Fridthjof's Saga


Esaias Tegnér - 1825
    After writing Fridthjof's Saga Tegner was considered the father of modern Swedish poetry. Fridthjof's Saga dates back to the 8th century in Iceland. King Beli had two sons, Helgi and Halfdan, and a daughter named Ingeborg. On the other side of the fjord, lived the king's friend whose son Frithjof was called "the bold" and he was the bravest among men. Frithjof had been raised together with Ingeborg by their foster-father Hilding. Both Beli and �orsteinn died in war whereupon Helgi and Halfdan ruled the kingdom. The two kings were jealous of Frithjof's excellent qualities and so they refused to let him marry Ingeborg. When Frithjof returned he burnt down Baldr's temple and went away and became a Viking. After three years, he came to king Ring. Just before the old king died, Frithjof's identity was apparent to everybody and the dying king appointed Frithjof Earl and made him the care-taker of Ring and Ingeborg's child. When Ring died, Frithjof and Ingeborg married and he became the king of Ringerike. Then he declared war on Ingeborg's brothers killing one of them and making the second his vassal.

Padma Nadir Majhi


Lambert M. Surhone - 2010
    Padma Nadir Majhi ( Bengali:,English title: Boatman of the River Padma or The Padma Boatman ) (1993) is an award-winning Indian Bengali feature film directed by Goutom Ghosh from novel,the same name Manik Banerjees Padma Nadir Majhi.Hossian Miya (Utpal Dutta),Bengali Muslim, a trader who offers to take this community to with an idealistic vision: he wants to establish a little utopia on an island (Moynadeep) in the Padma delta . and offer them a better life there. It is apparent that Hossian Miya has a flourishing business there, because he has recently purchased a huge boat because of expanding business.

The Circle - A Comedy in Three Acts


W. Somerset Maugham - 1921
    It is not what we do; it is what we are that is decisive. People with weak, trivial natures will be unhappy, no matter who they are with, or what they are doing. Instead of improving their character, they will always long for that someone or something or some place to make it all better. Those with stronger characters have a greater chance of happiness no matter what their choices have been.

Father of the Bride: A Comedy in Three Acts


Caroline Francke - 1948
    Banks learns that one of the young men he has seen occasionally about the house is about to become his son-in-law. Daughter Kay announces the engagement out of nowhere. Mrs. Banks and her sons are happy, but Mr. Banks is in a dither. The groom-to-be, Buckley Dunstan, appears on the scene and Mr. Banks realizes that the engagement is serious. Buckley and Kay don't want a "big" wedding just a simple affair with a few friends! We soon learn, however, that the "few" friends idea is out. Then trouble really begins. The guest list grows larger each day, a caterer is called in, florists, furniture movers and dressmakers take over, and the Banks household is soon caught in turmoil.

The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson


Alfred Tennyson - 1901
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

A View from the Bridge


Arthur Miller - 2016
    Eddie Carbone is a Brooklyn longshoreman, a hard-working man whose life has been soothingly predictable. He hasn't counted on the arrival of two of his wife's relatives, illegal immigrants from Italy; nor has he recognized his true feelings for his beautiful niece, Catherine. And in due course, what Eddie doesn't know?about her, about life, about his own heart?will have devastating consequences.

