The following stories are included in this collection: "The One Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain"A Visit to Niagara" by Mark Twain"Mysterious Visit" by Mark Twain"The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" by Stephen Crane"The Eyes of the Panther" by Ambrose Bierce"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce"The Love of Life" by Jack London"To Build a Fire" by Jack London

    Brimming with humor, irony, and insights about the unpredictable nature of life, the unbearable beauty of fate, and the power that one moment, or one decision, can have to transform us, I Knew You'd Be Lovely delivers that rare thing—stories with both an edge and a heart.

    An elderly woman who knows that death is close, but learns how to cheat it... A child with a dangerous friend who happens to be invisible... A ghost who can't stop reliving his suicide over and over again... People you'll wish you never have to meet, and stories you'll never forget. Skilfully translated into English for the very first time, these chilling tales from master storyteller Ratnakar Matkari are bound to keep readers of all ages up at night. With every page you turn, you'll be looking over your shoulder to make sure no one's there. Look again. Maybe there is!

    His signature style is simplicity itself, but the themes he tackles are big, deep and universal—love, loss, happiness, grief, and all the shades of emotion in between. These are stories of city and small town, mountain and lowland, and of life lived slowly and lightly. For over fifty years, these tales have charmed and beguiled several generations of readers. Last year, Ruskin Bond made a selection of his favourite stories (from the several hundred that he has written) that were published in a book entitled A Gathering of Friends. It proved to be enormously popular, selling out in a matter of weeks. Encouraged by its success, the author has made a further selection of his favourite stories and non-fiction sketches, leavening the mix with several pieces that have never been published before. It is a collection that will burnish his reputation as one of the world’s great storytellers.

    On the night he decides to strike, his life, and his world, are forever changed. Alien scientists from across the cosmos, abduct and place Kazaka in deep storage for centuries. When they revive him with the intent to subject him to extraterrestrial evisceration, the ninja escapes. The shadow warrior then begins to hunt his captors, one by one, leading up to a battle that will shake the galaxy.The Bear That Fell From the StarsA different kind of alien terror. NOTE: This is a Novella of approx. 20,000 words, or about 60 pages.Science Fiction Fantasy and not hard SciFi.Some scenes of graphic violence.

    When everything goes wrong are you still meant for each other?After being dispatched to Blanchard Creek, Wyoming by her mother as a mail order bride, Christina Mills tumbles from one mishap to another. As if arriving in Wyoming with a fever, losing luggage and being accosted by the hotel owner isn’t already bad enough, her to be groom decides to back out of the marriage.Alexander Barrett Patterson is a man of honor. However, the scars from battle are more than skin deep. Rather than tying the beautiful woman to a cripple, he decides to give her up and suffer the consequences of a decision every ounce of his being protests. Now, if only half the town would stop trying to make him change his mind.A story of hurt, scars and the healing power of love.

    Originally published in The Strand magazine from 1918 to 1922 and later collected as The Inimitable Jeeves, these ten tales by comedic master P. G. Wodehouse abound in sparkling wit. "Scoring off Jeeves" recounts a lunch with Aunt Agatha ("A pretty frightful ordeal … Practically the nearest thing to being disemboweled."), who insists that Bertie propose to Honaria Glossop ("simply nothing more nor less than a pot of poison"), necessitating Jeeves' rescue of the perennial bachelor ("and according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that"). Other stories include "The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace," featuring Bertie's frolicsome cousins ("as innocuous as a pair of sprightly young tarantulas"); "Aunt Agatha Takes the Count," involving our hero's formidable relative and her intrusion upon his vacation in the south of France; and "Comrade Bingo," in which Bertie's school chum masquerades as a Bolshevist and Jeeves comes very near to being rattled.

    Nowhere is safe from the zombie invasion.

     At least that’s what Joanna Rutledge Reed thought. At eighteen, she left her family’s ancestral home in Charleston, South Carolina, despite promising to stay. For years, she did whatever she wanted, barely giving her family back home a second thought. But a string of bad decisions results in heartbreak, forcing her to return, her life in tatters. While her wayward sister traveled the world, Marcy remained in Charleston, caring for her aging grandmother and managing the family business. She's got problems of her own that no one seems to notice or care about. When Joanna arrives unexpectedly, Marcy bristles at the intrusion, suspicious of her sister’s motives. As Joanna picks up the threads of her old life, she discovers things are not what they appear to be. Painful memories and hidden secrets resurface, leading Joanna to question everything she thought she knew about her family. When her life begins to crash around her again, she needs her sister more than ever. Set against the rich tapestry of Charleston, South Carolina, three generations of strong Southern women share a history and not-quite-forgotten secrets. Will the bonds they forged years ago be strong enough to give them a second chance at being a family?

    He's confronted the HOA. He's even taken on Santa himself. He doesn't usually win. These are the tales of the Dumb White Husband and they are all available here in this collected edition.This handsome volume includes:Dumb White Husband vs. the Grocery Store - John would rather sit and watch the game, but his wife needs some things at the store. Can he complete the list and get back in time to see the end of the game?Dumb White Husband vs. Halloween - Every Halloween, Chris has the scariest house on the block and gives out the best candy. But, this year, someone is showing him up and he'll stop at nothing to find out who.Dumb White Husband vs. Santa - Erik has planned the perfect Christmas for his family. The plan is foolproof, bulletproof and flame retardant. Nothing can undo the hours of planning and preparation. Nothing except maybe odd-shaped packages, ill-timed fruitcakes or an errant neighborhood Santa Claus.Dumb White Husband vs. the Tooth Fairy - Erik always has a plan and he's sure he would have figured out the whole Tooth Fairy thing eventually. But, when his three-year-old son takes a frisbee to the mouth, he's forced to speed things up. Between neighborhood kids with big mouths and unhelpful dentists he's going to need to improvise. Will he bend to the pressure of inflation? Will he get caught in the act? And, what do you do with those teeth anyway?Dumb White Husband for President (A novella) - There comes a time in every man's life when he must stand for the things he believes in. John doesn't believe in bagging his grass. So, when a new allergy-prone neighbor gets the HOA to require it, there's only one thing he can do - run for President of The Creeks of Sage Valley Phase II.John, Chris and Erik put aside most of their differences to run a campaign that they hope will see John elected as President and end the meddling of the rule-loving new kid on the block. Will they succeed? It's doubtful.

    A dream house that is hiding something sinister; two women having lunch who share a husband; an old woman doing her weekly supermarket shop with a secret past that no one could guess; a couple who don't know each other at all even after fifteen years together; and, in the story from which this collection takes its name, a bird and a servant girl in ancient Pompeii who cannot converse, but share a perfect understanding.In this new and varied collection of short stories, Penelope Lively shows that she remains a master of her craft, and one of our finest English writers.

    POST is a story about a group of friends, two of whom experience a collision two years apart.

    Emma's maid implores the help of Harmon Westbourne, the Earl of Easton, to rescue Emma from her father's home. But Emma's dilemma doesn't end there.

    These 11 gemlike tales range from the blue heart of the blizzard of 1888 to the sweltering jungles of war.Wickedness --Playland --The killers --His dog --The sun so hot I froze to death --Can I just sit here for a while? --The boogeyman --True romance --Sleepless --Red-letter days --Nebraska

    In Rushdie's hybrid world, an Indian guru can be a redheaded Welshman, while Christopher Columbus is an immigrant, dreaming of Western glory. Rushdie allows himself, like his characters, to be pulled now in one direction, then in another. Yet he remains a writer who insists on our cultural complexity; who, rising beyond ideology, refuses to choose between East and West and embraces the world.