The Number One best-selling, epic true-life story of one of the most notorious maritime disasters of the 19th century, beautifully reissued alongside Philbrick's new paperback, Sea of Glory. The sinking of the whaleship Essex by an enraged spermwhale in the Pacific in November 1820 set in motion one of the most dramatic sea stories of all time: the twenty sailors who survived the wreck took to three small boats (one of which was again attacked by a whale) and only eight of them survived their subsequent 90-day ordeal, after resorting to cannibalising their mates. Three months after the Essex was broken up, the whaleship Dauphin, cruising off the coast of South America, spotted a small boat in the open ocean. As they pulled alongside they saw piles of bones in the bottom of the boat, at least two skeletons' worth, with two survivors -- almost skeletons themselves -- sucking the marrow from the bones of their dead ship-mates.

“Troy meant one thing only to the men gathered here, as it did to their commanders. Troy was a dream of wealth; and if the wind continued the dream would crumble.” As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young and innocent woman – blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. And when Iphigeneia, Agamemnon’s beloved daughter, is brought to the coast under false pretences, and when a knife is fashioned out of the finest and most precious of materials, it looks as if the ships will soon be on their way. But can a father really go to these lengths to secure political victory, and can a daughter willingly give up her life for the worldly ambitions of her father? Throwing off the heroic values we expect of them, Barry Unsworth’s mythic characters embrace the political ethos of the twenty-first century and speak in words we recognize as our own. The blowhard Odysseus warns the men to not “marginalize” Agamemnon and to “strike while the bronze is hot.” High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues. Here is a novel that stands the world on its head. From the Hardcover edition.

Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as 'Rain', 'The Letter', 'The Vessel of Wrath' and 'The Alien Corn', Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place.

A richly evocative novel set in 19th-century Vienna on the eve of the birth of psychoanalysis. The eminent physician Josef Breuer is asked to treat Friedrich Nietzsche's suicidal despair after the end of a love affair - without his knowing it. The doctor devises an ingenious plan, which ultimately involves a young intern named Sigmund Freud.

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his dying so much as a passing thought. But one day, death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise, he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This short novel was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.

The weird fiction short stories of H.P. Lovecraft from 1917-1935. Excludes collaborations. The eBook’s table of contents is listed below. It includes the year each story was written. The Tomb (1917) Dagon (1917) Polaris (1918) Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919) Memory (1919) Old Bugs (1919) The Transition of Juan Romero (1919) The White Ship (1919) The Doom That Came to Sarnath (1919) The Statement of Randolph Carter (1919) The Terrible Old Man (1920) The Tree (1920) The Cats of Ulthar (1920) The Temple (1920) Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family (1920) The Street (1920) Celephaïs (1920) From Beyond (1920) Nyarlathotep (1920) The Picture in the House (1920) Ex Oblivione (1921) The Nameless City (1921) The Quest of Iranon (1921) The Moon-Bog (1921) The Outsider (1921) The Other Gods (1921) The Music of Erich Zann (1921) Herbert West — Reanimator (1922) Hypnos (1922) What the Moon Brings (1922) Azathoth (1922) The Hound (1922) The Lurking Fear (1922) The Rats in the Walls (1923) The Unnamable (1923) The Festival (1923) The Shunned House (1924) The Horror at Red Hook (1925) He (1925) In the Vault (1925) The Descendant (1926) Cool Air (1926) The Call of Cthulhu (1926) Pickman’s Model (1926) The Silver Key (1926) The Strange High House in the Mist (1926) The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927) The Colour Out of Space (1927) The Very Old Folk (1927) The Thing in the Moonlight (1927) The History of the Necronomicon (1927) Ibid (1928) The Dunwich Horror (1928) The Whisperer in Darkness (1930) At the Mountains of Madness (1931) The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) The Dreams in the Witch House (1932) The Thing on the Doorstep (1933) The Evil Clergyman (1933) The Book (1933) The Shadow out of Time (1934) The Haunter of the Dark (1935)

In this fable, the first man on earth to count the hours becomes Father Time. The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time. He returns to our world - now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began - and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so.