Handbags and Poobags: Tales of a Soho Boxer Dog


Alice Wright - 2012
    and bags of laughs too! A love story with a twist in its very waggy tail. I think Alice Wright is really Bridget Bones! Forget Hugh Grant or Colin Firth though, her dog is a much better love interest (and he’s a proper Boxer!)If you’re contemplating settling down with a good dog, read this first and if it doesn’t put you off then you’ll be fine. Already had your heart stolen by a dog? You’ll definitely recognise the dogification of your wardrobe, the permanent damage to your flooring and especially the gritty bed linen!What a page-turner. I Loved it.”Beverley Cuddy, Editor DOGS TODAY MAGAZINE"Incredibly honest, genuine and captivating... a real life take on modern day doggie living. It is brutally honest yet heart-warmingly brilliant. A must for all animal fans."Jessica Brown, PETS MAGAZINEWhat happens when you drop a big, bouncing Boxer dog into the life of a glamorous girl about town? Alice Wright reveals all in her dog-memoir with a difference...Alice's busy life consists of 'parties, premieres and private members clubs' and she loves it! She certainly doesn't want the responsiblity of a partner or a pooch but seems to end up with more than she bargained for in this very funny but incredibly personal memoir about modern dog ownership.Set in the streets of Soho and the parks of North London HANDBAGS AND POOBAGS reveals why you should never wear a long cashmere scarf when poop scooping and how to hide a dog under a barstool and in the back of a taxi-cab. A bit different from the traditional pet-memoir this warm, touching real life tale is full of embarrassing anecdotes and surprising discoveries as Alice realises that owning a dog changes not only her lifestyle but her life.See facebook.com/handbagsandpoobags for updates and photos!

King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table


Rupert Sargent Holland - 1919
    Other great kings and paladins are lost in the dim shadows oflong-past centuries, but Arthur still reigns in Camelot and his knightsstill ride forth to seek the Grail. "No little thing shall be The gentle music of the bygone years, Long past to us with all their hopes and fears."So wrote the poet William Morris in _The Earthly Paradise_. And surelyit is no small debt of gratitude we owe the troubadours and chroniclersand poets who through many centuries have sung of Arthur and hischampions, each adding to the song the gifts of his own imagination, sobuilding from simple folk-tales one of the most magnificent and movingstories in all literature.This debt perhaps we owe in greatest measure to three men; to Chrétiende Troies, a Frenchman, who in the twelfth century put many of the oldArthurian legends into verse; to Sir Thomas Malory, who first wrote outmost of the stories in English prose, and whose book, the _MorteDarthur_, was printed by William Caxton, the first English printer, in1485; and to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who in his series of poems entitledthe _Idylls of the King_ retold the legends in new and beautiful guisein the nineteenth century.The history of Arthur is so shrouded in the mists of early England thatit is difficult to tell exactly who and what he was. There probably wasan actual Arthur, who lived in the island of Britain in the sixthcentury, but probably he was not a king nor even a prince. It seems mostlikely that he was a chieftain who led his countrymen to victory againstthe invading English about the year 500. So proud were his countrymen ofhis victories that they began to invent imaginary stories of his prowessto add to the fame of their hero, just as among all peoples legends soonspring up about the name of a great leader. As each man told the featsof Arthur he contributed those details that appealed most to his ownfancy and each was apt to think of the hero as a man of his own time,dressing and speaking and living as his own kings and princes did, withthe result that when we come to the twelfth century we find Geoffrey ofMonmouth, in his _History of the Kings of Britain_, describing Arthurno longer as a half-barbarous Briton, wearing rude armor, his arms andlegs bare, but instead as a most Christian king, the flower of mediævalchivalry, decked out in all the gorgeous trappings of a knight of theCrusades.As the story of Arthur grew it attracted to itself popular legends ofall kinds. Its roots were in Britain and the chief threads in its fabricremained British-Celtic. The next most important threads were those thatwere added by the Celtic chroniclers of Ireland. Then stories that werenot Celtic at all were woven into the legend, some from Germanicsources, which the Saxons or the descendants of the Franks may havecontributed, and others that came from the Orient, which may have beenbrought back from the East by men returning from the Crusades. And if itwas the Celts who gave us the most of the material for the stories ofArthur it was the French poets who first wrote out the stories and gavethem enduring form.It was the Frenchman, Chrétien de Troies, who lived at the courts ofChampagne and of Flanders, who put the old legends into verse for thepleasure of the noble lords and ladies that were his patrons. Hecomposed six Arthurian poems. The first, which was written about 1160 orearlier, related the story of Tristram. The next was called _Érec etÉnide_, and told some of the adventures that were later used by Tennysonin his _Geraint and Enid_. The third was _Cligès_, a poem that haslittle to do with the stories of Arthur and his knights as we havethem. Next came the _Conte de la Charrette_, or _Le Chevalier de laCharrette_, which set forth the love of Lancelot and Guinevere. Thenfollowed _Yvain_, or _Le Chevalier au Lion_, and finally came_Perceval_, or _Le Conte du Graal_, which gives the first account of theHoly Grail.

