Clever Folk

Sleeping beauties? Not Clever Gretchen or Kate Crackernuts or Manka or any of the other young heroines in this wonderful collection of folktales. Active, witty, brave, and resourceful, these girls and young women can fight and hunt, defeat giants, answer riddles and outwit the devil. These stories are usually left out of the popular collections of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when women were supposed to be beautiful, innocent, and passive.

Includes stories to tell and read aloud, stories to act out, and stories that involve the audience.

Using primary German-language sources, Altmann has gleaned a wonderful assortment of authentic tales to enchant and educate audiences of all ages. The stories are organized in four sections: Animal stories, Comic tales, Fairy tales, and Local legends. Background information on the stories, a description of German life during the 19th century, color photographs, a pronunciation guide for German terms, and traditional German recipes are included. All grade levels. Many people are familiar with the German tales of the Brothers Grimm, but usually in the sugar-coated versions of picture books and Hollywood cartoons. In this book you'll discover some other sides to German folklore. Using primary German-language sources, Altmann has gleaned a wonderful assortment of authentic tales to enchant and educate audiences of all ages. This collection includes many favorite German tales, such as Rapunzel, Snow White, Rumpelstilkskin, Hansel and Gretel, and The Bremen Town Musicians; as well as more obscure tales such as The Seven Swabians and The Master Thief. There are tales for all kinds of listeners and readers—more than 80 stories in all, including tales that may shock you or make your hair stand on end, as well as those that will intrigue or amuse. The stories are organized in four sections: Animal stories (Tiergeschichten, largely fables), Comic tales (Schwanke, which range from the silly to the outrageous), Fairy tales (Zaubermarchen, or wonder tales), Local legends (Sagen, which include stories of ghosts and goblins, and religious legends). Background information and tale type information on the stories, a description of German life during the 19th century, color photos, a pronunciation guide for German terms, and traditional German recipes make this a wonderful resource for introducing audiences to German culture and traditions.

Flying Saucers Over the White House is the story of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, a US Air Force officer who researched UFO sightings in the 1950s and made a concentrated effort to convince the United States Air Force that UFOs exist. Ruppelt, who coined the term 'UFO', headed "Project Blue Book," an assignment designed by the United States government to investigate and report on the existence of unidentified flying objects and their link to extraterrestrial beings. Ruppelt dissected the evidence, separating chance sightings of ordinary objects from true UFO sightings. He eventually wrote The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, summarizing his findings. In Flying Saucers Over the White House, Bennett examines the life of this "founding father" of ufology, analyzing the evidence and the U.S. government's reporting of this phenomenon for a new generation of readers. COLIN BENNETT has written several books, including The Entertainment Bomb, *Looking for Orthon*, and Politics of the Imagination, which won the Anomalist Award for Best Biography in 2002. After leaving school to become a professional musician, Bennett returned to college to study English at Balliol College at the University of Oxford. He wrote several plays that were performed in London before reinventing himself as an electronics engineer and founding a consulting agency. Bennett currently resides in London where he continues to write and discover new interests.

This book contains 25 short stories from 5 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. The stories were carefully selected by the critic August Nemo, in a collection that will please the literature lovers.The theme of this edition is: Horror. For more exciting titles, be sure to check out our 7 Best Short Stories and Essential Novelists collections. This book contains: M. R. James: - A School Story - Count Magnus - Lost Hearts - 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad" - The Rose Garden - An Episode of Cathedral History - Mr. Humphreys and his InheritanceRichard Middleton: - The Ghost Ship. - A Drama of Youth. - The New Boy. - On the Brighton Road. - A Tragedy in Little. - Sheperd's Boy. - The Passing of Edward.Robert W. Chambers: - The Messenger - The Repairer of Reputations - The Purple Emperor - Passeur - The Key to Grief - A Matter of Interest - Pompe FunèbreMary Shelley: - The Invisible Girl - The Brother and Sister - The Dream - Transformation - The Mortal Immortal - The Mourner - The Swiss PeasantWashington Irving: - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Rip Van Winkle - The Devil and Tom Walker - Christmas - Guest from Gibbet Island - The Legend of the Engulphed Convent - The Adventure of my Uncle