A compelling novel of revenge told with wit and skill.Ned Maddstone has the world at his feet. He is handsome, talented and about to go to Cambridge, after which he is expected to follow his father into politics. But an unfortunate confrontation with a boy in his school results in a prank that goes badly wrong and suddenly he's incarcerated - without chance of release. So begins a year long process of torment and hopelessness, which will destroy his very identity, until almost nothing remains of him but this unquenchable desire for revenge. Inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, Fry's psychological thriller is written with the pace, wit and shrewd insight that we have come to expect from one of our finest novelists.

Set in Brooklyn, this gripping mystery begins when attractive, level-headed Sylvia Gellburg suddenly loses her ability to walk. The only clue to her mysterious ailment lies in her obsession with news accounts from Germany.

Who will be next? Though former FBI Special Agent Sloane Burbank once survived a life-threatening injury in the line of duty, she now uses her specialized skills as an independent consultant. But when one of her closest childhood friends mysteriously disappears, Sloane takes the case—even though her ex-lover Derek Parker is the FBI agent in charge. Special Agent Derek Parker has no time to spare for a dead-end case—especially since it would mean working with a woman he never expected to see again. But as more women disappear and others turn up brutally murdered, he and Sloane come to the sickening realization that these random crimes are linked to the same crazed killer, a fiend with a mind so psychotic, so twisted, that it will take everything Sloane has to capture him—even as she becomes his latest target.

The Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s was one of the first occasions when Western consciences were awakened and deeply affronted by the level of the suffering and the scale of the atrocity being played out in the African Continent. This book which marked Frederick Forsyth's transition from journalist to author is a record of one of the most brutal conflicts the Third World has ever suffered, it has become a classic of modern war reporting. But it is more than that. It voices one man's outrage not only at the extremes of human violence, but also at the duplicity and self-interest of the Western Governments - most notably, the British, who tacitly accepted or actively aided that violence. The combination of the dramatic events and the shocking exposures combined with the author's forthright and perceptive style makes The Biafra Story as compelling a read today as when it was first written.

THE FIRST BODY IS A MYSTERY. She's young. She's beautiful. And her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Kat Novak, betrays no secrets - except for a matchbook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. THE NEXT BODY IS A WARNING. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the streets. The police are sceptical. The mayor won't listen. And Kat's chief suspect is one of the town's most prominent citizens. THE FINAL BODY . . . MIGHT BE HERS. With the death toll rising, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is closer than she ever dreamt. And every move she makes could be her very last.

The Human-Covenant war rages on as the alien juggernaut sweeps inexorably toward its final goal: destruction of all human life! Halo has been destroyed, and the threat it posed to sentient life, neutralized. But victory has come at a terrible cost for the UNSC. Thousands of valiant soldiers fell in the battle to prevent the alien construct from falling into the enemy’s clutches. Now, everything depends on the Spartan known as the “Master Chief.” Yet even with the aid of the artificial intelligence Cortana, the Master Chief will be hard-pressed to rescue survivors and evade the Covenant ships patrolling the remains of Halo in debris-strewn space. Ahead lies a dangerous voyage home, through a gauntlet of Covenant forces. For the sake of all, the Master Chief and his war-torn squad must not only survive, but take the fight to the enemy with a decisive first strike. This novel is based on a Mature-rated video game. Bungie, Halo, Xbox, the Microsoft Game Studios logo and the Xbox Logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Used under license. © 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

It Was Always You, a Gaming The System short Friends discover their feelings are more than that but timing has never been on their side. When Jeremy, her brother’s best friend, came back into her life, Michaela cursed the fact that she was in a relationship with someone else. But now that she’s free, he’s dating her roommate. This is a contemporary romance novella with a happy ending. The characters exist in the same world as Brenna Aubrey’s bestselling Gaming The System series, but you don’t need to have read any of those books to enjoy this story.

In this collection of twelve dark, unerring and surprising short stories, John Boyne explores the extremities of the human condition in all its brilliance and brutality. The secrets we keep and the ways in which they shape us, the impossibility of shared loss, the lengths we will go to in order to protect our families and the distance we will run to protect ourselves. Drawing on a host of enthralling characters – a farmer, a cuckold and a teenager exploring his sexuality; good parents, bad parents, writers and soldiers; a student, a rent boy and a hitman – Boyne examines the hopeful and the damaged without prejudice or judgement. This, his first collection of short stories, is some of John Boyne’s finest writing to date. It includes ‘Rest Day’ which won the 2015 Writing.ie Short Story of the Year award in Ireland.