Download or read book The Queen of Spades and other Stories written by Alexander Pushkin and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There was a card party at the rooms of Narumoff, a lieutenant in the Horse Guards. A long winter night had passed unnoticed, and it was five o'clock in the morning when supper was served. The winners sat down to table with an excellent appetite; the losers let their plates remain empty before them. Little by little, however, with the assistance of the champagne, the conversation became animated, and was shared by all. "How did you get on this evening, Surin?" said the host to one of his friends. "Oh, I lost, as usual. I really have no luck. I play mirandole. You know that I keep cool. Nothing moves me; I never change my play, and yet I always lose." "Do you mean to say that all the evening you did not once back the red? Your firmness of character surprises me." "What do you think of Hermann?" said one of the party, pointing to a young Engineer officer. "That fellow never made a bet or touched a card in his life, and yet he watches us playing until five in the morning." "It interests me," said Hermann; "but I am not disposed to risk the necessary in view of the superfluous." "Hermann is a German, and economical; that is the whole of the secret," cried Tomski. "But what is really astonishing is the Countess Anna Fedotovna!" "How so?" asked several voices. "Have you not remarked," said Tomski, "that she never plays?" "Yes," said Narumoff, "a woman of eighty, who never touches a card; that is indeed something extraordinary!" "You do not know why?" "No; is there a reason for it?" "Just listen. My grandmother, you know, some sixty years ago, went to Paris, and became the rage there. People ran after her in the streets, and called her the 'Muscovite Venus.' Richelieu made love to her, and my grandmother makes out that, by her rigorous demeanour, she almost drove him to suicide. In those days women used to play at faro. One evening at the court she lost, on parole,to the Duke of Orleans, a very considerable sum. When she got home, my grandmother removed her beauty spots, took off her hoops, and in this tragic costume went to my grandfather, told him of her misfortune, and asked him for the money she had to pay. My grandfather, now no more, was, so to say, his wife's steward. He feared her like fire; but the sum she named made him leap into the air. He flew into a rage, made a brief calculation, and proved to my grandmother that in six months she had got through half a million rubles. He told her plainly that he had no villages to sell in Paris, his domains being situated in the neighbourhood of Moscow and of Saratoff; and finally refused point blank. You may imagine the fury of my grandmother. She boxed his ears, and passed the night in another room.

Download or read book The Queen of Spades 2 written by Savannah Skye and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Livia has finally uncovered Anthony's secret, but when his past rears its ugly head, she knows the only way for him to truly heal is by ripping this old wound open. So far, they've defied the odds and survived...but can their love do the same?Racy supernatural mystery series, jam-packed with romance and suspense featuring an alpha hero and the woman who loves him. For readers of vampire romance, urban fantasy, and dark paranormal romance!

Download or read book The Queen of Spades and Selected Works written by Alexander Pushkin and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Queen of Spades" is one of the most famous tales in Russian literature, and inspired the eponymous opera by Tchaikovsky; in "The Stationmaster", from The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, Pushkin reworks the parable of the Prodigal Son; "Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters" is one of Pushkin’s bawdier early poems; and the narrative poem "The Bronze Horseman", inspired by a St Petersburg statue of Peter the Great, is one of Pushkin’s best-known and most influential works. The volume also includes a selection of Pushkin’s best lyric poetry. Contents: • Short Stories: The Queen of Spades; The Stationmaster • Drama: Extracts from Boris Godunov and Mozart and Salieri • The Bronze Horseman (narrative poem), Tsar Nikita and His Forty Daughters (folk poem) and 14 lyric poems • Novel in Verse: Extract from Yevgeny Onegin (novel in verse)

Download or read book The Queen of Spades written by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades written by Oakley Hall and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Morton Street Slasher has been leaving the corpses of his victims around San Francisco's Union Square. On the women's naked bodies are spade playing cards. The city's infamous newspaperman, Ambrose Bierce, blames the rash of murders on his old enemy, the Southern Pacific Railroad. A naive reporter at Bierce's Hornet pursues the case, uncovering conspiracy at every turn. In a fast-paced novel that is a combination of murder mystery, historical fiction, and quirky biography, Oakley Hall draws the reader into 1880s San Francisco and the changing world that was California in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Local and state politics, the exploitation of the Chinese, the power of the mining and railroad barons, and San Francisco's colorful history provide a backdrop for this irresistible thriller. The novel's chapters are introduced by appropriate excerpts from Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary and narrated by the young reporter Tom Redmond. Redmond is interested in the murders because of his attraction to a woman threatened by the Slasher, and Bierce encourages him because of his personal vendetta against the Big Four of the Railroad. Bierce's misogyny is an influence as well, which Hall uses to advantage in portraying the enigmatic journalist. Hall knows his territory and his characters well. The sights and smells of late-nineteenth-century California are cleverly evoked, and the story's key players are refreshingly authentic. Bierce brandishes his famed cynicism with all the aplomb of the sharp-eyed, sharp-witted newspaperman he was. Cameo appearances by such California worthies as Ina Coolbrith and Joaquin Miller add to the novel's historical richness. Intelligent, gripping, and often quite funny, Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades will satisfy any reader who craves adventure, mystery, romance, and fine writing.

