Other books that might interest you

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  Nikolai Gogol - A Short Story...

  Nikolai Gogol

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  Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore.   
   
  His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre.  This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12.  Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters. 
   
  In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him. 
   
  Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals.  These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day.  He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity.  Eight stories were published as ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’.  Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature.   
   
  His success continued with his brilliant plays ‘The Inspector General’ and the comedy ‘The Marriage for the Theatre’, both being highly acclaimed.   
   
  In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post.  With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal ‘Dead Souls’, Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera.  
   
  In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43. 
   
  1 - Nikolai Gogol - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - The Nose by Nikolai Gogol 
  3 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat' 
  4 - Old Fashioned Landowners by Nikolai Gogol 
  5 - St Johns Eve by Nikolai Gogol 
  6 - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol

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  Backpack Jacket Surfboard - My...

  Graham Broyd

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  Backpack, Jacket, Surfboard is an adventure memoir, a time capsule, and an unfiltered look at the joys, risks, and revelations of a cross-country road trip—then and now.

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  Tales of a Pet Vet - Stories...

  Dr. Dawn Filos

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  In stories tailor-made for pet lovers, a seasoned veterinarian shares her good, bad, and messy days on the job—and highlights the undeniable magic of the human-animal bond.Dr. Dawn Filos’s own menagerie of pets, including Willie the woolly monkey, primed her for a. career as a veterinarian. With emotional honesty, Dr. Dawn shares her heartfelt, and often hilarious journey, from nervous novice to seasoned, self-assured doctor. This modern-day James Herriot finds her niche as a house-call vet, with unique, intimate access into the homes and lives of her beloved patients and their human families. She understands with all of her heart that no visit or emergency is too trivial to a pet parent. After reading Tales of a Pet Vet you will never see your own vet the same way.Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes sad, and often hilarious, Tales of a Pet Vet will resonate deeply with pet lovers everywhere.

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  The Pilgrim - SAS Who Dares Wins

  Colin Maclachlan

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  The Pilgrim is the book the MOD tried to ban. It is a rollercoaster of an autobiography of Colin Maclachlan, known for his appearances on shows like Channel 4's SAS: Who Dares Wins and Channel 5's Secrets of the SAS.His autobiography starts with his troubled childhood and escape to the military where, as a fifteen year-old boy, he grows up and matures into the SAS soldier we now recognise. Early chapters describe physical, mental and sexual abuse and Colin could easily have ended up in a home but despite the odds and with the help of both the Children's Panels, NSPCC and some diligent schoolteachers, Colin escaped to the army. Colin had to get special permission to join the army at only fifteen years of age and goes from being a young vulnerable and damaged boy to a capable soldier through preparation for the first Gulf War and joining the oldest and most senior infantry regiment in the British Army, The Royal Scots. From operations in Northern Ireland to being the Queen's Butcher to Colin's first TV cameos on Soldier Soldier and Gladiators, Colin's stories and anecdotes are both exhilarating and hilarious.Colin then describes the arduous SAS selection process, the hardest and most gruelling military selection process in the world. Colin describes in some detail what most have never even heard in this secretive world where Colin goes from a course of what seemed hundreds down to only six percent in six months! The reader is then taken on a never seen before description of life as an SAS operator. Daily life in an operational squadron and the operations, missions and training involved all described in detail. Colin was part of Mountain Troop, D Squadron who were to be involved in some of the most high-profile and dangerous missions in SAS history.

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  Berserk - The Shocking Life and...

  Don Stradley

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  Within the dark pages of Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero, author Don Stradley uncovers the gritty details of the undefeated (27-0, 27 KO), troubled, boxer Edwin Valero. 
   
   
   
  Edwin Valero's life was like a rocket shot into a wall. With a perfect knockout record in twenty-seven fights, the demonic Venezuelan boxer, known as "El Inca" and "El Dinamita," seemed destined for a clash with all-time great Manny Pacquiao. But the Fates had other ideas. 
   
   
   
  Fueled by cocaine and booze and paranoia, Valero blazed into a mania that derailed his career in the ring and resulted in the brutal death of his young wife Jennifer–and soon afterward, his own. In chilling detail, Don Stradley captures one of the darkest and most sensational boxing stories in recent memory, which, until now, has never been fully told. 
   
   
   
  Filled with firsthand accounts from the men who trained Valero and the reporters who covered him, as well as insights from psychologists and forensic experts, Berserk is a hell-ride of a book.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - Early...

  Jules Verne

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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 ideas and inventions of mankind on many occasions have their roots in the minds of authors. From Interplanetary journeys, time travel, robots and cyborgs to voice control, organ transplants, mobile phones and even the internet are just some that began as mere inky black on paper as thrills and adventures. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - Early Science Fiction - An Introduction 
  2 - Cool Air by H P Lovecraft 
  3 - Master Zacharius by Jules Verne 
  4 - A Thousand Deaths by Jack London 
  5 - The Park of Kings by Alexander Kuprin 
  6 - The Artist of the Beautiful by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
  7 - The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell 
  8 - What Was It? by Fitz James O'Brien 
  9 - The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov 
  10 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 1 by Robert W Chambers 
  11 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 2 by Robert W Chambers 
  12 - Into the Sun by Robert Duncan Milne

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