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Surely one of the bloodiest crimes I know of is that of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter. The circumstances in which they were killed and how they were killed indicate a brutality that goes beyond any human instinct. Also the crime itself is a mystery because both women lived in the fourth floor of a building in the Rue Morgue, and we know that the murderer entered through the window but that is almost impossible. The outside characteristics of the building make accessing the apartment from that point only possible if you could fly perhaps. From outside the apartment is virtually inaccessible. The neighbors' testimonies are not of great help due to the contradictory, and quite often, confusing information they provide. The Police are working to find clues that solve such bizarre crime but they are making little or no progress at all. The murderer is himself the greatest mystery. Why did he want to kill these two women who meant harm to no one? Why did he kill them they wa...

If only for the over this book should be called In Cold Eyes In Cold Blood is one of those novels that stand out among the plethora of other written productions resisting more than anything the always merciless test of time. Written by the American writer (also journalist), Truman Capote (1924 - 1984), this work tells the story of the tragedy that befell the Clutters, a family of rich farmers from Kansas who in 1959 were attacked and killed during their sleep by a couple of burglars who were later on identified, and arrested. The novel tells all these events and what happened during and after the trial that ended up when both criminals were sentenced to death penalty. They were both executed by hanging in 1965. Besides the good writing, this book is a landmark: it is one of the first samples of the telling of a true crime told in the form of a novel. A best-seller in that time and still a book with creates a lot of mixed emotions in the spirits of those who read the story. Ca...

Animal Farm written by George Orwell (1903-1950) is one of those essential readings that one cannot simply put down. It is an allegory that aims to reflect one of the most relevant events of the history of the XX century: the Russian revolution. At the beginning of the early century, Russia was the largest monarchy in the world. The Czars were all powerful but did not perform so well as governors and the situation was unbearable leading to a revolution that ousted the czars once and for all replacing them with governors that were more attuned with the ideals of a more perfect and fair society, or at least that was the idea.  Soon those who were the ones that had led the revolution died or were ostracized to be replaced now by opportunists who were just a different form of tyranny. Animal Farm  depicts those events disguised in the story of a simple farm where animals are constantly mistreated by their human masters. The animals organized and revolted to expel humans and t...

Stephen King is famous as being a "master of horror" and he deserves the title. His contributions to the genre  include novels such as It, Carrie and Misery . His narrative style is nothing out of this world though, and he himself has recognized that more than once and even advises to write just keeping it simple. I would say that his main quality is his creative capacity and his vivid imagination. In special I like The Dead Zone as he presents an intricate plot which sees an ending where everything fits in the right place.  It is about a young man named Johnny Smith who after suffering an accident falls into a profound coma from which he awakes after several years. When he does, everything in his life has moved on such as his girlfriend who is now married to another man and has a child. Inadvertently he has also changed for he has the power of precognition: touching a person is enough for him to see the future of a person. The novel progresses showing us how this man ...

Once I had my high school students read The Most Dangerous Game, a short story by Richard Connell. Rainsford, the main character, is a professional hunter traveling by ship to his next hunting area, accidentally ends up in an island called Ship- Trap island. When he goes into the island he finds there are two men living in a palace in the island. One of them is a Cossack general and the other, his brutish servant.  The Cossack is called general Zaroff who is also  a game hunter but has become bored of hunting regular game and now uses the island's unique position to capture sailors from shipwrecks. He lets them go first and next after some time he hunts them down. Rainford's arrival who is worldwide famous presents Zaroff with a rare opportunity to find excitement in hunting again by hunting another hunter. Little does Zaroff know that Rainsford is The Most Dangerous Game in the World and hunting him will not be easy at all. My students enjoyed themselves at reading...

There is no way to deny it: Cinderella is the most popiular story ever written. It tells you to what happens to a young girl after her mother dies and her father marries again this time to a woman that is the closest to a witch without powerswho in turn has two horrible daughters that are not better at being stepsisters. When her father dies the young girl is left at the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters who dilligently reduce the girl to a simple servant to whom they call Cinderella. One day, the king of that nation decides to find a suitable bride for his son and organizes a great ball to which all girls in marrying age are invited. And the stepsisters go but not Cinderella. It happens though that the girl has an ally, her fairy godmother, who grants her wish to attend the ball and for that she gives the girl a carriage, a beautiful dress and a pair of glass slippers. All these gifts would magically disappear as the clock strikes twelve. At the ball the prince and Cindere...

The Interlopers by Saki (1870-1916) is one of those short stories that stand out because of their simplicity and elegance in leading the reader to the belief that the story is going on one direction when actually is following another, The most amazing thing is that the writer is completely honest and puts all the clues there as the story progresses so if you pay attention you can actually tell what the writer´s real intentions are but the reader fails to see them and is then pleasantly surprised by the ending which is lcompletely unexpected. Two men Ulrich and Georg are by right the heads of their respective families that for years have quarrelled over s forest that lies in the middle of their respective properties. One night they run into each other in that forrest, both alone, when suddenly they are accidentally trapped under an enormus tree branch. no one comes ot rescue them but they patiently wait and in the meantime they decide to talk. As their conversation continues they ...