This book contains 70 short stories from 10 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. The stories were carefully selected by the critic August Nemo, in a collection that will please the literature lovers. For more exciting titles, be sure to check out our 7 Best Short Stories and Essential Novelists collections. This book contains: - Mór Jókai:Thirteen at Table. The Celestial Slingers. The Bad Old Times. The Hostile Skulls. Love And The Little Dog. The Justice Of Soliman – A Turkish Story. The Compulsory Diversion—An Old Baron's Yarn. - Andy Adams:Drifting North. Siegerman's Per Cent. "Bad Medicine". A Winter Round-Up. A College Vagabond. The Double Trail. Rangering. - B. M. Bower:The Lonesome Trail. First Aid To Cupid. When The Cook Fell Ill. The Lamb. The Spirit of the Range. The Reveler. The Unheavenly Twins - Richard Middleton:The Ghost Ship. A Drama of Youth. The New Boy. On the Brighton Road. A Tragedy in Little. Sheperd's Boy. The Passing of Edward. - Pierre Louÿs:Woman and Puppy. The New Pleasure. Byblis. Leda. Immortal Love. The Artist Triumphant. The Hill Of Horsel. - Hugh Walpole:The Whistle. The Silver Mask The Staircase. A carnation for an old man. Tarnhelm Mr. Oddy. Seashore Macabre. - Henry Handel Richardson:The End of a Childhood. The Bathe. Succedaneum. Mary Christina. "And Women Must Weep". Sister Ann. The Coat. - Gertrude Stein:Ada. Miss furr and Miss Skeen. France. Americans. Italians. A Sweet Tail. In the Grass. - E. Phillips Oppenheim:The Noxious Gift. Traske and the Bracelet. The Atruscan Silver mine. The Defeat of Rundermere. The End of John Dykes—Burglar. A Woman Intervenes. The Regeneration of Jacobs. - Arthur Wuiller-Couch:I Saw Three Ships. The Haunted Dragoon. A Blue Pantomime. The Two Householders. The Disenchantment of 'Lizabeth. The Laird's Luck. Captain Dick and Captain Jacka.

Richard Middleton was an English poet and author, who is remembered mostly for his short ghost stories, in particular The Ghost Ship. Middleton suffered from severe depression, known as melancholia at that time. He spent the last nine months of his life in Brussels, where in December 1911 he took his life by poisoning himself with chloroform, which had been prescribed as a remedy for his condition. An encounter by Middleton with the young Raymond Chandler is said to have influenced the latter to postpone his career as writer. Chandler wrote, "Middleton struck me as having far more talent than I was ever likely to possess; and if he couldn't make a go of it, it wasn't very likely that I could." Check out this seven short stories by this author carefully selected by critic August Nemo: - The Ghost Ship. - A Drama of Youth. - The New Boy. - On the Brighton Road. - A Tragedy in Little. - Sheperd's Boy. - The Passing of Edward.

This is Barth's most distinguished masterpiece. This modern classic is a hilarious tribute to all the most insidious human vices, with a hero who is "one of the most diverting . . . to roam the world since Candide." "A feast. Dense, funny, endlessly inventive (and, OK, yes, long-winded) this satire of the eighteenth-century picaresque novel—think Fielding's Tom Jones or Sterne's Tristram Shandy—is also an earnest picture of the pitfalls awaiting innocence as it makes its unsteady way in the world. It's the late seventeenth century and Ebenezer Cooke is a poet, dutiful son and determined virgin who travels from England to Maryland to take possession of his father's tobacco (or "sot weed") plantation. He is also eventually given to believe that he has been commissioned by the third Lord Baltimore to write an epic poem, The Marylandiad. But things are not always what they seem. Actually, things are almost never what they seem. Not since Candide has a steadfast soul witnessed so many strange scenes or faced so many perils. Pirates, Indians, shrewd prostitutes, armed insurrectionists—Cooke endures them all, plus assaults on his virginity from both women and men. Barth's language is impossibly rich, a wickedly funny take on old English rhetoric and American self-appraisals. For good measure he throws in stories within stories, including the funniest retelling of the Pocahontas tale—revealed to us in the 'secret' journals of Capt. John Smith—that anyone has ever dared to tell." —Time