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Something Quite Beautiful


Amanda Prowse - 2013
    They have been sentenced to twenty years in Glenculloch, a remote prison for the most hopeless of criminals. The rumours say that it is run by a woman who thinks she's God. A woman who decides what is ugly, and what is beautiful. A woman who decides who lives, and who dies... A short story exclusive from bestselling author Amanda Prowse.

An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge


Christopher Sergel - 1967
    On this, Bierce creates the most surprising story of his career. With dramatic force, the situation is established. The man's nature and mission are quickly revealed in a moving encounter with his wife and two daughters. Then in one of the most exciting short scenes in literature, the audience is taken into the mind of the man at the moment of his execution.

The Yellow Wall-Paper


Charlotte Perkins Gilman - 1892
    This chilling account of postpartum depression and a husband's controlling behavior in the guise of treatment will leave you breathless.

Old Shirts & New Skins


Sherman Alexie - 1993
    Native American Studies. Amongst the poems and prose of OLD SHIRTS & NEW SKINS appear illustrations by Elizabeth Woody, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon. In the best tradition of confronting American reality and exacting vision and meaning from it, Sherman Alexie chooses to use poetic power. His vision is an amazing celebration of endurance, intimacy, love, and creative insight; finally, it is a victory that can be known only by a people who refuse to submit to the thieves, liars, and killers that have made them suffer tremendous loss and pain. "Like the woman who pours her life into a stew of survival, Sherman Alexie has created a meal, not for a reader to consume but for a reader to be changed by. Survival is being documented, changes measured"--Linda Hogan.

The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories


Henry James - 1898
    She sees the figure of an unknown man on the tower and his face at the window. It is Peter Quint, the master's dissolute valet, and he has come for little Miles. But Peter Quint is dead.Like the other tales collected here - 'Sir Edmund Orme', 'Owen Wingrave', and 'The Friends of the Friends' - 'The Turn of the Screw' is to all immediate appearances a ghost story. But are the appearances what they seem? Is what appears to the governess a ghost or a hallucination? Who else sees what she sees? The reader may wonder whether the children are victims of corruption from beyond the grave, or victims of the governess's `infernal imagination', which torments but also entrals her?'The Turn of the Screw' is probably the most famous, certainly the most eerily equivocal, of all ghostly tales. Is it a subtle, self-conscious exploration of the haunted house of Victorian culture, filled with echoes of sexual and social unease? Or is it simply, 'the most hopelessly evil story that we have ever read'?

The Thing Beneath the Bed


Patrick Rothfuss - 2010
    It has pictures. It has a saccharine-sweet title. The main characters are a little girl and her teddy bear. But all of that is just protective coloration. The truth is, this is a book for adults with a dark sense of humor and an appreciation of old-school faerie tales.There are three separate endings to the book. Depending on where you stop, you are left with an entirely different story. One ending is sweet, another is horrible. The last one is the true ending, the one with teeth in it.The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle is a dark twist on the classic children's picture-book. I think of it as Calvin and Hobbes meets Coraline, with some Edward Gorey mixed in.Simply said: This is not a book for children.

Once Upon a Time


Nadine Gordimer - 1991
    It’s more of a dystopian fantasy - with overtones of the racial inequality in Gordimer’s native South Africa. Read by Alex Kingston.

The Ride


Aric Davis - 2013
    The biggest game in town centers on a massive, deadly roller coaster that winds its way through the Strip’s most famous attractions. On the first Saturday of every month, twenty-four desperate passengers get strapped into the notorious ride and gamble with their lives in a twisted game of chance, to the thrill of webcast audiences worldwide. One of them will win, and one will die, but the other twenty-two will escape with nothing but their lives. Bets are placed as the ride begins, but in Vegas, the house always wins.The Ride by acclaimed author Aric Davis is a terrifying near-future vision of bloodlust-as-entertainment taken to a horrific extreme.

