Short Classics

Man has always wanted to travel into the unknown and encounter what he has not, and perhaps cannot, experience in the real world. The early 20th century witnessed an explosion of science fiction literature. Authors studied the wonders of scientific and technological progress and imagined worlds that had developed even greater advances. Jules Vernes' and H.G. Wells' fantastic tales well whetted the public's appetite for adventure tales.

Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is a science fiction classic. In Ender’s World almost two dozen writers offer new perspectives on the 1985 novel, along with insights gleaned from other Ender stories that fit within the Ender’s Game chronology. In addition, military strategists Colonel Tom Ruby and Captain John Schmitt offer insight into the human-Formic war.

In the final years of his life, Chekhov produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces and some of the most highly-regarded works in Russian literature. The poignant 'The Lady with the Little Dog' and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage - its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. And in stories such as 'Peasants', 'The House with the Mezzanine' and 'My Life' Chekhov paints a vivid picture of the conditions of the poor and of their powerlessness in the face of exploitation and hardship.

Andrew Lang (1844 - 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, and literary critic. His 12 collections of fairy tales are known as Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors. The third in the series, the Green Fairy Book, contains tales from around the world, from Grimm (“The White Snake” and “Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle”), France de Caylus, Fenelon, Kletke, and D'Aulnoy. The stories include "The Crystal Coffin", "The Three Snake-Leaves", "The Riddle", "Jack My Hedgehog", "The Golden Lads", and many more.

It was the eye. The dull, sightless, vulture's eye that shredded his final nerve. But the murder was done so carefully, so perfectly, that only one thing could reveal the whereabouts of the body. B. J. Harrison gives a masterful reading of the famous murder that wouldn't keep quiet. This audiobook was the #3 best-selling audiobook in 2008 at the iTunes Music Store!

As far as children are concerned, a REAL WITCH is easily the most dangerous of all the living creatures on Earth. This edition of The Witches, part of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, is perfect for Dahl fans old and new. So, enter a world where invention and mischief can be found throughout the book and where magic might be at the very tips of your fingers.

In "The Hanging Stranger", TV salesman Ed Loyce is a practical man who, when he sees something wrong, tries to correct it. Then one day he sees a lifeless body hanging in the town square. What he can't figure out is why nobody seems to care.

Don Paolo Drago, “dragon by name, dragon by nature,” appears to dominate this world, yet he barely controls his own thoughts and feelings. Despite himself, he is drawn into the destiny of two orphans. Yet tragedy stalks the life of Don Paolo. His own daughters and wife are dead and long buried in the grave. Like a living ghost, he waits for death, carrying on a wretched existence. His bitterness is his one defense, in a world full of emptiness. Yet the arrival of the orphans challenges everything he has believed.

Simple magic tricks are what a little boy is looking for when he drags his father into a quaint, old shop. The proprietor seems to be a master of illusion - a genius at slight of hand. But, as the son becomes mesmerized, the father feels an icy hand grip his heart.

Volume ten launches with Doug Bradley's well-researched insight into the stories and their authors. This is followed by HP Lovecraft's evocative tale of exploration, "The Strange High House in the Mist". Next we hear Ambrose Bierce's truly chilling "A Diagnosis of Death", and Jeffery Combs reads Edgar Allan Poe's classic revenge tale, "The Cask of Amontillado".

The Last Leaf is an endearing story about many forms of love and our interdependency upon one another and most importantly ourselves. In it a young woman dying from pneumonia despite the best efforts of her loving roommate, a doctor, and a mature resident in the building who has appointed himself guardian to the young lady and her housemate, soon learns that she is the key to her own life or death and in that discovery she helps a friend rise to their true greatness.

This audiobook includes: "Gwen's Adventure in the Snow"; 'Rosa's Tale"; "What Polly Found in Her Stocking"; "A Hospital Christmas"; "A Hospital Christmas (continued)"; "A Country Christmas."

M. R. James (1862-1936) was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College. He was a highly regarded scholar and academic in his time but today is remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered among the finest in the genre. The six stories in Volume Two are: "The Ash Tree", "Martin's Close", "Lost Hearts", "The Tractate Middoth", "After Dark in the Playing Fields", and "Wailing Well".

In the realm of the short story, Katherine Mansfield established a highly original style. Undramatic, poetic and lyrical, her writing is exquisitely subtle in its treatment of human behaviour. When these 14 short stories were published in 1920, she had already effected a transformation in this form of fiction, and her influence has been deeply felt by subsequent writers.

Twenty classic authors from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction are brought together in the latest “Bodies from the Library” anthology series of previously unpublished and uncollected stories of crime and suspense.

The diary is that most intimate of journals, of records. Within its pages the writer records and gives expression to their thoughts, their feelings, their emotional state on all the things that make up and surround them in this world. With authors of the calibre of Bulgakov, Woolf, Tolstoy, Twain and many others this volume explores characters whose lives seem dominated by these diaries, and the events that unfold are both compelling and literary journeys into the very personal and intimate side of their characters’ lives.

A brilliant collection of short stories by some of Russia's best writers.

For every Christian who’s deeply fulfilled, there are many more who are “doing all the right things” but still feel frantic or frustrated…or who have decided that Christianity’s a failure. What’s missing? Like so many believers, Bob George began his Christian life in love with Jesus, only to end up feeling disappointed and empty. Drawing on those struggles and his years of teaching and counseling experience, Bob cuts straight to the heart of the issues.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a reclusive poet whose only friendships were carried out in correspondence. Despite writing almost 1800 poems in her life, very few were published until after her death. Here, the poems are presented in chronological order in their original form, unaltered by editorial revision, in one volume. It offers a wide-angle view of Dickinson's poetic development, from the clunky rhyme schemes of her youth, through valentines she wrote in the early 1850s, to the gloomy, hell-obsessed writings of her last years.

"To Build a Fire," the best-known of Jack London's many short stories, tells the tale of a solitary traveler on the Yukon Trail accompanied only by his dog as they endure the extreme cold. A classic narrative of a battle for survival against the forces of nature, "To Build a Fire" is London at his best. Also included here are "The Red One," "All Gold Canyon," "A Piece of Steak," "The Love of Life," "Flush of Gold," "The Story of Keesh," and "The Wisdom of the Trail."