Publisher: Diwan
Characters in From Madid to Heaven unexpectedly find themselves in impossible circumstances. In fourteen short stories, set between Iberia and North Africa, they come nevertheless to face the strange possibility that when nothing is possible, everything may suddenly be possible.
In audio book box set: first part is : In the Moonlight second part is: Shadows in the Daylight "Stand and deliver, your money or your life!" shouted the highwayman. "I hear that you met a real highwayman the other day I wish I had been with you. They are so thrilling and romantic!" "Hand over your loot! Either give it to me now or I will take it from your body!" Terrence the Terror said. "I said give it back, Terry!" said Sir Justin. "Tom your friend is a nut!" Mary said. "What did he do murder the driver so he could drive the coach?" asked Sir Thomas. "I bailed up the Terror and took your sister's stuff back as she was under my care!" said Sir Justin. "New to this are you lad!" said one of them. "Terry I think you killed him!" said one of the others he was the black-clad highwayman named the Ghost for his sudden appearances and disappearances. "I just found her here, I was on my way to see you." "I have never seen anything so beautiful! I could forget everything and live in this moment forever" “Justin, what was that about? What light on yonder window breaks-! Your eyes are like 2 twinkling silver stars!” shouted the Ghost. “She's a friend of mine! You know she hates me as much as I hate her! If I said Isabella give me your money I would be giving myself away and what about you the French Ghost” “I forgot who I was I knew the man with her, he's my friend Stephen Grimshaw. He's a minor poet and he's in love with the girl. He's been sending her love letter from what I've found out from being his go-between he uses the nom de plume of Silver Starr. She's fallen in love with her admirer now if I'm not mistaken she thinks you are him! This won't make Grimshaw happy at all!” the Ghost said. “He's not happy! How do you think I am I'm engaged to two women already why no go for the trifecta and have more people wanting to see me dancing on the stage at Tyburn!”Show book
Written in the first four months of the war in Ukraine, fuelled by anger towards mindless violence, Němec's stories tackle the present moment and confront what really matters at times of abundant destruction. A Czech man in Ukraine in search of his alter ego. A gang of homeless kids driven from a cellar by tenants using it as a shelter from the war. A German couple who 'rented a womb' in Ukraine, whose child is now stuck in Kyiv. A teenager partnered with a Valkyrie for the distribution of lavash in besieged Mariupol delays his flight until it is too late. A Russian academic mounting a protest in the center of Moscow dressed in a costume from Swan Lake. They may not be soldiers at the front, but for the characters in these stories, life will never again be as it was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this collection of short stories-two set in Ukraine, two in the West, and one in Russia-Czech author Jan Němec has produced a work of remarkable immediacy.Show book
Action and Adventure in the Florida Keys From Bestselling author Steven Becker comes a great new series Washed up on a beach, with a path of destruction in his wake, Mac Travis must put his life back together. With his girlfriend in a coma and hanging by a thread, he becomes embroiled in a plan to blow-up US and Cuba’s fledgling relationship. Along with his wayward mate, the colorful Trufante, they fight to save Mel’s life and get back everything he’s lost. Experience the Florida Keys in this new adventure by best-selling author Steven Becker. An action-packed thriller featuring plenty of boating, SCUBA diving, fishing and flavored with a generous dose of Conch Republic countercultureShow book
William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him. He first attended at a school run by his aunt before enrolling at the Lindsey Street High School and then worked at his uncle’s drugstore and gained a pharmacists’ license in 1881. A persistent cough took him to Texas in the hope that a change of climate would help his symptoms. He took on various types of work, initially from ranch hand and cook and then as varied as pharmacist, draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began to write, though for now, purely as a hobby. He was a member of several singing and dramatic groups when he met 17 year old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Austin family. Despite her mother’s objection owing to Athol’s tuberculosis, they began courting and in July 1887, they eloped and soon married. Athol, impressed by his writing, encouraged him to get them published. A job as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office paid a healthy $100 dollars per month and life was good. But then life turned cruel. His son died a few hours after birth although a daughter, Margaret, came the following year. His job had to be vacated but another was found at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank operated informally and Porter was careless in keeping the books. He lost that job but began writing for the humourous weekly The Rolling Stone and the Houston Post. Some time later the federal Bank auditors went through his former accounts and he was arrested on charges of embezzlement. Porter fled the day before his trial to Honduras. Holed up for several months he began to write. Athol had become too ill to travel to meet him and learning that her health was deteriorating he surrendered to the court in February 1897. Bail was obtained so that he could stay with Athol during her final days. Porter was sentenced to five years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. His pharmacy qualifications got him the job of night druggist. His sentence also gave him time to write and publish fourteen short stories. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry. He was released two years early in July 1901, and reunited with Margaret, now 11, in Pittsburgh. He now began his most prolific period of writing; a short story per week for the New York World, while also publishing works in other magazines. Eventually over 600 of his short stories were published. Porter was a heavy drinker and in 1908 his health, which had deteriorated for several years, took a dramatic turn for the worse, as did his writing. O Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver complicated by diabetes and an enlarged heart on 5th June 1910.Show book
“A Madman’s Diary” is a short story by Lu Xun first published in 1918. Written in vernacular Chinese, it is considered “China’s first modern short story” and the most influential modern work in the republican era. Lu was inspired by “Diary of a Madman" by Nicolai Gogol, both in the use of the diary form and in the idea that the madman sees things more clearly than others. The story comes about when the narrator decides to visit two friends with whom he has lost touch when he learns that one of them has fallen ill. When he arrives, he is met by the brother, who informs him that his brother is no longer ill and hands him a copy of his brother’s diary. It is immediately apparent that the diarist is indeed mad. He believes he is surrounded by cannibals and that everyone has cannibalistic designs on him. His paranoia grows and he begins to see threats everywhere. He even sees the words “Eat People” between the lines of classic Confucian texts. He eventually suspects that his late sister had been eaten by his brother, and that he himself may have unknowingly done so. He ardently hopes that everyone will have a change of heart and change their ways. The story ends with a plea to “save the children”.The story is not readily comprehensible, and it took several years for it to be recognized as important. Gradually the madman is seen as a revolutionary contemptuous of Chinese tradition and its feudal society that “eats people”, people who themselves are corrupted by traditions they cannot escape.Show book
"Hathaman wishes to become Super Hathaman - he wants to fly in the sky and walk on water! On the advice of an old yogi, he journeys to Tibet to acquire super powers. Does he get them? This quirky tale by Kaushik Viswanath is illustrated in mixed media by Chetan Sharma (Animagic)."Show book
