Tag: Stories

Free Download Further News of Defeat: Stories By Michael X. Wang
2020 | 192 Pages | ISBN: 1938769643 | EPUB | 1 MB
Steeped in a long history of violence and suffering, Michael X. Wang’s debut collection of short stories interrogates personal and political events set against the backdrop of China that are both real and perceived, imagined and speculative. Wang plunges us into the fictional Chinese village of Xinchun and beyond to explore themes of tradition, family, modernity, and immigration in a country grappling with its modern identity. Violence enters the pastoral when Chinese villagers are flung down a well by Japanese soldiers and forced to abandon their crops and families to work in the coal mines, a tugboat driver dredges up something more than garbage polluting the Suzhou River, and rural and urban landscapes are pitted against each other when young villagers are promised high-paying work in the city but face violent persecution instead. In this world where China has regressed back to its imperial days, we meet an emperor who demands total servitude and swift punishment for attempts at revolution, and we follow a father who immigrates to the United States for a better life and loses everything in a tragic accident-aside from his estranged son-with whom he stubbornly refuses to make amends. Further News of Defeat is rich with characters who have known struggle and defeat and who find themselves locked in pivotal moments of Chinese history-such as World War II and the Tiananmen Square massacre-as they face losses of the highest order and still find cause for revival. Further News of Defeat is the winner of the 2019 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize.

Free Download Further News of Defeat: Stories By Michael X. Wang
2020 | 192 Pages | ISBN: 1938769643 | EPUB | 1 MB
Steeped in a long history of violence and suffering, Michael X. Wang’s debut collection of short stories interrogates personal and political events set against the backdrop of China that are both real and perceived, imagined and speculative. Wang plunges us into the fictional Chinese village of Xinchun and beyond to explore themes of tradition, family, modernity, and immigration in a country grappling with its modern identity. Violence enters the pastoral when Chinese villagers are flung down a well by Japanese soldiers and forced to abandon their crops and families to work in the coal mines, a tugboat driver dredges up something more than garbage polluting the Suzhou River, and rural and urban landscapes are pitted against each other when young villagers are promised high-paying work in the city but face violent persecution instead. In this world where China has regressed back to its imperial days, we meet an emperor who demands total servitude and swift punishment for attempts at revolution, and we follow a father who immigrates to the United States for a better life and loses everything in a tragic accident-aside from his estranged son-with whom he stubbornly refuses to make amends. Further News of Defeat is rich with characters who have known struggle and defeat and who find themselves locked in pivotal moments of Chinese history-such as World War II and the Tiananmen Square massacre-as they face losses of the highest order and still find cause for revival. Further News of Defeat is the winner of the 2019 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize.

Free Download Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front By Joel Salatin
2007 | 352 Pages | ISBN: 0963810952 | EPUB | 1 MB
Drawing upon 40 years’ experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace. Their system favors industrial, global corporate food systems and discourages community-based food commerce, resulting in homogenized selection, mediocre quality, and exposure to non-organic farming practices. Salatin’s expert insight explains why local food is expensive and difficult to find and will illuminate for the reader a deeper understanding of the industrial food complex.

Free Download Maggi Smith-Dalton, "Stories & Shadows from Salem’s Past: Naumkeag Notations"
English | ISBN: 1540224880 | 2010 | 146 pages | EPUB | 2 MB
An influential maritime port during the colonial and federal periods and the long-ago home of noted author Nathaniel Hawthorne, this quaint New England city is widely popular today for its unique contribution to witch history and culture. Salem has many stories-famous architect Samuel McIntire’s reshaping of the city, T.S. Eliot’s deep roots in the community and, of course, seances and mystic healers from the psychic past. In this collection of intriguing tales based on her column, Naumkeag Notations," featured in the Salem Gazette, historian Maggi Smith-Dalton offers a melodic journey through the many cobbled avenues of Salem’s history."

