Showing results by narrator "Carl Mason" in All Categories

The scent of lilac wafted across the garden. Melissa raised her head and watched as the zephyr lifted the skirts of the columbines and ruffled the blowsy peonies. The murmur of the bees did its best to lull her back into lethargy, but it was time to rouse herself: she had been lying in the sun too long.

Selena lived on the other side of town, several miles away from Karl's house. Karl had not seen her for some days, and, however many times he rang, she was not answering her phone.

There are times in life when something affects you deeply and alters the way you look at the world.

I first came across the boy in the supermarket; he was eating an apple from the pile. I said 'You are supposed to pay for that,' and then realised what a killjoy that made me.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. THE UNEXPECTED: It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected. The tendency of the individual life is to be static rather than dynamic, and this tendency is made into a propulsion by civilization, where the obvious only is seen, and the unexpected rarely happens.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. THE SUN-DOG TRAIL: Sitka Charley smoked his pipe and gazed thoughtfully at the Police Gazette illustration on the wall. For half an hour he had been steadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had been slyly watching him.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. THE STORY OF KEESH: Keesh lived long ago on the rim of the polar sea, was head man of his village through many and prosperous years, and died full of honors with his name on the lips of men. So long ago did he live that only the old men remember his name, his name and the tale, which they got from the old men before them, and which the old men to come will tell to their children and their children's children down to the end of time.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. THE WHITE MAN'S WAY: "To cook by your fire and to sleep under your roof for the night," I had announced on entering old Ebbits's cabin; and he had looked at me blear-eyed and vacuous, while Zilla had favored me with a sour face and a contemptuous grunt.

Stevenson's famous exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil, has become synonymous with the idea of a split personality. More than a moral tale, this dark psychological fantasy is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution, criminality, and secret lives. Also in this volume are "The Body Snatcher," which charts the murky underside of Victorian medical practice, and "Olalla," a tale of vampirism and "The Beast Within" which features a beautiful woman at its center.

Marianne had no choice but to take the position of night porter at the St. Denis Hotel; it was either that or have her job-seeker's allowance cut because she had already turned down too many other offers of work.

Henry was back in his childhood bedroom for the first time in ten years and it was as though he had never been away.

They limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. NEGORE, THE COWARD: He had followed the trail of his fleeing people for eleven days, and his pursuit had been in itself a flight; for behind him he knew full well were the dreaded Russians, toiling through the swampy lowlands and over the steep divides, bent on no less than the extermination of all his people.

The message is hand written on a scrap of paper stuffed in an envelope. It reads: 'Are you blind to the truth?' I study the shaky capitals, attempting to winkle out some clue about the sender, then I stow it in the filing drawer with the others. The messages are delivered when I'm out. They lie on the doormat waiting for me in their cheap manila envelopes, the flap tucked in rather than stuck down.

Luke found it difficult to sleep during the late summer nights. Half the city seemed to be awake and partying outside until the early hours of the morning. Tonight he was resentful that he was both kept awake and not partying him-self, although it was a fact that he could have gone out on the town if he had wanted to.

I'm not unique; there are hundreds like me, and others who lost limbs or were killed outright. No matter how alert you were, it could happen at any time. Suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices were almost as common as the flies that continually plagued us.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. BROWN WOLF: She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questing glance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees.

Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. A DAY'S LODGING: It was the gosh-dangdest stampede I ever seen. A thousand dog-teams hittin' the ice. You couldn't see 'm fer smoke. Two white men an' a Swede froze to death that night, an' there was a dozen busted their lungs. But didn't I see with my own eyes the bottom of the water-hole? It was yellow with gold like a mustard-plaster. That's why I staked the Yukon for a minin' claim. That's what made the stampede. An' then there was nothin' to it.

In the Fourth Year is a collection H. G. Wells assembled in the spring of 1918 from essays he had recently published discussing the problem of establishing lasting peace when World War I ended. It is mostly devoted to plans for the League of Nations and the discussion of post-war politics.

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life, but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.