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2016-08-19
We've added 6 new titles in recent days. They range from a very short and quite serious story by Tolstoy through a more light hearted piece by Banjo Paterson to the story of Jack the Ripper, a serial killer from 19th century London.
Have a look and see what you think, they're all free...
By the age of twenty, Phil Spector was one of the most famous and richest musicians in America. He produced records for some of the best pop groups of his time. But Spector’s childhood and his controlling personality made him a very dangerous man. And then he killed a girl…
Merino Sheep - pre-intermediate'Banjo’ Paterson wrote many stories about animals and life in the wild in Australia, but there are not many which are as funny as this one about sheep. Here, he tells us why he hates sheep and he makes us laugh too
Guy de Maupassant is France’s greatest writer of short stories and this is one of his most powerful. It is about an old woman whose son is killed and who promises him that she will get revenge. But how can she? She is old and cannot fight a young murderer. But then she has a terrible and very clever idea
Zero - pre-intermediateIt is hard for us to imagine what life was like before we had the number zero. Numbers were very long and extremely difficult to multiply. Imagine this sum, for example: DCCCLXXVII x MMCCLXIX in Roman numbers. Imagine that you could not use 0 to write 1,000,001. But zero was also thought to be the work of the Devil, because it meant ‘nothing’ and it was impossible to show nothing.
Jack the Ripper killed many sex workers on the streets of nineteenth century London, girls who would not be noticed if they went missing. There were so many of these murder cases that they became the talk of the whole country. The police had no suspects and nobody was ever charged with the crimes. This made some people think that the killer was someone with power and the police were afraid to act.
Three QuestionsIn this very short story, the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, gives his readers a simple truth. The story seems like a children’s tale as it includes a king and a wise old man, but it is suitable for all ages of reader.
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