The End of Eternity is a Science Fiction classic that focuses in Time Travel and tries to answer the question of "What would happen if we could go back in time and prevent all wars?" Andrew Harlan is an agent of Eternity an organization that exists outside time and that operates to prevent mankind from suffering. Eternity and its members, the Eternals, are all powerful since they can enter the timestream st any point, though they have two limitations: there is a section of the future which they cannot access and they cannot travel to a time before the existence of Eternity.  This point is extremely important for the Eternals since they have discovered that their existence is actually the result of a paradox: they must send someone into the past, some guy called Cooper before Eternity to begin the experiments that eventually will lead into the creation of Eternity.  There is an unexpected element, a woman, who Harlan is in love with. This woman, Noys Lambent, is not from...

Smee is not only the name of the funny guy who is also pirate Hook´s trusted lieutenant. This word is also the name of a game described in a story by the British writer, A.M. Burrage (1889-1956), a game that is heavily based on "Hide and Seek" which we know can be fun but not all the time. The story goes like this: a group of youngsters gather together at night at an abandoned house to plas Smee which is actually another way to write the expression "It's me" (Soy yo). The participants in this game begin playing in one of the rooms. Silently they all receive a piece of paper and only one of those pieces has the word SMEE written on it. At that moment the person who receives that paper becomes Smee but must not reveal his/her identity to the other players. After the papers are given, all of them, without any candle or lamp, have to leave the room and go sseparate ways beacuse first they have to hide from one another. After a while those who are not Smee start...

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936) was a Spanish novelist, poet and essayist. He lived during a difficult time time for both Spain and Europe in general fact that was reflected in some of his works. His production was extensive and quite interesting. Some of the works that stand out from the rest are Vid a de Don Quixote and Sancho, Abel Sánchez and  Cómo se Hace una Novela.  There is also Niebla which Unamuno insisted in calling a nivola t o differentiate it from the standard concept of what a novel is. Really when I read it at first I could not see the difference between one and the other though I must say Niebla is a stroke of genius. This work revolves around the life of a young and healthy man called Augusto who falls in love with a girl called Eugenia but is not really corresponded because she is in love with another man. Augusto tries to court Eugenia sometimes opening his heart to her and sometimes helping her with money. In despair Augusto proposes to Eu...

This is a novel written by the great John Steinbeck (1902-1968). It tells the story of Kino, a pearl diver, who finds an enormous pearl. Since his little son was sick and he has no money to pay for the doctor he decides to use the money he obtains for selling the pearl. The problem is that the people around him, their own neighbors in the small village where he lives, become exceedingly greedy. One first obstacle they put is to agree in not paying a decent price for the valuable pearl, so Kino and his wife want to go to the capital to get the price they want. Still they find it nearly impossible because they are being chased by those who want to take the pearl from them. In despair, Kino defends himself and his family and after one attack his little son gets killed. Tired of all the bad luck the pearl had brought upon him, Kino, along his wife, go to the point in the sea where Kino found the pearl and returns it to the sea.  It is obviously a story that explores the themes of...

A Tall Tale is a story full of exaggerations that is humorous in essence. It usually tells the story of some character able to perform deeds no other human being can. Mostly there are American Tall Tales but Canada and Australia have also tall tales to offer. There are not examples of tall tales in  other English speaking countries and the reason is that tall tale characters are usually rural people who have to deal with the problems that Nature poses. As a consequence these characters show their superhuman skills by  changing the course of mighty rivers, eating awful quantities of food or building railroad lines faster than anyone else. All of them, the U.S., Canada and Australia are countries with extensive territory that have not been urbanized yet. Some of those Tall Tale characters are Pecos Bill, a cowboy who was able to lasso tornadoes and used snakes instead of lassos. Pecos is said to have created the Río Grande when he was lost in the desert and felt thirsty ...

The Iliad is an epic poem by which all the other epic poems are defined. It tells the story of the War of Troy that was fought by men and gods alike. Curiously it only covers part of the last year of the siege that the Greeks had imposed. That year was the last of ten long years,but the poem does not finish with the fall of Troy: it ends with the telling of the funerals celebrated for two great warriors, one on the Greek side and the other on the Trojan side.  It is a curious thing that Homer, the author of The Iliad, decided not to cover any of the events of the previous years or how the war ended (which we know thanks to other sources but still only partially). Homer seemed to be content with telling what happened when the greatest Greek warrior, Achilles, is infuriated because of an offense made by the Greek leader called Agamemnon. Secretly Patroklos (Achilles's best friend) takes Achilles's armor and fights along the Greeks until he encounters Hector, the greatest Tr...

