Short Classics

Kate Croy is secretly engaged to Merton Denscher, a journalist who lacks money. By chance, Kate befriends Milly, an American heiress, and learns she is suffering from a fatal illness. Kate devises a scheme to maximize their combined assets: she encourages Merton to take an interest in Milly and marry her. Kate intends to make him a rich widower whom she herself can marry. But such well-laid plans are not enough for the subtlety of the heart.

This collection of 11 stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as "The Snowstorm", "Lucerne", "The Diary of a Madman", and "The Devil" are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious thought that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy.

Writing to a friend who was disillusioned by religion, minister and theologian Henry Scougal created what would become a classic text on Christian living. Compassionately explaining what true religion is and isn't, Scougal shares biblical practices that lead to real spiritual transformation. In The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Scougal cuts through false ideas about religion and demonstrates how to pursue true unity with God. He explains that religion shouldn't be primarily focused on restraining or dictating outward behavior, but living a divine life characterized by faith.

He went searching for a fresh start. He didn’t expect to find unusual friends, fierce enemies, and primal powers. Jason thought that it was the end of his life after being hunted and attacked by a band of ruthless thugs. Instead, he tapped into the source of creation and emerged from his death experience with magical powers. As a new mage, Jason finds himself part of a wonderful - and dangerous - new supernatural world.

"My father was in the hospital and every night when I visited him, I read aloud to him. James Thurber. And one night he said, 'You really should do that on your show,' and I said, 'Dad, it’s a television newscast. I’d love to, but how could it possibly fit?' And he said, 'How often have I ever suggested anything for your shows?' And I remembered that he never had. But I also reminded him that there were things like copyrights and bills, to which he said, 'Try it. You never know.'"

This book won a World Fantasy Award. It's remarkable: The stories are rich, fascinating stuff - creepy and unsettling and phantasmic. Imagine what Tolkien's Lord of the Rings would have been like if Tolkien had tried to tell that story sympathetically from the point of view of the human denizens of Mordor and you'll have the slightest sense of what you're about to wade into... but only just a sense.

Return to the amazing worlds created by some of fantasy's most famous authors as they tell all-new, original tales set in their best-selling series with Legends - the greatest anthology of original fantasy short novels ever published!

Set off on an outdoor adventure with this collection of classic tales by the world's best loved storyteller. The perfect holiday listen for children aged seven and up! From stolen dogs and disappearing necklaces to journeys to faraway lands, these fun-filled stories are packed full of mystery and adventure. These entertaining tales are the ideal length for listening to at bedtime or in the classroom.

One of Wodehouse's most entertaining raconteurs is sitting in the Angler's Rest, sipping hot whiskey and lemon. In particular, Wilfred, the creator of Raven Gypsy face cream and Snow of the Mountain lotion, lights on the formula for Buck-U-Uppo, a tonic given to elephants to enable them to face tigers with the necessary nonchalance.

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day, death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality.

He's the ass-kicking, wise-cracking, hard-drinking demon hunter you never knew you needed. He's Quincy Harker, and he's here to save your ass whether you want it or not. The immortal magic-wielding son of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray from the classic novel Dracula, Harker now lives in North Carolina hunting down demons and sending them back to Hell. This Omnibus Edition collects the first 12 novellas in the Quincy Harker series.

Though known for his classic novels of adventure and coming of age, Mark Twain is equally esteemed for his short stories, which abound with the colorful characters and often comic antics readers have come to expect from his longer works. Included here is "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," a wild yarn involving a case of mistaken identity, a gambler who'd bet on anything, and an unusual frog named Daniel Webster.

Unable at first to find a publisher for his evocative tale about a man named George Pratt who ponders suicide until he receives an opportunity to see what the world would be like without him, Stern ultimately published the story in a small pamphlet and sent it out as his 1943 Christmas card. One of those 200 cards found its way into the hands of Frank Capra, who shared it with Jimmy Stewart, and the film that resulted became the holiday tradition we cherish today.

The Damned & Other Stories of the Macabre is Skyboat Media’s second original compilation of stories by Algernon Blackwood, featuring six of his most unique and macabre stories that contemplate the true meaning of reality and nature of the making of the world.

Delight in this collection of 30 short stories, full of the buzz and excitement of spring! Head off on a sparkling springtime adventure with the world's best-loved storyteller. From the little boy who helps a lamb in trouble to the fairies hidden inside Easter eggs, excitement and magic are never far away in this collection of stories. Enid Blyton remains one of Britain's favourite children's authors, and her Bumper Short Story Collections are perfect for introducing her to the latest generation of listeners.

The stories in this volume, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, are tales of families trying to heal their wounds, save their marriages, and rescue their children. In "Ralph the Duck," a security guard struggles to hang on to his marriage. In "Name the Name," a traveling teacher attends to students outside the school, including his own son, locked in a country jail. In Busch's work, we are reminded that we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors or in the mind of another.

Aesop's Fables are stories based on allegories and caricatures featuring mostly animals. These stories got the collective name Aesop’s Fables from the person who collected the stories. Aesop, popularly believed to have been a Phrygian slave, collected his fables sometime around the sixth century BC. Whatever his real story may be, the fables he collected feature valuable lessons.

In The Emotional Life of Our Lord, theologian B. B. Warfield explains how Christ's complex emotions and personality proved his humanity. It was necessary for Christ to be born in the likeness of mankind to bear their griefs, carry their sorrows, take their infirmities, and ultimately redeem their lives. In this encouraging book, listeners learn to see Christ as a compassionate Savior through his sinless expressions of emotions—from righteous anger to abiding love.

First published in 1846, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella The Double is a classic doppelganger story and the second major work published by the author. It is the story of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a government clerk who believes that a fellow clerk has taken over his identity and is determined to bring about his ruin. Considered the most Gogolesque of Dostoyevsky's works, the novella brilliantly depicts Golyadkin's descent into madness in a way that is hauntingly poetic. The Double illustrates Dostoyevsky's uncanny ability at capturing the complexity of human emotion.

Innovative, startlingly perceptive and aglow with colour, these 15 stories were written towards the end of Katherine Mansfield's tragically short life. Many are set in the author's native New Zealand, others in England and the French Riviera. All are revelations of the unspoken, half-understood emotions that make up everyday experience - from the blackly comic 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' and the short, sharp sketch 'Miss Brill', in which a lonely woman's precarious sense of self is brutally destroyed, to the vivid impressionistic evocation of family life in 'At the Bay'.