Poverty Is No Crime


Aleksandr Ostrovsky - 1854
    In the earlier play Ostrovsky had adopted a satiric tone that proved him a worthy disciple of Gogol, the great founder of Russian realism. Not one lovable character appears in that gloomy picture of merchant life in Moscow; even the old mother repels us by her stupidity more than she attracts us by her kindliness. No ray of light penetrates the "realm of darkness" -- to borrow a famous phrase from a Russian critic -- conjured up before us by the young dramatist. In Poverty Is No Crime we see the other side of the medal. Ostrovsky had now been affected by the Slavophile school of writers and thinkers, who found in the traditions of Russian society treasures of kindliness and love that they contrasted with the superficial glitter of Western civilization. Life in Russia is varied as elsewhere, and Ostrovsky could change his tone without doing violence to realistic truth. The tradesmen had not wholly lost the patriarchal charm of their peasant fathers. A poor apprentice is the hero of Poverty Is No Crime, and a wealthy manufacturer the villain of the piece. Good-heartedness is the touchstone by which Ostrovsky tries character, and this may be hidden beneath even a drunken and degraded exterior. The scapegrace, Lyubim Tortsov, has a sound Russian soul, and at the end of the play rouses his hard, grasping brother, who has been infatuated by a passion for aping foreign fashions, to his native Russian worth. Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) was an early Russian Realist whose work led to the founding of the Moscow Arts Theatre and to the career of Stanislavsky. He has been acknowledged to be the greatest of the Russian dramatists.

Jenny


Sigrid Undset - 1911
    After falling into an affair with the married father of a would-be suitor, Jenny has a baby out-of- wedlock and decides to raise the child on her own. Undset’ s portrayal of a woman struggling toward independence and fulfillment is written with an unflinching, clear-eyed honesty that renders her story as compelling today as it was nearly a century ago. This new translation by Tiina Nunnally captures the fresh, vivid style of Undset’s writing and restores passages omitted from the only previous edition to appear in English, which was published in 1921. Most famous for her later, historical fiction set in Catholic, medieval Scandinavia, Undset stands revealed with Jenny, her first major novel, as an unsparing, compassionate, magnificent realist, the creator of works that are at once thoroughly modern and of enduring interest.

The Cabman's Story The Mysteries of a London 'Growler'


Arthur Conan Doyle - 2005
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Light That Shines in the Darkness


Leo Tolstoy - 1890
    The Light That Shines in the Darkness -- the last of Tolstoy's plays, was left unfinished. In Russia it is prohibited on account of its allusions to the refusal of military service. Yet it is in some ways the most interesting of Tolstoy's posthumous works. It is obviously not strictly autobiographical, for Tolstoy was not assassinated as the hero of the piece is, nor was his daughter engaged to be married to a young prince who refused military service. But like some of his other writings, the play is semi-autobiographical. In it, not only has Tolstoy utilised personal experiences, but more than that, he answers the question so often asked: Why, holding his views, did he not free himself from property before he grew old?

The Bartlett Mystery (A Mystery Classic)


Louis Tracy - 1919
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Essential Self-Defense: A Play


Adam Rapp - 2007
    Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.

The Violet Hour


Richard Greenberg - 2004
    He has two manuscripts but lacks the funds to publish both. His difficult decision--whether to publish his lover's memoir or the novel written by his best friend--is further complicated by the arrival of a mysterious machine that produces pages predicting the future of the play's protagonists, affecting their lives and relationships in haunting and unexpected ways. "The Violet Hour" opened on Broadway on November 6, 2003, starring Robert Sean Leonard.