A group of eccentrics is gathered, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humour and social satire from their various interactions and conversations.

Tomorrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola. It is now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola, and an image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little marina; a yellowish little town just above; and behind, rising grandly, the long range of mountains which guard the shore of Calabria. Paola has no special interest that I know of, but it is the nearest point on the coast to Cosenza, which has interest in abundance; by landing here I make a modestly adventurous beginning of my ramble in the South. At Paola foreigners are rare; one may count upon new impressions, and the journey over the hills will be delightful.

The Town Traveller is one of Gissing's novels which earned him more income during his lifetime than most of his other novels. The story is full of life and descriptive detail. It revolves around life of town traveller Gammon, just the sort of quarter-educated that Gissing usually despises.

Little Women follows the lives of the four March sisters, from oldest to youngest: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. A romance, a quest, a family drama that validates virtue over wealth. The start of the story is set at Christmastime, where Jo, the second eldest of the March sisters, grumbles that Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents. The four girls discuss the upcoming holiday and sigh as they long for pretty things that they can't have because of money constraints

William Legrand becomes obsessed with searching for treasure after being bitten by a bug appearing to be made of pure gold. He notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit him at his home on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. Upon the narrator's arrival, Legrand informs him that they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure along with his African-American servant Jupiter. The narrator has intense doubt and questions whether Legrand, who has recently lost his fortune, has gone insane.

Ligeia, a beautiful, passionate and intellectual woman, raven-haired and dark-eyed. The narrator is unable to recall anything about the history of Ligeia, including her family's name, but remembers her beautiful appearance. Her beauty, however, is not conventional. He describes her as emaciated, with some strangeness. They marry, and Ligeia impresses her husband with her immense knowledge of physical and mathematical science, and her proficiency in classical languages. She begins to show her husband her knowledge of metaphysicaland forbidden wisdom. The book also features several other stories including: Morella, The Spectacles, King Pest, X-ing a Paragraph, How to Write a Blackwood Article.

Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who had two beautiful sons and one little daughter, who was so pretty that no one who saw her could help loving her. When it was time for the christening of the Princess, the Queen—as she always did—sent for all the fairies to be present at the ceremony, and afterwards invited them to a splendid banquet...

An exciting collection of stories from W.W. Jacobs, a London based novelist famous for his humour, horror and travel stories. This volume includes some of his iconic work: Deserted, Homeward Bound, Self-help, Sentence Deferred, Matrimonial Openings, Odd Man Out, The Toll-house, Peter's Pence, The Head of the Family, Prize Money, Double Dealing, Keeping Up Appearances.

The Art of War is written by Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is the definitive work on classic military strategy and tactics. The book influenced Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.

A psychologically thrilling tale, The Black Monk delves into the murky region between fantasy and reality and asks what separates self-confidence from self-delusion. Our protagonist Andrei Kovrin, a brilliant scholar who takes a leave of absence from academia due to stress, and recuperates at the house of his former guardian Pesotsky. He grows close to Pesotsky’s daughter Tatiana as they tend the orchard together. Kovrin enjoys taking long walks in the garden, and one night he sees a dark, spectral figure and realizes that it is the black monk, whose legend he had just told Tatiana. Upon seeing the monk, Kovrin feels radiant and inspired, and asks for Tania’s hand in marriage. As his romance progresses, Kovrin continues to meet and talk with the monk in the garden. The monk tells him that he is one of God’s chosen, but soon after Kovrin's health begins to deteriorate.

Nick Lansing and Susy Branch form an alliance of convenience. They have the right connections but always short of money. They decide to spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas. And the marriage can always be dissolved if one of them meets someone who can advance them socially.

The story is narrated by a young author, Vanya, who has just released his first novel. It bears an obvious resemblance to Dostoyevsky's own first novel, Poor Folk. Vanya's close friend and former love object, Natasha runs away with prince Alexey, son of Prince Valkovsky, who hopes to gain financially by marrying Alexey off to an heiress, Katya. Meantime we meet another young girl Nellie, whom Vanya saves from an abusive household by taking her into his apartment. Nellie's story is one of Dostoyevsky's most moving creations which inspired Japanese director Akira Kurosawa to produce an adaptation film, Red Beard.

Harvey Cheyne washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the young Harvey Cheyne can neither persuade them to take him quickly to port, nor convince them that his is the son of a wealthy railroad magnate. Disko Troop, captain of the We're Here, offers him a job as part of the crew until they return to port. With no other choice, Harvey accepts.

The Scottish local community mobilises to uncover and thwart the conspiracy against a Russian woman, and to defend the neutrality of Scotland against the Russian Bolshevik agents.

Tales of Mother Goose feature some of the best known fairy tales including: Blue Beard, Little Thumb, Puss in Boots, Riquet with the Tuft, The Fairy, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty.

The novel follows three parallel stories of courtship and marriage and the decisions of three strong women: Alice Vavasor, her cousin Glencora Palliser, and her aunt Arabella Greenow. Early on, Alice asks the question: What should a woman do with her life? This theme repeats itself in the dilemmas faced by the other women in the novel. Lady Glencora and her husband Plantagenet Palliser recur in the remainder of the Palliser series.

Sonetul contondentCelor doi / poe?i de mare soi...(Istrate ?i Murgeanu)Visam c? Marea-?i p?r?sea ghioculCu-al s?u tumult de valuri euxine?i, h?t-departe-n zonele alpine,Ca-n Cretaceu, ??i reg?sise locul...Priveam de-acuma fascinat la joculDe valuri ?n?esate de jivineDin vremuri disp?rute, care-n fine,??i ?ncercau, o dat?-n plus, norocul.Sim?eam o dulce binecuv?ntareC?-n groapa euxinic? ad?nc?O Mare Neagr? nu exist? ?nc?,Nici Casa Scriitorilor la mare;Nici doi poe?i cu barb?, bur?i ?i plete,S?-n?ire contondentele sonete.

