A train seems a very reliable mode to bring out the best in authors and sometimes the worst in their fictional characters. In this volume our narratives are usually set inside the carriage compartment where they are really are up close and personal with each other. All our authors need to do is to light the touchpaper and stand well back.

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are sudden...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?The theme ...

Ed Sabin enjoyed travel and adventure in his youth-probably more than most people-but the flip side was a prolonged adolescence trying to figure out who he was and what he wanted to do with his life. This book is a look back at those years of internal wandering and external exploration, a recollection of a growing up in the 1950s and '60s, and even the 1970s. He has no regrets other than that he hasn't done more, at least up until now, to fix this crazy world.

Embark on an illuminating journey through early Christian history with 'An Omnibus of Christian Heroes in Ancient Rome – 3 Classic Historical Tales.' This anthology weaves together the dramatic and often perilous lives of early followers of Christianity against the diverse backdrop of the Roman Empire. Featuring a range of literary styles from compelling narrative drama to evocative historic fiction, the collection stands as a testament to human resilience and faith. Within these tales, th...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Depuis 2015, les mouvements transfrontaliers de migrants et de réfugiés ont atteint des niveaux sans précédent. La guerre, la persécution, l’extrême pauvreté et la désertification ont forcé des millions de personnes à fuir leur pays d’Asie centrale, du Levant ou de l’Afrique du Nord. Les pays du Nord ont réagi de manières diverses, certains ouvrant leurs frontières à un nombre historique de réfugiés et de demandeurs d’asile, alors que d’autres ont encore resserré leurs politiques frontaliè...