Plain Tales from the Hills

This was Kipling's first published volume of fiction. The stories with their brevity and concentration of effect are a landmark in the history of the short story. Plain Tales from the Hills (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan) between November 1886 and June 1887.

Protagonist Eugene Debs Hartke, West Point graduate, Vietnam vet, college professor, educator of the disabled and the illiterate, is awaiting trial for a crime initially unspecified. Until this time, Hartke has diligently and good-naturedly participated in whatever was expected of him, including involvement in the evacuation of American personnel from Saigon. At one point, however, he calculates the remarkable fact that he has killed exactly as many people as he has had sex with, a coincidence that causes him to doubt his atheism.

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The Garden Fairy

Storyland Readers: The Garden Fairy -  Level 7

The teacher gave each student ten pumpkin seeds and said: " There's going to be a prize for the biggest pumpkin."

Wendy was happy. "I'm going to win!" she thought.

But she lived in a small flat and it had no garden ...

Blood In Blood Out - Vampire the Requiem

Blood Calls to Blood...Ever since his Embrace, Duce Carter has been a firebrand among the Kindred of Chicago, fanning the flames of revolution against the city's Prince and its hidebound elders. But when Chicago's Carthians turn on Duce in the wake of a brutal assassination attempt, the only person he can go to for help is none other than Persephone Moore, the Prince's only childe. Is Persephone the friend she claims to be, or is she an agent of the shadowy forces who are out to destroy Duce? Blood In, Blood Out is his first full-length novel.

"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers. This classic 1971 novel - the one that catapulted its author to national fame - is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, ...