Though things start slowly, Ivan wins her over after a strong pursuit, and the two marry, agreeing never to inflict any “irreparable wounds.” But though Ivan proves to be a fine father, he is a distant husband, and Caroline finds herself daydreaming of other men. So as the years pass, the couple finds ways to bend but not break their cardinal rule. Rough Strife, the first novel from Lynne Sharon Schwartz, was nominated for the National Book Foundation Award. In this sensational debut, Schwartz depicts a marriage that grows painfully into the modern era, despite the changes—both political and personal—that challenge it.

    Somerset Maugham’s “Before the Party” is a novelette first published in the December 1922 edition of “Nash’s Magazine.” After the death of her husband, an alcoholic colonial administrator in Borneo, Millicent returns to England to live with her parents and sister. Did Millicent’s husband die of a fever, as Millicent claims, or was his throat cut? And if the latter, was it suicide or homicide?Sample passage:Mrs. Skinner had thought it very peculiar that her daughter should have no photographs of Harold in her room. Indeed she had spoken of it once, but Millicent had made no reply. Millicent had been strangely silent since she came back from Borneo, and had not encouraged the sympathy Mrs. Skinner would have been so willing to show her. She seemed unwilling to speak of her great loss. Sorrow took people in different ways. Her husband had said the best thing was to leave her alone. The thought of him turned her ideas to the party they were going to.About the author:W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was a British novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. Notable novels are “Of Human Bondage,” “The Moon and Sixpence,” and “The Razor’s Edge.”

    VERA & LINUS is a series of short sketches. The book's theme is the love between the two protagonists, Vera and Linus. They are mischief makers and tricksters of the most daring sort, and they are constantly up to no good, but the language holds them with a clear restraint, a restraint born perhaps out of the peculiar nature of their love, a love both for each other and the things of the world. Their mastery, and shifting natures allow them to compel the workaday world as they see it, but not to rule over each other, and so their game begins, as Vera struggles to outwit Linus, and Linus to outwit Vera.

    

    . . each reed of thatch, each tiny daisy trembling in the grass.” All of these stories, each in its own way, partake of this glow, as life beyond middle age is explored and found to have its own exquisite dearness. As death approaches, existence takes on, for some of Updike’s aging characters, a translucence, a magical fragility; vivid memory and casual misperception lend the mundane an antic texture, and the backward view, lengthening, acquires a certain grandeur. Here is a world where wonder stubbornly persists, and fresh beginnings almost outnumber losses.

    The essays in this collection compare Silko's many retellings of Yellow Woman stories from a variety of angles, looking at crucial themes like storytelling, cultural inheritances, memory, continuity, identity, interconnectedness, ritual, and tradition.This casebook includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology, an authoritative text of the story itself, critical essays, and a bibliography for further reading in both primary and secondary sources.  Contributors include Kim Barnes, A. LaVonne Ruoff, Paula Gunn Allen, Patricia Clark Smith, Bernard A. Hirsch, Arnold Krupat, Linda Danielson, and Patricia Jones.

    

    Illustrator and writer's Carolyn Marie Castagna's first shared short story.A small icicle hanging from a roof peers inside a window at a small reading room, and learns about magical human qualities, and the importance of the one most special human feeling.

    Lonely Christopher combines a striking emotional grammar, reminiscent of Gertrude Stein's Three Lives, with an unyielding imagination in the lovely/ugly architecture of his stories.Lonely Christopher is the author of several poetry chapbooks and is a contributor to the poetry volume Into (Seven Circles Press). His plays have been published, staged in New York City and internationally, and released in Mandarin translation. His fiction received Pratt Institute's 2009 Thesis Award. He is a founding member of the small press The Corresponding Society and an editor of its biannual journal Correspondence. He lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

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

    In this superb anthology can be found the best of the English-speaking world’s inspirational and reassuring verse, including such classics as Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’ and W.H. Davies’ ‘Leisure’. This beautifully illustrated collection of over 120 poems is sure to offer solace, hearten the soul and motivate the human spirit.

    Can you imagine Draupadi in a Brothel house? How did she end there and who is responsible for that? Read this short story to meet her and know about her life.

    It will then be about them only. It will be all about the one they loved like thunder, about the one they struggled hard to keep, about the one who had left them in the middle of their 'forever', about their world shattering into pieces, about them gluing together every piece, and about them falling in love one more time.And if you still think it is about you and me, you haven't loved someone like thunder, yet.

    She never overcame her humble beginnings and when Willie Eubanks rescued her from the orphanage by marrying her, she ended up right back where she started. Living in the same cabin, she was born in twelve and a half years earlier. However, she grew to love Willie and was determined that she and Willie were not going to end up as her parents had. In addition, she wanted to make sure her children were not going to have to suffer through the same experiences she had.

    Sort of. When Brad Williams is offered a lot of money to take on a case for sly banker Jonas Baxter, he is in no position to refuse. Jonas has been charged with the attempted murder of local prostitute Tina Jade, but it quickly becomes evident that it is not the reason why the prosecution wants Jonas behind bars. So why are they still pressing ahead with the charges? What is Jonas guilty of? This thrilling legal short story will take you for a ride through the courtroom and leave you with twists and turns that you didn’t see coming.