Brighten your day and dive into Flat Spell Tales! Tony Martello is an author like no other who transforms ordinary events into fiction based on half-realities. Drop in and surf stories about romance, revenge, treasure hunts, and humor. He invites you to read along with him on a variety of adventures that take you into extreme nature, complex human relationships, and animal allegories. See why over 10,000 readers follow Flat Spell Tales daily. He has selected the top ten short stories from his fiction blog to be curated and formatted for this ebook.
*National Bestseller* The acclaimed retelling of the world’s best-loved fairy tales by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Golden Compass and The Book of Dust—now in paperback, and with 3 new tales! Two centuries ago, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first volume of fairy tales. Since then, such stories as “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Rapunzel,” and “Hansel and Gretel” have become deeply woven into the Western imagination. Now Philip Pullman, the New York Times bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm. Here are Pullman’s fifty favorites—a wide-ranging selection that includes the most popular stories as well as lesser-known treasures like “The Three Snake Leaves,” “Godfather Death,” and “The Girl with No Hands”—alongside his personal commentaries on each story’s sources, variations, and everlasting appeal. Suffused with romance and villainy, danger and wit, Pullman’s beguiling retellings will cast a spell on readers of all ages. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Piers Anthony’s bestselling Xanth series is one of the cornerstones of fantasy, a lively and whimsical interpretation of a genre often criticized for taking itself too seriously. Anthony’s first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon, was initially edited to target a more traditional audience. Now, in an eBook exclusive, A Spell for Chameleon has been reworked line by line—its language matching the simpler, playful way with words that made Piers Anthony an enduring fan favorite. Xanth is an enchanted land where magic rules, a land of centaurs and dragons and basilisks where every citizen has a unique spell to call their own. For Bink of North Village, however, Xanth is no fairy tale. He alone has no magic. And unless he gets some—and fast!—he will be exiled. Forever. But the Good Magician Humfrey is convinced that Bink does indeed have magic. In fact, both Beauregard the genie and the magic wall chart insist that Bink has magic as powerful as any possessed by the King, the Good Magician Humfrey, or even the Evil Magician Trent. Be that as it may, no one can fathom the nature of Bink’s very special magic. This is even worse than having no magic at all . . . and he still faces exile!
There Will Come A Train by Feng GooiDuring World War Two, the Japanese forcibly sent prisoners deep into the wild mountains to build the Siam-Burma Railway now also known as the Death Railway. A party of Malaysian prisoners find that freedom may be possible when one of them starts receiving strange visions of the future.Virgil in Kingman by Inbal Gilboa“ Virgil in Kingman” is a whistle-stop tour of the state of Arizona and a katabasis to the Underworld, beginning in Phoenix and ending past the Salt River. At the helm of this roadtrip, Sleeper Car, the driver, and her navigator, a talking tarantula by the name of Jacob Schwartz, travel from one end of the state to the other in search of the entrance to Hell through a copper mineshaft, seeking to fetch the soul of Sleeper Car' s companion. Meditative and surreal, the only guarantee for this journey is that they will not, by any means, stop at the Grand Canyon.Welcome to Hicksville by Porsha StennisThey often say down in Hicksville, you' ll never make it out alive. Either a gun, jail or poverty will kill you, and seventeen year old Tobias is on the verge of finding out his fate. Just days before his senior graduation and summer approaches, he begins to take a good look around at how he exists in this place he once called home and questions everything he' s ever known; his mother, his race, and the one unresolved mystery since birth &– his father. This is only the beginning of a summer filled with life altering events. Welcome to adulthood, Tobias. Welcome to Hicksville. Death After Life by Alex HulslanderAfter death, there is judgement to determine if one is worthy of Heaven or damned to Hell. But Hell is not what everything thinks it is, as for many it is simply a continuation of life without worry. However, for one woman it is a place of confusion. Without her memories, she must navigate this new life with the help of Lucifer to determine who she was before death and who she is meant to be.
The first book in Chris Colfer's #1 New York Times bestselling series The Land of Stories about two siblings who fall into a fairy-tale world! Alex and Conner Bailey's world is about to change forever, in this fast-paced adventure that uniquely combines our modern day world with the enchanting realm of classic fairy tales. The Land of Stories tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with fairy tale characters they grew up reading about. But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.
The Metamorphosis & Other Tales is a collection of six fictional stories that includes The Metamorphosis, The Magic Carpet and The Groovy Wallpaper, Butterfly, The Stranger, Customer Disservice and The Boston Stranger. Interweaving postmodernist narrative forms of intertextuality with realistic fiction, the author weaves a sumptuously rich tapestry of life contained within stories of the outsider, many of which might draw comparisons with the modernism of Kafka and Camus, though he undoubtedly still retains his definitely distinct artistic stylistic imprint.
Why is Cambridgeshire so flat? Probably because of all the giants who used to stomp around it! If you travel to or live in the land of Cambridgeshire, you could be walking in the footsteps of monsters, kings... or even the Devil!Journey through time to meet the giant-slayers of Saxon times, the shapeshifters of Tudor times, women who were incredible survivors... and even Victorian men who travelled on two legs faster than a steam train! What is truth, and what is myth? Decide for yourself after reading these tales of Cambridgeshire – the home of heroes from history.
Part Seven Once reviled as an example of Chaucer at his most tasteless and omitted from some editions of The Canterbury Tales, this scatological anecdote has over time been accorded genuine admiration, first grudging and finally unabashed. As in The Miller’s Tale, Chaucer has elaborated a simple fart joke into pungent satire against human foibles. Here too, through subtle references to religious lore, Chaucer transforms mere vulgarity into a truly clever jest and, in the opinion of some critics, a serious commentary on important issues. The particular target of the tale’s satire is a friar who is so blinded by greed, hypocrisy, and anger that he cannot see how others perceive him.
A scientific wonder, a tale of friendship, horror and mystery, a trip to space and lessons from nature – 51 Scintillating Tales is a diverse blend of the real and the imaginary. These stories by young writers are a reflection of a new generation which is ready to take the world by storm.
