Showing results for "Birthdays" in Literature & Fiction

"A Birthday": Christina Rossetti's joyful celebration that her one true love has arrived, read by Jenny Agutter.

In A Birthday by Katherine Mansfield we have the theme of responsibility, selfishness, gender roles, appearance, suffering and paralysis. Taken from her In a German Pension collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises that Mansfield may be exploring the theme of responsibility. Andreas if anything thinks only of himself. True he goes to fetch Doctor Erb but apart from this Andreas takes no responsibility for the condition that Anna may be in.

It’s Shanaya’s birthday, and there has been a gala party in the office - good food, some drinks and a whole lot of fun. Slightly tipsy and looking forward to a nice evening with her friends, she finds a surprise gift on her desk. It’s beautiful and quite mysterious. No names, no wishes...just a small, seductive note with a couple of unusually sensuous gifts. Who could it be from? A secret admirer who promises a great time, or a prank by her colleagues? She is soon to find out the delicious truth behind The Surprise Birthday Gift.

From the author of the award-winning Kindle single, Cornbread, comes a story about Cumberland Bixby, a minor league baseball player turned B-list actor who wakes up on his 34th birthday to find he's been dead for nearly nine hours. Seeking answers, Cumberland crisscrosses Manhattan on foot, his last glimpses of the city disappearing behind him. Happy Birthday, Cumberland Bixby is a story about life and death in the era of self-promotion, and what it means to be truly seen.

As the world is shaken by a virus, Shobhaa De – a writer who understands the human heart and how it beats – felt the need to document not just what she is going through personally but what the entire world is experiencing. And out of this need emerged many unique narratives ... Lockdown...

The Birthday Boys tells the story of Scott's doomed expedition through the voices of five men on the voyage. As Scott, Petty Officer Taff Evans, ship's doctor Edward Wilson, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Captain Lawrence Oates step forward for their place in the narrative, the reader is gripped by the characters themselves alongside the vividly evoked period.

New York in the 1990s - impoverished writer Jonathan Dainty takes his wife, Maddie, out to the beach for her birthday. Hours later he finds himself at the local police precinct trying to explain how on earth he let his wife get into a stranger's car and allowed it to drive her away. More than 20 years later, Maddie is presumed dead and Jonathan has channelled his grief into a best-selling series of crime novels. As far as he can, he is living the perfect life. Then one day he catches a glimpse of his dead wife, moving through a throng of people.

Valerie Wyatt is the queen of gracious living and the arbiter of taste with a successful TV show. Since her long-ago divorce, she’s worked hard to reach the pinnacle of her profession and to create a camera-ready life in her Fifth Avenue penthouse. So why is she so depressed? All the hours with her personal trainer, the careful work of New York’s best hairdressers, cosmetic surgeons, and her own God-given bone structure and great looks can’t fudge the truth or her lies about it: Valerie is turning sixty.

Dear Carys, Zoe and Andrea. Come and join me for my 40th birthday adventure weekend, full of mysteries and surprises the like of which you can't imagine. When Joanne's friends reluctantly accept an invitation to her birthday party, it quickly becomes clear that there is more to this weekend than they are expecting. One of them is hiding a secret. And Joanne is planning to reveal it.... A weekend away in a cottage in the woods sounds like fun - until no one can hear your cries for help.

In a feat of virtuoso storytelling, Anne Rice unleashes Akasha, the queen of the damned, who has risen from a six-thousand-year sleep to let loose the powers of the night. Akasha has a marvelously devious plan to “save” mankind and destroy the vampire Lestat—in this extraordinarily sensual...

BIRTHDAY SUIT is a scintillating dramedy that asks: what happens when you stop hiding? Amanda Nightengale (52) is the powerful CEO of Birthday Suit, a successful lingerie and swimwear company valued at over $200 million. She's elegant, strategic, and intimidating—the kind of woman who commands every room she enters. But Amanda has a secret she's spent twenty-three years and millions of dollars burying: Her Birthday Suit Made her famous. Lingerie built an empire!

Ursula K. Le Guin has enthralled fans with her imagination, clarity, and moral vision. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and five Hugo and five Nebula Awards, this renowned writer has created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.

'A wonderful storyteller' Ciara Geraghty 'Meaney is utterly credible, utterly authentic, utterly irresistible' Irish Independent 'Roisin Meaney is a skilful storyteller' Sheila O'Flanagan The new novel from No.1 bestselling author Roisin Meaney. Another summer is in full swing on the island of...

In the thrilling, suspenseful new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz, all of Ellie de Florent-Stinson’s secrets come to light in one eventful evening full of twists, turns, and surprises. Before she became a glamorous fashion designer, Ellie de...

Eight years ago, Elliott Nash’s daughter was murdered. Since then, everything the brilliant former criminal psychologist had is a memory - his child, his career, his wife, and his home. Now he lives on the streets around Washington, DC, with only a bottomless well of guilt and nightmares to make him feel alive. Until Amy Scowcroft solicits his help.

It’s Poppy Kinsey’s birthday. She should be blowing out candles and opening presents, but hers falls on the type of heart-wrenching, agonising anniversary she would far rather forget. The worst day of them all. The day her mother died. But this year is special because the person she misses most in the world has left her a set of letters, one for each of her next 10 birthdays. As Poppy opens them year by year, she discovers that no matter how tough life gets, her mum will always be by her side, guiding her along the way.

Valerie Wyatt is the high priestess of elegance: She has built an empire on how to entertain, how to decorate, how to live beautifully, and is at the top of her game with licensing arrangements for fine fabrics, furniture, wallpaper; six books; and a highly rated TV show. Valerie's daughter, April, is a classically trained chef and the workaholic proprietor of a comfortable, popular downtown New York restaurant. They couldn't be happier in their chosen fields—or more different in their attitudes.

Isabelle's not in the market for a relationship-not even close. But she can't stop thinking about her one-night stand with a stranger on his birthday.

There's nothing fabulous about 50 for LA film critic Jeremy Lerner, who loses his marriage, his job, and the use of his right arm just days after the birthday party he begged his now ex-wife not to throw him. But fate is a sly devil. Jeremy's string of calamities leads to a game-changing emotional and creative rebirth after he meets the intoxicating Annabelle, a beguiling widow who comes to his rescue - and Jeremy to hers. If only their baggage didn't match quite so well.

Lily and Ian's families come to Frederickport to celebrate Connor's first birthday. Bringing the in-laws together is not always easy, especially when uninvited guests from the spirit realm show up....