The Portuguese visual artist Paula Rego has inspired this trilogy of plays. Her paintings Crivelli’s Garden, The Prey and Breaking China became the catalyst for writing by theatre maker Fiona Graham. Commissioned by Theatre Centre and Komedia, these three new plays were developed for specific audiences through a series of artist/audience residencies and collaborations. These works have toured Britain and been re-staged in Portugal and Singapore. Crivellis’s Garden was created for a 16+ audience and explores rites of passage as two young women decide whether they should stay or leave their fishing village to go to university in Portugal. Between Friends is for 7 -11 year olds and examines the politics of friendship between three young people when they are shipwrecked and abandoned in a lighthouse. Breaking China is for 4-8 year olds and shows the importance of creative play and storytelling when making sense of change and adversity. About the authorDR FIONA GRAHAMFiona teaches dramaturgy at Goldsmiths University. Previously she spent over a decade in New Zealand writing and teaching at Auckland University. Her plays include: Passage (The Herald Theatre, Auckland 2010), Breaking China (Theatre Centre, 2002 and Singapore’s International Festival, 2004) and Legacy (for Massive Theatre Company, 1998). Most recently she worked as dramaturge with Otago University and Talking House Theatre Company on Be/Longing and Hush, with Red Leap Theatre Company on Paper Sky and Sea, with playwright Mei-Lin Hansen on The Mooncake And The Kumara, with Winning Productions on I Wanna Be -- Ponsonby and Carol Brown on 1000 Lovers and the Pah Collective. Her book Catalyst For Change: The Interventions of the Dramaturge was published in New Zealand in 2017. Reviews: ‘Graham’s poetically eloquent script flows like molten silver and should give students, teachers and other theatregoers much to think about’ (on Crivelli’s Garden) – The Stage ‘A prime example of how an excellent script innovatively directed and beautifully performed can be applied to a wide age range. This joyful production provides much food for thought.’ (on Breaking China) – The Stage

"I am a human being; I am a woman; I am a black woman; I am an African. Once I was free; then I was captured and became a slave; but inside me, here and here, I am still a free woman."During a period of four hundred years, European slave traders ferried some 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. In the Americas, teaching a slave to read and write was a criminal offense. When the last slaves gained their freedom in Brazil, barely a thousand of them were literate. Hardly any stories of the enslaved and transported Africans have survived.This novel is an attempt to recreate just one of those stories, one story of a possible 12 million or more.Lawrence Hill created another in The Book of Negroes (Someone Knows my Name in the U.S.) and, more recently, Yaa Gyasi has done the same in Homegoing. Ama occupies center stage throughout this novel. As the story opens, she is sixteen. Distant drums announce the death of her grandfather. Her family departs to attend the funeral, leaving her alone to tend her ailing baby brother. It is 1775. Asante has conquered its northern neighbor and exacted an annual tribute of 500 slaves. The ruler of Dagbon dispatches a raiding party into the lands of the neighboring Bekpokpam. They capture Ama. That night, her lover, Itsho, leads an attack on the raiders’ camp. The rescue bid fails. Sent to collect water from a stream, Ama comes across Itsho’s mangled corpse. For the rest of her life she will call upon his spirit in time of need. In Kumase, the Asante capital, Ama is given as a gift to the Queen-mother. When the adolescent monarch, Osei Kwame, conceives a passion for her, the regents dispatch her to the coast for sale to the Dutch at Elmina Castle. There the governor, Pieter de Bruyn, selects her as his concubine, dressing her in the elegant clothes of his late Dutch wife and instructing the obese chaplain to teach her to read and write English. De Bruyn plans to marry Ama and take her with him to Europe. He makes a last trip to the Dutch coastal outstations and returns infected with yellow fever. On his death, his successor rapes Ama and sends her back to the female dungeon. Traumatized, her mind goes blank. She comes to her senses in the canoe which takes her and other women out to the slave ship, The Love of Liberty. Before the ship leaves the coast of Africa, Ama instigates a slave rebellion. It fails and a brutal whipping leaves her blind in one eye. The ship is becalmed in mid-Atlantic. Then a fierce storm cripples it and drives it into the port of Salvador, capital of Brazil. Ama finds herself working in the fields and the mill on a sugar estate. She is absorbed into slave society and begins to adapt, learning Portuguese. Years pass. Ama is now totally blind. Clutching the cloth which is her only material link with Africa, she reminisces, dozes, falls asleep. A short epilogue brings the story up to date. The consequences of the slave trade and slavery are still with us. Brazilians of African descent remain entrenched in the lower reaches of society, enmeshed in poverty. “This is story telling on a grand scale,” writes Tony Sim?es da Silva. “In Ama, Herbstein creates a work of literature that celebrates the resilience of human beings while denouncing the inscrutable nature of their cruelty. By focusing on the brutalization of Ama's body, and on the psychological scars of her experiences, Herbstein dramatizes the collective trauma of slavery through the story of a single African woman. Ama echoes the views of writers, historians and philosophers of the African diaspora who have argued that the phenomenon of slavery is inextricable from the deepest foundations of contemporary western civilization.” Ama, a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book.

Utopia

Lucien Chardon, the son of a lower middle-class father and an impoverished mother of remote aristocratic descent, is the pivotal figure of the entire work. Living at Angouleme, he is impoverished, impatient, handsome and ambitious. His widowed mother, his sister Eve and his best friend, David Sechard, do nothing to lessen his high opinion of his own talents, for it is an opinion they share.