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  The Murderer - Bulgakov expertly...

  Mikhail Bulgakov

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  Mikhail Bulgakov was born on 15th May 1891 in Kiev, in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, into a Russian family.  He was one of seven children. 
   
  In 1901, Bulgakov attended the First Kiev Gymnasium, and developed a keen interest in Russian and European literature, theatre and opera.  After the death of his father in 1907, his mother assumed responsibility for his education.  After graduating Bulgakov entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University and then took up a post as physician at the Kiev Military Hospital. 
   
  At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered as a doctor and was sent directly to the front, where he was badly injured at least twice.  To suppress chronic pain, especially in the abdomen, he injected morphine.  It took years to wean himself off. 
   
  He now took up medical posts in various towns and in 1919, he was mobilised by the Ukrainian People's Army and assigned to the Northern Caucasus.  There, he became seriously ill with typhus and barely survived.  
   
  After this illness, Bulgakov abandoned his medicine to pursue writing.  He moved to Vladikavkaz and had two plays staged there with great success.  He wrote too for various newspapers and other outlets, but his critics were many.  And growing. 
   
  When a Moscow's theatre director severely criticised Bulgakov, Stalin personally protected him, saying that a writer of Bulgakov's quality was above ‘party words’ like ‘left’ and ‘right’.   Indeed, it is said that Stalin watched ‘The Days of the Turbins’ at least 15 times. 
   
  It was not to last and by March 1929, Bulgakov's career was ruined when Government censorship stopped publication of any of his work and plays. 
   
  In despair, Bulgakov wrote a personal letter to Stalin.  He requested permission to emigrate.  He received a phone call from the Soviet leader, who asked the writer whether he really desired to leave. He replied that a Russian writer cannot live outside of his homeland.  Stalin thus gave him permission to continue working. In May 1930, he re-joined the theater, as stage director's assistant.  
   
  During the last stressful decade of his life, and in poor health, Bulgakov continued to work on ‘The Master and Margarita’, wrote plays, critical works, stories, and continued translations and dramatisations of novels.  Many of them were not published, others were derided by critics.  
   
  On 10th March 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died from nephrosclerosis.  He was 48. 
   
  ‘The Master and Margarita’ was not published in any form until the mid-1960’s 
   
  Here Bulgakov relates a story as told by a doctor describing the terrible things that humanity is capable of doing in times of war.

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  Honeymoons in Temporary Locations

  Ashley Shelby

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  Climate disaster–induced fugue states, mutinous polar bears, support groups for recently displaced millionaires, men who hear trees, and women who lose their wives on environmental refugee resettlement trips. In these dispatches from a weirding world, the absurd and fantastic are increasingly indistinguishable from reality. Exploring this liminal moment, Ashley Shelby's collection of climate fictions imagines a near future that is both unnervingly familiar and subversively strange. 
   
   
   
  Set in the same post-climate-impact era, these stories range from playfully satirical to poignantly humane, bending traditional narrative forms and coming together into a brilliant and unusual contemplation of our changing world. Featuring the Hugo-nominated novelette "Muri," Honeymoons in Temporary Locations processes the unthinkable through riotous inventions like guided tours of submerged cities, Craigslist ads placed by climate refugees, and cynical pharmaceutical efforts to market a drug to treat solastalgia, the existential distress caused by environmental change. 
   
   
   
  Shelby reengineers the dystopic bleakness that characterizes so much climate fiction by embracing an eclectic experimentalism leavened with humor, irony, and the inevitable bathos that characterizes the human experience. Unexpected and clever, this innovative collection confirms her status as a visionary writer whose work expands the forms, attitudes, and possibilities of climate fiction.

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  A Madman's Diary

  Lu Xun

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  “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.

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  The Monkey’s Paw

  W. W. Jacobs

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  Experience the chilling tale of "The Monkey’s Paw" by W.W. Jacobs in a gripping audiobook format. This timeless classic explores the consequences of tempting fate and the power of supernatural forces. 
  In "The Monkey’s Paw," listeners will be drawn into a world of mystery and suspense as the White family comes into possession of a magical monkey’s paw that grants three wishes. But as they soon discover, every wish comes with a price, leading to unforeseen and terrifying consequences. 
  Perfect for fans of horror and suspense, "The Monkey’s Paw" audiobook delivers spine-tingling thrills and thought-provoking themes. Whether you're listening alone on a dark night or sharing the experience with friends, this gripping tale will leave you on the edge of your seat until the very end. 
  So, if you're ready to immerse yourself in a chilling tale of supernatural intrigue and suspense, start listening to "The Monkey’s Paw" today and prepare for a haunting journey into the unknown. Start Listening to "The Monkey’s Paw" today!

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  Foreordained - From their pens...

  Anthony Hope

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  Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins was born on 9th February 1863 in Clapton, London.  
  He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford.  Hope trained as a lawyer and barrister and was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1887. Despite what was thought to be a promising legal career he had literary ambitions and wrote in his spare time. 
  His early works appeared in various periodicals of the day but for his first book ‘A Man of Mark’ (1890), with no publisher interested, he published with his own resources.  
  More novels and short stories followed, including the mildly successful ‘Mr Witt's Widow’ in 1892. Hope even found time to run as the Liberal candidate for Wycombe in the election that same year but was unsuccessful. 
  His first major literary success came with ‘The Dolly Dialogues’, a collection of previously published magazine pieces followed very quickly by his instant classic, ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’. He now gave up the vestiges of his legal career to pursue writing full-time. 
  Despite never again reaching the same pinnacle of success he was popular and wrote prolifically across novels, plays and of course, short stories though his writing output rapidly diminished after the war. 
  In 1918 he was knighted for his contribution to propaganda efforts during World War I.  
  His short stories are delicate, mannered and often surprising with their wit, humour and interplay of characters who say one thing and usually mean another.  He was very definitely a writer of escapist rather than serious fare but they are no less enjoyable for that. 
  Anthony Hope died of throat cancer on 8th July 1933 at his country home, Heath Farm at Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey. He was 70.

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  The Shadow in the Rose Garden

  D H Lawrence

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  'The Shadow in the Rose Garden'. Lawrence is often accused of misogyny and this story used as evidence against him. There is the simple but honest mine worker, who has taken on a wife who is 'above' him but who is struggling to understand her and her feelings for him. Slowly, the story unravels the woman's past. The reader cannot be entirely unsympathetic to her plight, Lawrence is too good a writer to let that happen, but her dishonesty has probably ruined two lives and our feelings are for the husband.

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