First published in 1896, The Burglar’s Christmas is a short story by the great American writer Willa Cather. Set in Chicago on a cold Christmas Eve, the down-and-out Crawford learns the value of forgiveness. 'The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.' — Rebecca West 'Her voice, laconical and richly sensuous, sings out with a note of unequivocal love for the people she is setting down on the page.' — Marina Warner
He drew a long sigh of rich content. The old life, with all its bitterness and useless antagonism and flimsy sophistries, its brief delights that were always tinged with fear and distrust and unfaith, that whole miserable, futile, swindled world of Bohemia seemed immeasurably distant and far away, like a dream that is over and done. First published in 1896, The Burglar’s Christmas is a short story by the great American writer Willa Cather. Set in Chicago on a cold Christmas Eve, the down-and-out Crawford learns the value of forgiveness.
Daisy's getting into more trouble than ever before! When her best friend Gabby turns up at Daisy's house with the most awesome, immense, water-squirting micro-scooter Daisy's ever seen, Daisy knows she's got to have one too! Trouble is, they cost a LOT of money. So Daisy and Gabby hatch a money-making plan...
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS & EDITORS (IRE) BOOK AWARD WINNER • The story of the history-changing break-in at the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, by a group of unlikely activists—quiet, ordinary, hardworking Americans—that made clear the shocking truth that J. Edgar Hoover had created and was operating, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, his own shadow Bureau of Investigation. “Impeccably researched, elegantly presented, engaging.”—David Oshinsky, New York Times Book Review • “Riveting and extremely readable. Relevant to today's debates over national security, privacy, and the leaking of government secrets to journalists.”—The Huffington Post It begins in 1971 in an America being split apart by the Vietnam War . . . A small group of activists set out to use a more active, but nonviolent, method of civil disobedience to provide hard evidence once and for all that the government was operating outside the laws of the land. The would-be burglars—nonpro’s—were ordinary people leading lives of purpose: a professor of religion and former freedom rider; a day-care director; a physicist; a cab driver; an antiwar activist, a lock picker; a graduate student haunted by members of her family lost to the Holocaust and the passivity of German civilians under Nazi rule. Betty Medsger's extraordinary book re-creates in resonant detail how this group scouted out the low-security FBI building in a small town just west of Philadelphia, taking into consideration every possible factor, and how they planned the break-in for the night of the long-anticipated boxing match between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, knowing that all would be fixated on their televisions and radios. Medsger writes that the burglars removed all of the FBI files and released them to various journalists and members of Congress, soon upending the public’s perception of the inviolate head of the Bureau and paving the way for the first overhaul of the FBI since Hoover became its director in 1924. And we see how the release of the FBI files to the press set the stage for the sensational release three months later, by Daniel Ellsberg, of the top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study on U.S. decision-making regarding the Vietnam War, which became known as the Pentagon Papers. The Burglary is an important and gripping book, a portrait of the potential power of nonviolent resistance and the destructive power of excessive government secrecy and spying.
Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam are the world's most useless burglars, and their new master plan for a robbery is going hopelessly wrong! Will their neighbours catch them red-handed? Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam are two hapless robber dogs who can never seem to fill their swag bags. They've tried the bank, the bookshop, the bike shop . . . and even a plot to rob their neighbours is foiled! But when they decide on a career change and open up a café they realize that, although crime doesn't pay, cupcakes certainly do! Join the fun in this hilarious rhyming picture book adventure. Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam is a hugely successful, action-packed series about two baker-dogs who used to be robbers, but now solve mysteries and sniff out crimes! Tracey Corderoy is a multi-award-winning author and has written over 70 books for children including collaborations with Rosalind Beardshaw and Sarah Massini. Steven Lenton has created many books with Tracey Corderoy and also illustrates books by David Baddiel, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Peter Bently. His books have won awards such as the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award and have been selected for the WHSmith Children's Book of the Year and Tom Fletcher Book Club. Every Nosy Crow paperback picture book comes with a free "Stories Aloud" audio recording. Just scan the QR code and listen along! Read all the Shifty and Sam picture book adventures: Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Cat Burglar Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Diamond Chase Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Missing Masterpiece Have you read Shifty and Sam's two-colour early readers? Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Jingle Bells! Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Up, Up and Away! Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Spooky School Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Aliens Are Coming!
“The undisputed king of the comic crime novel.” —Providence Journal Nobody does Florida weirdness quite like Tim Dorsey! Case in point: When Elves Attack, the New York Times bestselling author’s twisted Christmas present to his legion of adoring fans who can’t get enough of thrill-killer and Sunshine State historian Serge A. Storms, the most endearing psychopath since Dexter. Dorsey offers the perfect antidote for all those sappy feel-good holiday stories with this zany blockbuster extravaganza in which his wonderfully deranged serial killer Floridaphile delivers his special brand of Christmas cheer. More outrageous than Santa Claus in a Speedo, When Elves Attack serves up a Yuletide feast of the “pure gonzo humor” the New York Times Book Review enthusiastically attributes to this fearlessly funny writer. Think Bad Santa and National Lampoon’s Family Vacation, blend in Dorsey’s trademark appetite for destruction, and you’ve got hilarious crime fiction black comedy that anyone would be thrilled to discover stuffed in their Christmas stocking.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, Willa Cather is one of the most famous voices of American Literary Regionalism. His favorite scenario is Maine and his characters are the pioneers whose work helped shape the identity of America. The critic August Nemo selected seven short stories from this essential author of American literature: A Burglar's Christmas A Wagner Matinee On the Gull's Road Paul's Case The Enchanted Bluff The Namesake The Garden Lodge
The Burglar's Christmas was originally published near the beginning of Willa Cather's writing career in 1896 under the pseudonym of Elizabeth L. Seymour. The story follows William Crawford on the cold streets of Chicago as he contemplates the multiple failures plaguing his life, including his time at college and careers in journalism, real estate, and performing. Distraught, he tries one more role: thief. Attempting to burgle a residence and caught in the act by the lady of the house, William must come to terms with the choices that led him to that moment. Cather provides a heartwarming short story of redemption and love at Christmas, a timely reminder that kindness is in everyone, just waiting to be uncovered.
"It's the most wonderful time of the year," the old song tells us. But that doesn't mean the people celebrating it are always so nice. Criminals get the Christmas spirit, too! In this collection of hilarious short stories, you'll see what the thieves, killers, psychos and scumbags are up to come the holidays...and it's not caroling door to door. Well, not unless they're casing the neighborhood for a break-in, as a rag-tag gang does in the title story. You'll also meet a mall elf menaced by a very, very bad Santa (in "I Killed Santa Claus"), a London police inspector hunting for the man who murdered Ebenezer Scrooge (in "Humbug"), a trucker out to save his shipment of Cabbage Patch Dolls from bumbling hijackers (in "Special Delivery") and many more characters you'll never forget. Originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, these nine tales from award-winning short story master Steve Hockensmith (Holmes on the Range, Dreadfully Ever After) are sure to have you ho-ho-hoing from the first page to the last.
