One Way Ticket
Level 1A train is a closed world. Each carriage is like a small room, with windows and doors, but you can't get out when the train is moving. The world outside is far away, and you can forget your home, your work, your friends. On a train you sit with strangers. You don't know anything about them, but you sit next to them for hours, or perhaps days, in the same small room. You can't get away from them.
As the wheels of the train turn, these stories show us three different people.
A beautiful young wife - going on holiday with her new husband, through the green hills of England.
A carefree young man - travelling across the mountains of Yugoslavia, looking for work.
Mr Harris and the night Train
Mr Harris and the night Train
A sensible middle-aged man - travelling north through the forests and lakes of Finland, hoping for a quiet journey.
Three different journeys, three different people - all locked in the closed world of the train . . . where
anything can happen.
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The gift of the magi
By O. Henry
“How can I buy a special Christmas gift for Jim with $1.87? What I´m going to do?” she thinks.
“How can I buy a special Christmas gift for Jim with $1.87? What I´m going to do?” she thinks.
O. Henry´s short stories are often about the difficult times of the people in America from 1902 to 1910. In a lot of these stories we visit New York. Other stories take us to Texas and Oklahoma, away from the towns.
Money is a big problem for many people in the stories. They work long days, and they live in a cold apartments with only a little food. The people in Texas and Oklahoma have problems with the money, too. But in those stories we see people in the fields and on ranches. In some stories, people have money. They don´t usually have difficult problems, but they have interesting stories.
O. Henry writes about love problems, too. Is an old man going to find in love? Can a young man tell a woman about his love for her? Is a woman gosing to find the right man?
Many people remember O. Henry´s stories beause they think, “How is the story going to finish?” You never know. Then you finish the story and you smile.
O. Henry was William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), a famous short-story writer from the United States. His family lived in North Carolina, and thay have very litlle money. In 1882, William went to Texas and started to write for a newspaper. He had problems with money at work, and the police put him in jail for three years. At that time, he started to write short stories.
In 1902 he moved to New York. There he finished ten books of short stories. One famous book is Cabbage and Kings. There are movies of three of his stories.
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A ghost in love
Level 1
Most people do not believe in ghost, until they see one with their own eyes. In these three plays, Richard, Jenny and Brad all have their lives changed completely by the ghost who appear to them.
Richard Little is surprise and very afraid when he see the ghost of his dead brother-in-law. He knows that he must help the ghost to find peace, although he himself will be in a great danger.
When Jenny Lawson meets the ghost of her dead husband, she understand that he has a special message for her – something that he did not manage to tell her when he was alive.
And finally, in the title play, Brad Davis meets the ghost of the girl he loved and left three hundred years ago. Is he going to stay with her and make her happy, or return to twentieth-century America?
The bridge and other love stories
Love can always find a way, people say. But the road to love is often difficult. People say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, can't find the right words, make mistakes, misunderstand each other…
In the first story Luke and Gemma talk about a plan for love. But who makes the plan? And who is the plan for? What kind of plan? You can make a plan for a holiday or a train journey or a piece of work, but can you really make a plan for love?
In the second story Sam plans a big surprise at the Sunflower Café for his girlfriend Lucy. Sam makes wonderful cakes, and the surprise is a nice idea. But what does Lucy think about it?
In the last story Alma returns to her home town after six years away. It is a sad time for her, because she cannot forget the story of Nina and Dragan. Nina was the Alma's sister, and Nina was in love with a young man called Dragan…
The story The Bridge was inspired by the report of the death of Bosko Brckic and Admira Ismic in Sarajevo in 1993. Some people called the the Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo. But this is not their story. My story The Bridge takes the same idea of young lovers in a city at war, and makes a new story – sadness and death, but of love and hope too.
Sherlock Holmes' Short Stories
Level 2
By Sir Conan Doyle
By Sir Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up his stairs; he watches the door opening — and he knows what question the stranger will ask. In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street — visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.
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Tales of Mystery and imagination
Level 3
By Edagr Allan Poe
By Edagr Allan Poe
"The Black Cat” is one of Edgar Allan Poe´s most famous stories. Why is the man in the story afraid of his own black cat? Why does he kill it? And how does the cat punish him for his evil ways?
In “The Oval Portrait” a man finds a portrait of a beautiful young woman in a lonely house. Who is this woman? Who painted her? And why is the man so frightened of her picture? What terrible secret does it hold?
In ”Berenice”, a madman wants to marry his sick cousin with beautiful teeth. He cannot stop thinking about those theet! What really happens to Berenice in the end?
In “The mask of the Red Death”, Prince Prospero tries to shut his door against the face of Death. How does the “Red Death” get into his large and beautiful house? What will happen to him and all his friends when they meet the stranger with the death mask?
Four horror stories from the strange and terrible mind of Edgar Allan Poe. Four stories that will stop you sleeping at night. Four stories that will you never, never forget...
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The Young King and Other Stories
by Oscar Wilde
The spring came, and there were flowers and little birds all over the country. But in the garden of the selfish giant, it was still winter. The birds did not sing in it because there were no children. The trees forgot to grow flowers. Snow covered the grass, and ice covered the trees with silver.
Strange and wonderful things happen in the seven short stories in this book. The reader is taken into a world of kings and queens, princes and princesses, giants and dwarfs, and talking animals. Exciting and amusing, happy and sad, these are stories for people of all ages.
Wilde loved his children very much, and he enjoyed telling them stories. Many of the stories in this book show what a child’s life is like. Other stories are about adults – or animals. Wilde is very good at showing people’s feelings. The people and animals in these stories are often in danger or in love. They are suffering, or they are wonderfully happy, and the reader understands their feelings. But this is a magical world, and anything can happen.
The spring came, and there were flowers and little birds all over the country. But in the garden of the selfish giant, it was still winter. The birds did not sing in it because there were no children. The trees forgot to grow flowers. Snow covered the grass, and ice covered the trees with silver.
Strange and wonderful things happen in the seven short stories in this book. The reader is taken into a world of kings and queens, princes and princesses, giants and dwarfs, and talking animals. Exciting and amusing, happy and sad, these are stories for people of all ages.
Wilde loved his children very much, and he enjoyed telling them stories. Many of the stories in this book show what a child’s life is like. Other stories are about adults – or animals. Wilde is very good at showing people’s feelings. The people and animals in these stories are often in danger or in love. They are suffering, or they are wonderfully happy, and the reader understands their feelings. But this is a magical world, and anything can happen.