Yesterday it was Bram  Stoker's birth anniversary. You may not recognize his face and perhaps his name doesn't ring a bell to you either but actually we owe him a lot. If you like the protagonists of the Twilight saga (all of them vampires) and the story itself, then you have a lot to thank this Irish novelist born on a November 8 in 1847. Though there had been other stiories with characters that were dead and did not remain in their coffins at night, it was Stoker who created a work that garnered attention and recognition so as to remain in the minds of the readers and eventually long enough to become a classic.  Dracula the aristocrat, the man who is a monster, the one who can talk to you one minute and attack you the next. What is so appealing in him that so many other characters have tried to imitate him? Perhaps it is this inconfessable desire to play with fire that we all have or maybe it is true there is a dark side in all of us and that darkness calls us in i...

Halloween time.  Is there a best time to talk about the writer that made perhaps the most to give the literature of horror some of its greatest pieces ever? And that for sure is Edgar Allan Poe, the Bostonian born on January 19, 1809. He did not write Frankestein or  Dracula and still that was not necessary to make him the indisputable recipient of the "Master of Horror" title. The author of short stories such as MS. Found in a Bottle, The Black Cat, The Facts in The Case of Mister Valdemar, The Fall of The House of Usher, The Premature Burial, The Masque of the Red Death ventured   also into poetry with The Raven and  Annabel Lee. He is considered the creator of detective stories with The Murders in the Rue Morgue and  The Purloined Letter and even Science Fiction The Unparalleled Adventures of Some Hans Pfall.  His only novel is one of sea adventures, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which describes one of the most disturbing pas...

Bram Stoker, an English author of the XIX century, wrote several books but it was Dracula  the work that made him immortal so to speak. The vampire that defines all the others though fascinating  as a concept is as a character a flat one: his main purpose is to secure a good and constant source of blood. Perhaps I am mistaken and this character's personality has more sides that he appears to be. The problem perhaps is that in order to explain Dracula what other writers have done is to offer new versions of his affairs writing other books but rarely have I seen a detailed analysis of what the original story had to offer, As a proof here is a comment on what happened to Jonathan Harker who was visiting count Dracula in his castle to make some business (Dracula wanted to  buy a house in London) when he discovered there were other secret dwellers in the dark castle.  One night Jonathan is alone and decides to explore the castle and runs into a room where there are...

One of those fairy tales that we know and don't know for real is The Little Mermaid. The reason for this claim is the fact that most of us know of this story thanks to Walt Disney who made a movie using one of the classic stories by Hans Chistian Andersen, a Danish writer who created The Little Mermaid in 1837. And the story he wrote was quite different from the Walt Disney version. To start with the Little Mermaid does save the Prince from certain death and falls in  love with him in the process, but that is not the only reason she wants to become human: she also wants to have a human soul and for that she needs somebody to love. looking for a being powerful enough to give her what she wanted and she did. That being is the synister Sea Witch.   The following day, the mermaid wakes up having two beautiful legs, able to breathe air but unable to speak or sing for that is the price the Witch took as her payment. The first one to find her is the Prince who is ama...

In book 11 of the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus (Ulysses) makes a different kind of journey in order to find the only person who can help him find his way back to the island of Ithaca, his home. It happened that person, the prophet Teiresias, was dead so he had to go to the land of Lord Hades, king of the Underworld where the Dead dwelled according to the Old Greeks. According to this story, dying was not the only way to descend to the Land of the Dead. some Greek heroes descended  while they were very much alive.  The Greek underworld could apparently be accessed in different points. Orpheus for instance just descended to it by only walking and so did Herakles. In this case, Odysseus sails there following the witch Circe's indications, to the very edge of the river Ocean. Once he gets there Odysseus makes a sacrifice killing a lamb and offering the blood to the dead, a rite which the Greek called Nekyia. One by one people who had met Odysseus approached him attracted by th...

One of those seminal stories that somehow touch us through the ages with us being unaware of that is "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".   This short tale was written by none other than Edgar Allan Poe in 1841 and it is considered the first detective story though Poe never used the term. Apparently he just wanted to tell a good story, of course a story as he envisioned stories. One of its essential characteristics is that Poe tells the story as if he were one of the characters, in this case the main character's personal friend.  The story is set in France and describes the investigation of the murders of two women, an old lady and her daughter who had been horribly murdered. The Police of France is in the case but they are unable to solve the crime. They are not even able to find out why the women were murdered the way they did, so they decide to ask the intervention of C. Auguste Dupin, a brilliant man who serves as a detective in cases too complicate for the Police...

There are poems and poems. Most talk about love, some address other human feelings, some even tell us stories of heroic deeds, or holy events or just the simple life. Some are long and drag on forever and some barely have an extension of three lines; but for me, there is no poem like “The Road not Taken” by Robert Frost. It is not the most beautiful poem I have ever read though it is one of the most transcendental. It is not about love or hate. It is a mirror image that shows us accurately who we are and what we are by adopting the figure of a traveler who has already spent most of his life by the time he talks to us and tells us about that moment when he made a decision and took one of two roads in front of him. He went through the one that was not what most people took. And that was it, that decision literally defined his life from then on. Does he have any regrets? None apparently, but then again…what if he had taken the other one? Remember the title:  The Road not Taken. ...