Books published by publisher Lvl Editions

A third-person narrator describes the arrival of a mysterious inventor to the peaceful Welsh town of Llyddwdd. Dr. Moses Nebogipfel takes up residence in a house neglected after the deaths of its former inhabitants. The simple rural folk become apprehensive about Nebogipfel's activities in the house and suspect him of witchcraft. Ultimately they storm the inventor's "devilish" workshop. Nebogipfel escapes with the sympathetic Reverend Elijah Ulysses Cook, in what is later revealed to be a time machine.The unnamed narrator later discovers the dazed Reverend Cook, who has been missing for three weeks. Cook becomes a second narrator, relating in flashback the night of his disappearance, and a series of subsequent adventures with Nebogipfel. He reveals that Nebogipfel is an "Anachronic Man" whose genius drives him to seek out a time more suited to his abilities.

Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes of age just as her father’s business is failing. In a desperate attempt to regain his fortune and secure his daughter’s proper upbringing, James Houghton buys a theater. Among the traveling performers he employs is Ciccio, a sensual Italian who immediately captures Alvina’s attention. Fleeing with him to Naples, she leaves her safe world behind and enters one of sexual awakening, desire, and fleeting freedom.

The first narrative in the collection is "The Prussian Officer", which tells of a Captain and his orderly. Having wasted his youth gambling, the captain has been left with only his military career, and though he has taken on mistresses throughout his life, he remains single. His young orderly is involved in a relationship with a young woman, and the captain, feeling sexual tension towards the young man, prevents the orderly from engaging in the relationship by taking up his evenings. These evenings lead to the captain abusing his orderly and leaving large, painful bruises on his thighs, making it hard for the orderly to walk. Whilst isolated in a forest during manoeuvres, the orderly takes out murderous revenge on the captain, but finds himself in a daze seemingly due both to the pain of the bruises and thirst. The orderly eventually collapses and dies in the hospital shortly there after. The corpses of the two men lay side by side.Other stories:The Thorn In The FleshDaughters Of The VicarA Fragment Of Stained GlassThe Shades Of SpringSecond BestThe Shadow In The Rose GardenGoose FairThe White StockingA Sick CollierThe ChristeningOdour Of Chrysanthemums

The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, who lives in a village in southern England (part of Hardy's fictional county of Wessex), who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modelled on Oxford. As a youth, Jude teaches himself Classical Greek and Latin in his spare time, while working first in his great-aunt's bakery, with the hope of entering university. But before he can try to do this the naïve Jude is seduced by Arabella Donn, a rather coarse and superficial local girl who traps him into marriage by pretending to be pregnant. The marriage is a failure, and they separate by mutual agreement, and Arabella later emigrates to Australia, where she enters into a bigamous marriage. By this time, Jude has abandoned his classical studies.After Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later. There, he meets and falls in love with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. But, shortly after this, Jude introduces Sue to his former schoolteacher, Mr. Phillotson, whom she eventually marries. However, she soon regrets this, because in addition to being in love with Jude, she is physically disgusted by her husband, and, apparently, by sex in general. Sue soon leaves Phillotson for Jude. Because of the scandal Phillotson has to give up his career as a schoolmaster.Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship, because of Sue's dislike both of sex and the institution of marriage. Soon after, Arabella reappears and this complicates matters. But Arabella and Jude divorce and she legally marries her bigamous husband, and Sue also is divorced. However, following this, Arabella reveals that she had a child of Jude's, eight months after they separated, and subsequently sends this child to his father. He is named Jude and nicknamed "Little Father Time" because of his intense seriousness and moroseness...