Download or read book Pushkin and the Queen of Spades written by Alice Randall and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2004 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Windsor Armstrong is a polished, Harvard-educated African American professor of Russian literature. Her son, Pushkin X, is an exceedingly famous pro football player, an achievement that impresses his mother not at all. Even more distressing, however, her beloved son has just become engaged to a gorgeous white Russian emigre who also happens to be a lap dancer." "For Windsor this predicament is no laughing matter. Determined to get to the bottom of it, she embarks on a journey into her own rich past to her Motown childhood, where the Temptations danced across the stage and love came disguised as a sharply dressed gangster; to Harvard, where she endured the humiliation of being an unwed black teen mother; to St. Petersburg, where the verses of the brilliant Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, great-grandson of an African slave, moved through her head as she made love to her own white Russian. The urge to protect her son has been Windsor's only goal, but as she draws ever closer to the secret that has cast a shadow over her life, the identity of her son's father, she discovers that the half-lies she has fed her boy don't add up to the beauty of the truth."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Ace of Spades written by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and published by Feiwel & Friends. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gossip Girl meets Get Out in Ace of Spades, a YA contemporary thriller by debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé about two students, Devon & Chiamaka, and their struggles against an anonymous bully. All you need to know is . . . I’m here to divide and conquer. Like all great tyrants do. —Aces When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school’s senior class prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts each of them in the running for valedictorian, too. Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins using anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures. As Aces shows no sign of stopping, what seemed like a sick prank quickly turns into a dangerous game, with all the cards stacked against them. Can Devon and Chiamaka stop Aces before things become incredibly deadly? With heart-pounding suspense and relevant social commentary comes a high-octane thriller from debut author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé.

Download or read book Queen of Spades written by Michael Shou-Yung Shum and published by Forest Avenue Press. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queen of Spades revamps the classic Pushkin fable of the same name, transplanted to a mysterious Seattle-area casino populated by a pit boss with six months to live, a dealer obsessing over the mysterious methods of an elderly customer known as the Countess, and a recovering gambler who finds herself trapped in a cultish twelve-step program. With a breathtaking climax that rivals the best Hong Kong gambling movies, Michael Shou-Yung Shum's debut novel delivers the thrilling highs and lows that come when we cede control of our futures to the roll of the dice and the turn of a card.

Download or read book Flicker written by Theodore Roszak and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the golden age of art movies and underground cinema to X-rated porn, splatter films, and midnight movies, this breathtaking thriller is a tour de force of cinematic fact and fantasy, full of metaphysical mysteries that will haunt the dreams of every moviegoer. Jonathan Gates could not have anticipated that his student studies would lead him to uncover the secret history of the movies--a tale of intrigue, deception, and death that stretches back to the 14th century. But he succumbs to what will be a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genius of the silent screen who later became the greatest director of horror films, only to vanish in the 1940s, at the height of his talent. Now, 20 years later, as Jonathan seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance, the innocent entertainments of his youth--the sexy sirens, the screwball comedies, the high romance--take on a sinister appearance. His tortured quest takes him from Hollywood's Poverty Row into the shadowy lore of ancient religious heresies. He encounters a cast of exotic characters, including Orson Welles and John Huston, who teach him that there's more to film than meets the eye, and journeys through the dark side of nostalgia, where the Three Stooges and Shirley Temple join company with an alien god whose purposes are anything but entertainment.

