The Emperor’s New Clothes

Yesterday one of many emails I received was from Karan Evans (Bibby Distribution). Karan writes:
Perhaps for tomorrow you could mention Hans Christian Andersen who had his first book of Fairy Tales published on 1st December 1835. It is also the day Rosa Parks made her famous stance, by refusing to give up her seat on [...]

Bitesize Read: The Lady with the Dog, final part!

IV
And Anna Sergeyevna began coming to see him in Moscow. Once in two or three months she left S—-, telling her husband that she was going to consult a doctor about an internal complaint — and her husband believed her, and did not believe her. In Moscow she stayed at the Slaviansky Bazaar hotel, and [...]

Bitesize Read: The Lady with the Dog, part #3

Part 3 of 4. Here’s where the story really starts to fly. Is anyone reading? How are you finding it? It’s not too late to catch-up: parts 1 and 2 can be found by clicking on the ‘Bitesize Read’ (*shudder*) tag on the right.
 
III
At home in Moscow everything was in its winter routine; the stoves [...]

Bitesize Read: The Lady with the Dog, part #2

The second part of Chekhov’s great tale. If you missed Part 1, you can find it below.
II
A week had passed since they had made acquaintance. It was a holiday. It was sultry indoors, while in the street the wind whirled the dust round and round, and blew people’s hats off. It was a thirsty day, [...]

Bitesize Read: The Lady with the Dog, part #1

Our next ’Bitesize Read’ – ugh, gonna have to think of a better name! - is one of the best-loved stories of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov. When a weary and cynical married man, Dmitri Gurov, meets an exuberant and young married woman, Anna Sergeyevna, in Yalta, a holiday resort on the north coast of the Black Sea, they little suspect that the encounter will change both of [...]

Bitesize Read

The Tell-Tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe
TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things [...]

Bitesize Read

Something of an experiment, this. The Bitesize Read: a great short story that can be read in a lunchtime, or a couple of lunchtimes, or whenever you have a few minutes, across the week.
Good idea? Bad idea? Do let me know. Either way, this week’s story is a gem. So! pour yourself a mug of [...]