Other books that might interest you

• 

  A Thread of Scarlet

  J. Bell

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  John Joy Bell (1871-1934), known professionally as J. J. Bell, was a Scottish journalist and author, popular for his vibrant short stories.A Thread of Scarlet is a mystery story. In an inn in a remote village, three locals are drinking and discussing the extraordinary events of the day. They all attended a hanging that morning.One of their number had been on the jury which had convicted the murderer. The men are deeply affected by the events of the day and not least because the only friend of the hanged man also appears at the inn, intent on drowning his sorrows. The landlord refuses to serve him.Then a stranger appears with a peculiar story, and events take a series of very strange turns....

  Show book

• 

  The Stones of the Village

  Alice Dunbar-Nelson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Alice Ruth Moore was born on 19th July 1875 in New Orleans where she was part of the multi-racial Creole community.  She was the first generation seemingly born free after the Civil War and unusually for the times, obtained a university education which led to her becoming a teacher at a public school in New Orleans.   
   
  In 1895, when she was 20, she published her first collection of short stories and poems, ‘Violets and Other Tales’, and moved to New York City where she co-founded and taught at the White Rose Mission, a Home for Girls.   
   
  Alice was always politically active and sought to advance the position of black women.  She began work as a journalist at the Woman’s Era newspaper where her work was seen by the established poet and journalist Paul Laurence Dunbar.  After corresponding for two years she joined him in Washington DC and they married in 1898.   
   
  It was a difficult relationship, due mainly to Dunbar’s fragile health, alcoholism and depression.  After a severe beating she left him and moved to Delaware to teach for a decade though took time out to enroll at Cornell University. 
   
  A short-lived marriage to Henry A. Callis, a physician and professor at Howard University ended in divorce and she became co-editor and writer for an influential publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  A third marriage to civil rights activist Robert J. Nelson came about, as did affairs with several women, notably the activist Fay Jackie Robinson.   
   
  In Wilmington Delaware she and her husband devoted their time and writings to working for equality for African Americans and women’s suffrage.   
   
  Alice Dunbar Nelson was a natural and gifted writer across many genres, from novels, essays, plays to diaries, criticism, poetry and of course short stories, of which ‘Stones in the Village’ is a fine example.  The protagonist, like herself, is light skinned from New Orleans, which allows for a social mobility and a unique position in American society that Dunbar Nelson captures with an imagination and insight to explores another divisive perspective on race.  It is unsurprising that Alice was a prominent part of the early Harlem Renaissance and influenced many others including Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. 
   
  Alice and her husband moved to Philadelphia in 1932 and it was here that she died on 18th September 1935, at the age of 60, from a heart ailment.

  Show book

• 

  Dubliners

  James Joyce

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  These vivid, tightly focused observations about the life of Dublin's poorer classes originally made publishers uneasy: the stories contain unconventional themes and coarse language, and they mention actual people and places. Today, however, the stories are admired. They are considered to be masterful representations of Dublin done with economy and grace-representations, as Joyce himself once explained, of a chapter in the moral history of Ireland that give the Irish a good look at themselves. Although written for the Irish specifically, these stories-from the opening tale The Sisters to the final masterpiece The Dead-focus on moments of revelation that are common to all people.

  Show book

• 

  The Story of a Disappearance and...

  M. R. James

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936), who wrote as M. R. James, was an English author, medieval scholar, and provost of King's College, Cambridge, and of Eton College. He is best known for his outstanding ghost stories. James reinvented the ghost story for the modern audience by moving away from Gothic elements and using realistic contemporary settings. His protagonists and plots often reflected his own antiquarian interests. "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance" is a strange tale told in the form of four mysterious letters. The writer's uncle, the rector in a small market town, has mysteriously disappeared in the days before Christmas. The writer of the letters has been summoned to help the search for the missing man. He writes every day to his brother to update him on events... and describes a series of most bizarre and inexplicable happenings.

  Show book

• 

  Pwning Tomorrow: Short Fiction...

  Electronic Frontier Foundation

  • 0
  • 6
  • 0

  As part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, EFF has released Pwning Tomorrow: Stories from the Electronic Frontier, an anthology of speculative fiction from more than 20 authors, including Bruce Sterling, Lauren Beukes, Cory Doctorow, and Charlie Jane Anders. 
  
   
  EFF meets many speculative fiction fans in the course of its work to protect digital civil liberties, and the 21 stories in this collection inspire a sharper sense of the futures we may experience and the role of rights and freedoms there. The authors explore the wonders and perils of technology over the next 25 years and beyond, imagining the consequences of everything from abusive intellectual property lawsuits to out-of-control viral marketing, from over-protective intelligent fridges to violently loyal cyber-pets. 
  
   
  It's also important to know that writers have long been at the forefront of the fight against mass surveillance in the real world. Paranormal romance author Carolyn Jewel is the lead plaintiff in Jewel v. NSA, EFF’s long-running lawsuit against warrantless collection of electronic communications. Her novella, "Free Fall," rounds out the collection.
  
   
  The full list of contributors includes:
  
  
  	Charlie Jane Anders
  	Madeline Ashby
  	Paolo Bacigalupi
  	Lauren Beukes
  	David Brin
  	Pat Cadigan
  	Cory Doctorow
  	Paul Ford
  	Neil Gaiman
  	SL Grey
  	Eileen Gunn
  	Charles Human
  	Kameron Hurley
  	Carolyn Jewel
  	James Patrick Kelly
  	Ramez Naam
  	Annalee Newitz
  	Hannu Rajaniemi
  	Rudy Rucker
  	Lewis Shiner
  	Bruce Sterling
  	Charles Yu
  
  
   
  Contribute to EFF.
  Listed by Unglue.it.

  Show book

• 

  The Alligator and the Jackal

  Mary Frere

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Mary Eliza Isabella Frere (1845–1911) was an English author of the first English-language field-collected book of Indian folk tales. 
  "The Alligator and the Jackal" is the story of a jackal who narrowly escapes being eaten by an alligator on the banks of a river. Following this incident, the alligator is determined to catch the cunning jackal. The Jackal is equally determined not to be eaten. A series of close escapes escalates the feud until the dramatic finale.

  Show book