo, or a horned toad, or a crab-eating raccoon, or a baby giant anteater suddenly discovers the ability not merely to set you laughing but actually to endear itself to you.
Contents
Explanation
Saludos
Oven-birds and burrowing owls
Eggbert and the Terrible Twins
Interlude
Fields of flying flowers
The orange armadillos
Bevy of bichos
Fawns, frogs, and fer-de-lance
Terrible toads and a bushel of birds
The four-eyed bird and the anaconda
Sarah Huggersack
Rattlesnakes and revolution
Interlude
The Rhea Hunt
Adios!
Acknowledgements Views: 258