Free Download James H Ellis, "Luminaries of Early West Barnstable: The Stories of a Cape Cod Village"
English | ISBN: 1540222845 | 2014 | 162 pages | EPUB | 3 MB
West Barnstable is unique among historic colonial Cape Cod hamlets. A quartet born in the little village in a fifty-six-year span in the eighteenth century marked this village on the map forever. James Otis Jr., the Patriot," led the intellectual revolution and helped shape American independence. His sister, Mercy Otis Warren, broke free of the defined roles for women of her time to become a significant political activist, dramatist, poet and historian. War hero John "Mad Jack" Percival rose to the highest rank in the U.S. Navy and saved the USS "Constitution "from the scrap heap before sailing it around the world. America’s magistrate Lemuel Shaw influenced the country from his seat as chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Few villages shone so brightly for their size. Join author James H. Ellis as he traces the stories of West Barnstable’s luminaries and their profound village legacy."

Free Download Black Heroes: Inspiring Stories of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph Against Adversity by Ahoy Publications
English | July 25, 2024 | ISBN: N/A | ASIN: B0DB9L4MDK | 151 pages | EPUB | 2.28 Mb
If You Want to Be Inspired by Black Heroes Who Shaped History, Then Keep Reading…

Free Download The Greatest Polar Exploration Stories Ever Told edited by Tom McCarthy
English | March 1, 2023 | ISBN: 1493071009 | True EPUB | 268 pages | 0.5 MB
The newspaper advertisement for volunteers to accompany Ernest Shackleton on his planned traverse of Antarctica in 1914 was frank in its offering.

Free Download Steve Lally, "Irish Gothic Fairy Stories: From the 32 Counties of Ireland"
English | ISBN: 0750986980 | 2019 | 224 pages | EPUB | 13 MB
In Ireland there are four provinces and, within these, are thirty-two counties. Each county and its people are unique, but the one thing they all have in common is their respect and regard for the "The Good Folk," the Fairies of all Ireland. Steve Lally and Paula Flynn have compiled this magnificent collection of fairy tales from each county in Ireland. This book is a contemporary take on some classic stories and will be enjoyed for generations to come.

Free Download In Which Brief Stories Are Told (Made in Michigan Writer Series) By Phillip Sterling
2011 | 144 Pages | ISBN: 0814335071 | EPUB | 1 MB
In Which Brief Stories Are Told presents a collage of moments in the lives of average people―car salesmen and motel maids, mothers and fathers, neighbors and professional colleagues―with small-town northern Michigan as a backdrop. Author Phillip Sterling invites readers to share his characters’ small tragedies and victories in fifteen deceptively simple, intimate stories. While varied in length from short glimpses to longer narratives, each of the stories is defined by a unique perspective, as characters present their version of a story―sometimes other peoples’ stories―clouded by the same emotion, judgment, and passing of time that inhabit all of our memories.The stories in this collection contain laments and mysteries: a car salesman implicates himself in a crime that he is not sure ever took place, a third-shift convenience store clerk accepts her unfortunate disfigurement, dinner parties generate jealousy and resignation among their participants, a sister’s disappearance creates a long-standing familial black hole, a sailboat comes to symbolize the longing of an elderly couple, and a daughter finds answers in her father’s speechlessness. In what is often unspoken or unacknowledged, Sterling’s narrators draw readers into complicity. Readers will identify with these characters, who weigh the what-ifs and could-haves at length, often for longer than it takes to recount the actual events of their stories, revealing the telltale signs of our own heartache, guilt, or feelings of forgiveness in the process.Sterling’s realistic and intriguing stories offer haunting glimpses of characters and situations that are original but familiar. Readers of short fiction and enthusiasts of Michigan stories will enjoy this unique collection.

Free Download Rajni Shankar-Brown PhD, "Driven to Do: Inspiring Stories of Minority Millennials and the Future of America"
English | 2020 | ISBN: 1641375884 | EPUB | pages: 110 | 0.2 mb
Minority millennials are standing up for themselves and creating massive societal change. But, for some unknown reason, their stories are not being told by the media.