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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  The decades of this century see authors of every hue and talent assemble vast realms of fabulous literature that entertain the global audience then and to revisit now.  Genres explode across the landscape.  Genius in every name. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - The 19th Century - The English Men - An Introduction 
  2 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 
  3 - The Man Who Would Be King - Part 1 by Rudyard Kipling 
  4 - The Man Who Would Be King - Part 2 by Rudyard Kipling 
  5 - The Magic Shop by H G Wells 
  6 - The Grave by the Handpost by Thomas Hardy 
  7 - The Interlopers by Saki the pseudonym for H H Munro 
  8 - A Little Dinner At Timmin's by William Makepeace Thackeray 
  9 - Lost Hearts by M R James 
  10 - Father Giles Of Ballymoy by Anthony Trollope 
  11 - A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins 
  12 - My Astral Body by Anthony Hope

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  Being There - Backstories from...

  Tony Leon

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  ‘On Sunday 2 June 2024, I received a phone call that propelled me again into the swirl of a political drama, with plenty of subplots and prima donnas and lesser villains. In just four weeks, it changed the course of the country.’ 
  In Being There, Tony Leon goes behind the scenes, reflecting on how history is made, both here and around the world, through his unique mixture of anecdote and informed opinion. His vantage point ranges from a ringside seat in the formation of the government of national unity (GNU) – recounted in detail here for the first time – to close encounters with the likes of Harry Oppenheimer, Yasser Arafat and Boris Johnson, and reappraisals of FW de Klerk, Nelson Mandela and Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Leon writes of the dangers of modern politics, from the purgatory of social media to the perils of political fundraising in tough times. The challenge of leadership, in a world often led by populist grifters, runs like a golden thread through the book. Leon reflects on the nostalgia we often feel, through pain and pride, for childhood and schooldays, and the many ‘what-ifs’ that inform a well-lived and varied life on the frontlines of South Africa. Written with his customary blend of humour and flair, and with an eye to the future and what the present and the past can tell us about it, Being There is both important and highly readable

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  Christmas Every Day - From their...

  William Dean Howells

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  The bookshelves of American literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is William Dean Howells.

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  Candles for the Defiant -...

  Kaia Gallagher

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  Candles for the Defiant and Forgotten tells the courageous story of how one Baltic patriot resisted the Soviet occupation of Estonia during World War II by joining the Communist Party to spy for his countrymen. Trained as a lawyer, Bruno Kulgma Kull was smart, idealistic, and convinced that he could hide his true affiliations from the Soviet-controlled Party leaders, while he sabotaged their plans. Little could he have known that he would end up being distrusted by the Communists, reviled by his neighbors, and accused of being a traitor when the Germans invaded Estonia a year later in the summer of 1941. 
  As she was growing up, Kaia knew only that her mother’s family escaped from Estonia a day before the country was occupied by the Soviet Union in the fall of 1944 as World War II was coming to an end. Years later, she resolved to learn more about her family’s past and to uncover the tragic story of Bruno’s ill-fated heroism. With help from the Estonian National Archives, she uncovered documents that showed how Bruno tried to defend his actions at a time when the German legal system condemned anyone affiliated with the Communist Party to death. 
  Kaia’s family story highlights the stubborn determination shown by the citizens from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who resisted the occupation of their homelands, a battle that would last for nearly fifty years when the Baltic states regained their independence in the 1990s. 

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  Galantière - The Lost...

  Mark I Lurie

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  Kirkus Reviews 
  A well-written, comprehensively researched account of one man with connections to key players in literature and politics throughout the 1900s. ...Lurie has produced a substantial, thoughtful biography of a man previously known only through his appearances in the papers of more famous individuals, acknowledging his contributions and placing him in historical context... 
  Midwest Book Review 
  Impressively researched, extraordinarily informative, exceptionally well written, organized and presented, " Galantière: The Lost Generation's Forgotten Man" is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to both community and academic library 20th Century American Biography collections. 
    
  Rosanna Warren. Distinguished Service Professor, Univ. of Chicago 
  Galantière could have sprung full-grown from a novel by Saul Bellow: a fantastical creature whose most successful fiction was himself. 
  Publishers Weekly 
  Lurie's dutiful biography of Lewis Galantière (1895-1977), his first cousin once removed, tells a clear-cut tale of a man who crossed paths with Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce, among many other literary notables, helping them in significant ways... …an appealing portrait of a man who made his own way among the literati of his day. 
    
  The Library Journal 
  ...Lurie succeeds in constructing a thorough and well-rounded portrait that should earn its subject wider recognition —especially among readers interested in American history and diplomacy. 
    
  H. R. Stoneback. Distinguished Professor of English. SUNY and Past Pres. of the Hemingway Society 
  Mark Lurie's impeccably researched, and amply documented biography unearths valuable neglected details of the Hemingway- Galantière friendship. This valuable portrait of Galantière is a compelling tale, well-told for the first time.

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  Thomas Hardy - Christmas Carollings

  Andrew Norman

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  A tradition at Christmas was for the choir of local musicians and singers to assemble at the Hardys’ cottage, prior to setting out into the snow to do the rounds of local farms, homesteads, and manor house, in order to entertain their occupants. Hardy recreated this magical scene in Under the Greenwood Tree, published in 1872. 
  In the days when labouring classes worked long hours, and for the majority, material comforts were small, Christmas was a time (aside from the formalities of necessary religious observance,) for the exchanging of news, folklore, legend and jokes. For those fortunate enough to be invited to the Hardys’ cottage on Christmas Eve, there was the added bonus of food and drink to feed the body, and music – home-made of course – to lift the spirits and nourish the soul.  
  Hardy’s descriptions of such Christmases, as were celebrated by himself and his family, together with his colourful portrayals of characters – in particular the members of the ‘Mellstock Quire’ (Choir,) whom he described as his favourites - have delighted generations of his readers, and continue to do so.  
  This then, is the story of Thomas Hardy and of Christmas; of what that greatest of all Christian festivals meant to him, and of how his beliefs changed as the years progressed.

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