Book picks similar to
Hearts and Hands by O. Henry
short-stories
fiction
short-story
classics
A Clean Well Lighted Place
Ernest Hemingway - 1926
Have you read 'A Clean Well-Lighted Place'?... It is masterly. Indeed, it is one of the best short stories ever written..."
Rip Van Winkle
Washington Irving - 1819
This deluxe gift edition carefully reproduces thity-four of Arthir Rackham's enchanting and exquisuute paintings.
The Law of Life: a Jamestown classic adapted from Jack London
Walter Pauk - 1976
Sonny's Blues
James Baldwin - 1957
This collects "Sonny's Blues", "The Rockpile" and "Previous Condition", all taken from Going to Meet the Man (Penguin, 1991).
Contents of the Dead Man's Pockets
Jack Finney - 1956
If he lost, not even his wife would understand.places: New York, NY: Lexington Avenue, Wholesale Groceries, Public Library. Fifth Avenue, Loew's (theater), Fiftieth StreetOriginally published Collier's, October 26 1956
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Douglas Adams - 1986
It doesn't appear as a standalone work, but is included with several collections. The story is a prequel to the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and has the young Zaphod Beeblebrox working as a salvage ship operator. He guides some bureaucrats to a crashed spaceship which may be leaking some hazardous materials. The bureaucrats are determined to "make it safe". The comic asides in the story include some of the time travel paradoxes which are a common running theme in Adams' SF work, and plenty of material about lobsters
A Jury Of Her Peers
Susan Glaspell - 1917
Two women uncover the truth in a rural murder investigation.
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare - 1601
The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) Orsino. Two other would-be suitors are her pretentious steward, Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.Onto this scene arrive the twins Viola and Sebastian; caught in a shipwreck, each thinks the other has drowned. Viola disguises herself as a male page and enters Orsino’s service. Orsino sends her as his envoy to Olivia—only to have Olivia fall in love with the messenger. The play complicates, then wonderfully untangles, these relationships.
Kew Gardens
Virginia Woolf - 1919
The book's jacket design and page illustrations were by her sister, artist Vanessa Bell. More than sixty years later, The Hogarth Press at Chatto & Windus has published a lovely facsimile of that prized edition of 'Kew Gardens'. The lush and haunting story circles around Kew Gardens one hot day in July, as various odd and interesting couples walk by and talk, exchanging words but letting thoughts and memories float languorously above the glossy leaves and exotic blooms, while at their feet, a determined snail makes its way slowly across a mountainous flower bed. Elegantly produced, a precise replica of that 1927 special edition, with Vanessa Bell's jacket and decorative drawings, this is a rare treat for Bloomsbury devotees and all who love beautiful books.
The Immortal Bard
Isaac Asimov - 1954
It was first published in the May 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction, and has since been republished in several collections and anthologies, including Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986). Like many of his stories, it is told as a conversation, in this case between two professors at a college faculty's annual Christmas party.It is likely that Asimov wrote this short story after seeing how literary academia viewed his own writing. His autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, describes how science fiction gradually became more "respectable", while at the same time, professors of literary studies wrote things about SF — even about Asimov's own stories — which he completely failed to grasp. "The Immortal Bard" is an expression of Asimov's own deep admiration for William Shakespeare which also satirizes the interpretations built upon Shakespeare's work — such as symbolic, Freudian, and New Critical.
The Hanging Stranger
Philip K. Dick - 1953
He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself.
The Scarlet Ibis: The Collection of Wonder
James Hurst - 1960
We jump into the past as the narrator begins his story about his brother.The narrator is six years old when Doodle is born. Doodle is a sickly child, and everyone but Aunt Nicey thinks he will die. Daddy even buys Doodle a coffin. When Doodle has lived for two months, Mama and Daddy name him William Armstrong. The narrator doesn't think the name suits him, so he nicknames him Doodle.This is a tragic short story following the narrator as he tries to teach his weak younger brother to walk and play like a normal boy. It was first published in The Atlantic Monthly and won the "Atlantic First" award.