The story of a very special and hard-but-not-quite-impossible-to-believe-about valley in the high Tibetan mountains called Shangri-La where wandering explorers and others have found an incredible haven hidden far away from the stress and strife of the outside world and where they grow strangely wise while not really growing much older.
A remarkably well-recounted spiritual adventure story that introduced the concept and the wonderful word Shangri-La into the English language. Thank you, (…)
LATEST ARTICLES
Most recent articles
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"Lost Horizon" by James Hilton (1932) - the novel of Shangri-La
15 April, by James Hilton -
"The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1927)
8 April, by Arthur Conan DoyleThe final collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, and the last published work of the very distinguished doctor, short-story writer, novelist, poet, historian, dramatist and essayist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, introduced by a fascinating farewell overview of his Sherlock Holmes works by the author, including his wistful comment “Had Holmes never existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work.”. An e-book (…)
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"His Last Bow" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1917)
1 April, by Arthur Conan DoyleIntended, as the title indicates, to be the final collection in the series of Sherlock Holmes stories, this quite wonderful book finishes most appropriately by two of the best ones ever: the “The Adventure of the Dying Detective” and “His Last Bow: the War Service of Sherlock Holmes”, the only Sherlock story published during World War I.
Bravo and thank you, Sir Arthur! We have included in an annex a few of the many memorable citations from this Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle (…) -
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"The Valley of Fear" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1915)
25 March, by Arthur Conan DoyleAt the very beginning of this dramatic final Sherlock Holmes novel the renowned detective receives a coded message from a secret contact in the underworld – the underworld of Sherlock’s arch-enemy Professor Moriarty – warning of imminent danger to a prominent citizen, and just when Sherlock had succeeded in decoding the message a Scotland Yard Inspector calls on him to announce that the citizen in question had just been murdered.
That leads Sherlock, Doctor Watson and Inspector MacDonald (…) -
Selected short stories (1914-1920) by Robert Walser
18 March, by Robert WalserA selection of short prose works – veritable prose poems – published in various Swiss and German newspapers during the sombre second decade of the 20th century by the very gifted Swiss poet and writer Robert Walser (1878-1956), author of the memorable story The Promenade, similar in spirit and tone to all of these charming texts.
An e-book, with the original German-language texts in an annex, is available below.
The original German-language texts can also be seen here. (…) -
"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1905)
11 March, by Arthur Conan DoyleA collection of 13 Sherlock stories published by Arthur Conan Doyle between September 1903 and December 1904.
Beginning most effectively at the start of The Adventure of the Empty House with Sherlock’s own account of how he had managed to escape death at the hands of the infamous Professor Moriarty – an event that had provoked enormous disappointment in the reading public and a widespread demand for Sherlock’s return – and concluding with one of his most memorable accounts of all, The (…) -
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1902)
4 March, by Arthur Conan DoyleVery simply: the most famous – and no doubt the greatest – novel in the history of crime fiction, a dramatic murder mystery in the eerie, desolate and dangerous Dartmoor Downs in Devon where Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion and formidable narrator Doctor Watson investigate at great risks to themselves the menace of a mysterious wild beast that threatens to put an end to one of the most ancient dynasties of the region [1].
(59,000 words)
An e-book is available for downloading (…) -
"The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1894)
26 February, by Arthur Conan DoyleThe second collection of Sherlock stories published by Arthur Conan Doyle in book form, including two of the most memorable of them all: The Greek Interpreter, introducing Sherlock’s elder brother Mycroft who has an even greater gift of precise reasoning and deduction than his own, although he’s too phlegmatic to ever go out and do the field investigations necessary to obtain proof for a law court the way Sherlock does, being a member of the extraordinarily antisocial Diogenes club whose (…)
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"The Inconsiderate Waiter" by J. M. Barrie (1893)
19 February, by J. M. BarrieA diner in the restaurant of a gentleman’s club in London is scandalized by the uncommonly inattentive and distracted behavior of his waiter, and although gentlemen mustn’t be seen talking to or in any way taking an interest in members of the lower classes such as waiters, the gentleman in question in the course of reprimanding the waiter does find out rather a lot about his dramatic domestic situation, and even manages willy-nilly to do something about it.
A potent satire of the rigid (…)