Mary Higgins Clark Gift Set Cst: While My Pretty One Sleeps and Weep No More My Lady


Mary Higgins Clark - 1992
    The killing of one of her best customers reminded her of the one thing -- they slaying of her own mother years earlier. Faced with a variety of suspects, Neeve plunges into the mystery of Lambston's death, determined to find the truth. But as she is drawn into a whirlwind of money and romance, she is also being stalked by a killer who's closer than she could ever dream . . .Weep No More, My LadyYoung Elizabeth Lange is haunted by the tragic death of her beloved sister, the legendary actress Leila LaSalle. Ted Winters, Leila's multi-millionaire fiance, has been accused of her murder -- and Elizabeth is slated to be the star witness for the prosecution. But before the trial begins, Elizabeth gets an invitation to unwind at a swank California spa. There is caught up in a torrent of confusing emotions and perplexing questions. Elizabeth must discover the truth -- and soon. Because someone is stalking her, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike . . .

Dance of the Happy Shades


Alice Munro - 1968
    In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.

A Midnight Clear: Family Christmas Stories


Katherine Paterson - 1995
    Now you, too, can share them. Whether depicting a child coping with disappointment, friendship between young and old, or a couple awaiting the birth of their baby, these stories present a vision of hope and peace harking back to that first Christmas over two thousand years ago. Here is the perfect holiday gift for friends, families, and church congregations--to read aloud and share throughout the Christmas season and beyond.

The Moment of Tenderness


Madeleine L'Engle - 2020
    In a selection of eighteen stories discovered by one of L'Engle's granddaughters, we see how L'Engle's personal experiences and abiding faith informed the creation of her many cherished works. Some of these stories have never been published; others were refashioned into scenes for her novels and memoirs. Almost all were written in the 1940s and '50s, from Madeleine's college years until just before the publication of A Wrinkle in Time. From realism to science-fiction to fantasy, there is something for everyone in this magical collection.

The Diary of a De-cluttering Junkie: Episode 1


Chautona Havig - 2013
    So, armed with a stack of books that each guarantee to teach her the secret to living a clutter-free life, Kaye embarks on a journey that takes her from clutter bug to clutter free–and beyond.Her family doesn’t know what to think of her and her. While Jacob does enjoy the streamlined beauty of his new life, he is also just as frustrated as their sons as Kaye goes from clean up to clear out–including treasured possessions.Who knew that what started out as a survival technique would become an addiction?

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays


Oscar Wilde - 1898
    Manners and morality are also victims of Wilde's sharp wit in Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, in which snobbery and hypocrisy are laid bare. In Salomé and A Florentine Tragedy, Wilde makes powerful use of historical settings to explore the complex relationship between sex and power. The range of these plays displays Wilde's delight in artifice, masks and disguises, and reveals the pretentions of the social world in which he himself played such a dazzling and precarious part.Richard Allen Cave's introduction and notes discuss the themes of the plays and Wilde's innovative methods of staging. This edition includes the excised 'Gribsby' scene from The Importance of Being Earnest.

Emma


Charlotte Brontë - 1860
    A child spiritually oppressed, a school run on shallow and mercenary principles, a brutish schoolmistress, a quiet observer of the injustice and cruelty--it contained the same preoccupations which elsewhere had called forth her most passionate and dramatic writing. Another Lady has now at last fulfilled the promise of that novel. Her lively powers of invention have worked the unfolding mystery of Charlotte Brontë's two opening chapters into an exciting and poignant story. The characters grow in vitality and complexity while remaining true in spirit, tone and style to the original conception. The wanton havoc wrought by Emma in the life of Mrs Chalfont, the narrator, is not the only proof of her ruthlessness; she plays a part, too, in the sufferings of the abandoned child, Martina. The affection which grows between Mrs Chalfont and Martina out of their mutual distress illumines this story, and Emma herself, with her inexplicable motives, her incomprehensible anger and her darkness of soul, develops into a character of whom Charlotte Brontë would have been proud.