Download or read book King of Spades written by Steph Macca and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I never expected to start my 18th birthday off with a bang. Literally. This town was run by violent gangs and I lived a quiet life as the criminal prosecutor's daughter. But the day of my 18th birthday, everything changed. Suddenly I was on the radar of both gangs. I should be scared. I should be fearful. But my desire for danger has taken over. I could be walking into a trap. But Reed, Colton and Grayson, the infamous Spades Trio are dragging me into the darkness... And down the rabbit's hole I go.... KING OF SPADES is a full length mature dark high school gang related adult romance with some enemies-to-lovers themes. This is a reverse harem novel, meaning the main female character has more than one love interest. KING OF SPADES is book one in the Black Spades Trilogy.

Download or read book Pu kin Today written by David M. Bethea and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the nineteenth century, the great Russian writer Alexander Pushkin has been a cultural myth, a figure absolutely central to Russian culture, even to "Russianness" itself. In this volume distinguished American Slavists address Pushkin's writings from a multiplicity of contemporary literary perspectives and investigate some of the most puzzling issues in the poet's life and work.

Download or read book Queen of Spades written by Queen Co. Meadows The Hoodoo Queen and published by . This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queen of Spades is the medium that connects the descendants ofenslaved Africans to their traditional spirituality, their magic, andthe customs of their people.This is traditional African American conjure, best known asHoodoo, coming directly from its descendants, from a family that isknown throughout the Americas and West Indies, documentedsince we have been enslaved in the western hemisphere.This book will give the descendants of these people a look intowho we were before slavery. With recipes to reshape the presentreality, this book gives you the tools to gain clarity and the answersneeded for the darkness in your life. This book is true encourage-ment from your ancestors.This book is the conduit, the medium, the connection, and intro-duction to your ancestors. This is a book that you can use to lookinto your great-great-great-great grandmother or grandfather'seyes and have a conversation with them as they guide you. It givesyou the ammunition that you were designed to walk with.

Download or read book Our Rainbow Queen written by Sali Hughes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A full-spectrum collection of photos of the late Queen Elizabeth II—spanning ten decades of fashion and every color of the rainbow. This riotously colorful book takes a prismatic journey through a century of styles worn by British Monarch Queen Elizabeth II. Each photo is gloriously accessorized with captions and commentary by journalist and broadcaster Sali Hughes, who provides fascinating context. Readers will learn how the Queen used color and fashion in strategic and discreetly political ways, such as wearing the colors of the European flag to a post-Brexit meeting or a pin given to her by the Obamas to a meeting with Donald Trump. With stunning photographs that span feature brilliant colors ranging from the dusky pinks the Queen wore in girlhood through to the neon green dress that prompted the hashtag #NeonAt90, this must-have collection celebrates the iconic fashion statements of the UK's longest reigning and most vibrant monarch. This is a joyful celebration of the Queen’s life, as well as her personal style and political mastery.

Download or read book Blood of Wonderland written by Colleen Oakes and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revolution is rising in Wonderland. Dinah’s battle has begun. Colleen Oakes’s twisted reimagining of the Queen of Hearts origin story continues in this thrilling sequel, Blood of Wonderland. Dinah has been exiled from Wonderland. The vicious father she always feared has framed her for the brutal murder of her brother and turned the kingdom against her. Now hiding in the lush and mysterious Twisted Wood with only her war steed at her side, Dinah is faced with a choice—to leave Wonderland forever, or stay and fight her father for the throne. When a chance encounter with one of her father’s long-lost enemies brings Dinah more allies than she ever could have imagined, war starts to feel inevitable. But before Dinah can lead her people into combat, she must confront certain truths about her heart and her destiny—no matter how dark those truths may be. Don’t miss War of the Cards, the epic conclusion to the Queen of Hearts trilogy.

Download or read book Queen of Spades written by Kristi Belcamino and published by . This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sicily, Eva, 17, took over her imprisoned father's role as a Mafia mob boss.People loved her because she took from the powerful and gave to the needy.Then she was betrayed and forced to flee to America to create a new life.When her past caught up to her, she lost it all.Now she will make them pay. Buy Queen of Spades today to start the thrill ride!

Download or read book Ainslee s written by and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 972 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The High Stakes of Identity written by Ian M. Helfant and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revising his doctoral dissertation for Harvard University, Helfant (Russian, Colgate U.) explains how Russian writers of the 19th century not only used gambling as motifs in their work, but were often impacted by it in their own lives; for example Pushkin's huge losses at cards and Dostoevski's at roulette served as impetus for them to write for money, but Tolstoy's ancestral wealth cushioned his losses at cards. In addition to those three, he looks at works by Lermontov, Shakhovskoy, and Begichev. He appends the original texts of all the extended and most of the shorter quotes that are translated from Russian and French in the book. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.