A woman writer goes to Athens in the height of summer to teach a writing course. Though her own circumstances remain indistinct, she becomes the audience to a chain of narratives, as the people she meets tell her one after another the stories of their lives. Beginning with the neighbouring passenger on the flight out and his tales of fast boats and failed marriages, the storytellers talk of their loves and ambitions and pains, their anxieties, their...

With This Ring, set in Regency England, sends a beautiful, headstrong woman on a perilous quest for the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite. To recover her family's meager fortunes, Beatrice Poole must locate the antiquities stolen from her favorite uncle shortly before his highly suspicious death. Since the Forbidden Rings have a legendary history of magic and mystery, the resourceful Beatrice heads for one man who can help her find them: the darkly handsome...

Sarah is a famous British murder mystery author. Tired of London and seeking inspiration for her new novel, she accepts an offer from her publisher to stay at his home in the south of France. Sarah finds that the beautiful country locale and unhurried pace is just the tonic for her - until late one night, when John's sexy and provocative daughter, Julie, unexpectedly arrives. Sarah's English reserve is jarred by Julie's lifestyle. An increasingly...

In this remarkable book, Martha Hailey DuBose has given those multitudes of readers who love the mystery novel an indispensable addition to their libraries. Unlike other works on the subject, Women of Mystery is not merely a directory of the novelists and their publications with a few biographical details. DuBose combines extensive research into the lives of significant women mystery writers from Anna Katherine Green and Mary Roberts Rinehart with...

The Art of Reading is about the wonderful feeling of engaging with a novel or short story on all levels and learning how artful readers think about and approach the works they read. Whether you're someone who loves curling up with a good book, a writer who is looking for insights into how to get inside your readers' minds, or a student who wants to contribute to class discussions, there's something for you to find in this course.24-lecture course...

Suffering from writer's block a man goes for a walk in Liverpool and meets a war buddy working as a busker. They discuss the death of a soldier for which the writer always felt responsible and the buddy's revelation changes the writer's life.

Salim has always known that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors. It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island's white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict -- the longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating...

"This film tells the story of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, English writer, poet, philologist and author of many stories, including most famously The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It describes the importance of the rural English West Midlands, where Tolkien grew up, in shaping his literary imagination and how the ancient northern languages he studied and taught throughout his life influenced his writing. These factors stimulated him to provide a...

A darkly luminous new anthology collecting the most terrifying horror stories by renowned female authors, presenting anew these forgotten classics to the modern reader. Readers are well aware that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein: few know how many other tales of terror she created. In addition to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some surprisingly effective horror stories. The year after Little Women appeared, Louisa May Alcott published...