When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.

Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

There's no place like home for the holidays ... especially for Lesley Carver. Life in the big city just wasn't her jam and now she's back in Hickory Falls, working at the family diner and helping her mom after she took a tumble. Lesley longs to build a life here, working at the cafe, selling her handmade ornaments and ... er, apparently reviving her high school crush on her best friend’s older brother. Only one problem, her mom wants her to leave Hickory Falls far behind.

Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.

First published in 1843, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean and unpleasant man who dislikes people generally and Christmas especially. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and given a glimpse of the many homes and lives which Scrooge has touched in his wretched life to date. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Clark Griswold was onto something...at least with his annual holiday meltdown. And since the last three weeks of my life have been riddled with humbug—another breakup, a broken toe, an office promotion I deserved and didn’t get—I’m not at all in the mood to celebrate nor have the happ, happ, happiest Christmas EVER.

My fiancé brought me tea and scrambled eggs in bed that morning, and we snuggled together, talking about buying our rings, and about our perfect wedding next year. Then we headed into town. He held my hand and gazed at the ring I liked best, a smile spreading slowly over his face. Then a glass of bubbly to celebrate. I felt flushed, excited and ready for the rest of my life with the man I loved. We race to get on the train home. It screams to a halt and I run towards its open doors. Made it. I think he’s right behind me — but when I turn around, he’s gone.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.

The Purloined Letter is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt". These stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story. It first appeared in the literary annual The Gift for 1845 (1844) and soon was reprinted in numerous journals and newspapers.

Embark on a captivating journey into the origins of human skin color with this thought-provoking audiobook. Through in-depth genetic studies and poignant narratives, it challenges conventional notions, revealing the intricate interplay of genetics, environment, and societal influences. From the diverse ethnic groups worldwide to the persecution of Albinos in Sub-Saharan Africa, it offers a compelling exploration of identity and diversity.

The Wife of His Youth is a short story by American author Charles W. Chesnutt, first published in July 1898. It later served as the title story of the collection The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line. That book was first published in 1899, the same year Chesnutt published his short story collection The Conjure Woman. The Wife of His Youth features an upwardly mobile, light-skinned mulatto man who is a respected member of the Blue Veins Society in a Midwestern city.

The Heathen is a short story by the American writer Jack London. It was first published in Everybody's Magazine in August 1910. In the story, two people, from different cultural and racial backgrounds, are the only survivors of a ship that encounters a hurricane in the Pacific, and they remain together. The narrator, a pearl buyer named Charley, is a cabin passenger on a schooner, the Petite Jeanne, sailing from Rangiroa to Tahiti with a Kanaka crew, at the end of the pearling season in the Paumotas. The boat, having eighty-five deck passengers, is overloaded.

A baby hippo learns about diversity when he discovers that animals come in many shapes and sizes.

Братья Гримм, Якоб и Вильгельм — немецкие лингвисты и исследователи немецкой народной традиции. Собирали фольклор и опубликовали несколько сборников под названием «Сказки братьев Гримм», которые стали весьма популярными. Они также считаются отцами-основателями германской филологии и германистики. Влияние сказок братьев Гримм было огромным, с первого же издания их чудесные истории завоевали любовь детской аудитории.

It is a short story that tells about the future of humanity and the end of the world.

Pu Yi, a spoiled but lonely child emperor, learns to ride a bicycle with the help of his tutor, hoping it will impress his aloof father.

H. P. Lovecraft, born August 20, 1890, began composing rudimentary horror tales by the age of 8. He’s best remembered for cooking up his very own genre, Cosmic Horror, featuring monsters so powerful and terrifying that just seeing them will likely drive you insane. Lovecraft in early adulthood was established in a reclusive 'nightbird' lifestyle without occupation or pursuit of romantic adventures. He was 31 at the time of his first publication in a professional magazine. By age 34, he was a regular contributor to newly founded Weird Tales magazine.

Try these experiments to learn how sound waves travel through the air to make your eardrums vibrate!

Two Frenchmen set out to change the world with a revolutionary idea of collecting all the world's knowledge.

In search of food for their families, some men go hunting. When one man catches a strange creature, he ignores his fellow hunters who tell him to release the creature. The young creature's mother, eager to reclaim her baby, floods the land and turns the hunter and his people into black swans.

Chick Bowdrie befriends the son and daughter of a man accused of poisoning a neighbor's horse and acts as the man's defense counsel.

The Goophered Grapevine is the first short story from The Conjure Woman, published in The Atlantic in August 1887, told to the narrator by Julius McAdoo, a former enslaved man who lives on the plantation that the narrator, John, and his wife, Annie, visit one day. Set in Patesville, North Carolina, John and Annie moved there for an improvement in his wife's health and to seek other business opportunities. Knowing that the couple wanted to purchase the property, McAdoo advises them not to do so, informing them that when Dugal McAdoo, the previous master, purchased the property, it was very rich in wine production because of its vineyards.

Memoirs of a Madman or Diary of a Madman is a farcical short story by Nikolai Gogol. Along with The Overcoat and The Nose, Diary of a Madman is considered to be one of Gogol's greatest short stories. The tale centers on the life of a minor civil servant during the repressive era of Nicholas I. Following the format of a diary, the story shows the descent of the protagonist, Poprishchin, into insanity. Diary of a Madman, the only one of Gogol's works written in first person, follows diary-entry format.