Captain Crewe, a wealthy young English widower, enrolls his seven-year-old daughter Sara, who has been living in India, at Miss Minchin's boarding school for girls in London, in order to prepare her for a future life in society. Crewe dotes on his daughter, ordering and paying for her special treatment at the school, such as her own room fitted with extra luxuries, her own maid, and her own carriage for rides. The Headmistress, Miss Minchin, is secretly jealous and dislikes Sara, but hides her true feelings and publicly fawns over Sara because her father is so rich.Despite her special status, Sara does not act snobbish and instead is quiet, well-mannered and kind, going out of her way to befriend Ermengarde, the school dunce; Lottie, a four-year-old student prone to temper tantrums; and Becky, the lowly scullery maid. Sara gains the reputation of being like a "princess", and embraces it by trying to behave as a kind and magnanimous princess would in all situations.Four years later, Sara's birthday is celebrated at Miss Minchin's with a lavish party, attended by all her schoolmates. Just as it ends, Miss Minchin learns of Captain Crewe's unfortunate demise after losing his entire fortune through a bad investment in his friend's diamond mines. Sara is left a pauper, and Miss Minchin is left with sizable unpaid bills for Sara's school fees and luxuries, including her birthday party. In a rage, Miss Minchin takes away all of Sara's possessions except for some old frocks and one doll; makes her live in a cold, poorly furnished attic; and forces her to earn her keep by working as an errand girl and general drudge.

A third-person narrator describes the arrival of a mysterious inventor to the peaceful Welsh town of Llyddwdd. Dr. Moses Nebogipfel takes up residence in a house neglected after the deaths of its former inhabitants. The simple rural folk become apprehensive about Nebogipfel's activities in the house and suspect him of witchcraft. Ultimately they storm the inventor's "devilish" workshop. Nebogipfel escapes with the sympathetic Reverend Elijah Ulysses Cook, in what is later revealed to be a time machine.The unnamed narrator later discovers the dazed Reverend Cook, who has been missing for three weeks. Cook becomes a second narrator, relating in flashback the night of his disappearance, and a series of subsequent adventures with Nebogipfel. He reveals that Nebogipfel is an "Anachronic Man" whose genius drives him to seek out a time more suited to his abilities.

Fiction. INVINCIBLE SUMMERS explores the agony of family. The story begins with the death of Claudia Goodwin's father, and then plunges into the murkier emotional trouble that follows for years. Through the 1960s and 70s, the world around Claudia moves on. But her loss walks along with her. Gaines deftly manages that loss and the way it floats through time—not shrinking but morphing, not fading but fusing to all of Claudia's experiences. As the chapters progress through two tumultuous decades, they show how parents fumble their own children, how siblings abandon one another, and how people become itinerant and self-destructive. This is no simplistic tale of self- discovery, nor is it a dirge. It is, in Claudia's own words, a restless search for nowhere fueled by moments of whimsy, humor, and hope. I am glad to have read Gaines's fine debut novel and look forward to her next.

A humorist and honest look at a life in public service.For most of us, librarians are the quiet people behind the desk, who, apart from the occasional "shush," vanish into the background. But in Quiet, Please, McSweeney's contributor Scott Douglas puts the quirky caretakers of our literature front and center. With a keen eye for the absurd and a Kesey-esque cast of characters (witness the librarian who is sure Thomas Pynchon is Julia Roberts's latest flame), Douglas takes us where few readers have gone before. Punctuated by his own highly subjective research into library history-from Andrew Carnegie's Gilded Age to today's Afghanistan-Douglas gives us a surprising (and sometimes hilarious) look at the lives which make up the social institution that is his library.This 10th Anniversary Edition includes nearly 100 pages of added content (including a new forward and afterward).

In a town where a lot of poor people suffer, a swallow who was left behind after his flock flew off to Egypt for the winter meets the statue of the late "Happy Prince", who in reality has never experienced true happiness. Viewing various scenes of people suffering in poverty from his tall monument, the Happy Prince asks the swallow to take the ruby from his hilt, the sapphires from his eyes, and the golden leaf covering his body to give to the poor. As the winter comes and the Happy Prince is stripped of all of his beauty, his lead heart breaks when the swallow dies as a result of his selfless deeds and severe cold. The statue is then torn down and melted leaving behind the broken heart and the dead swallow. These are taken up to heaven by an angel that has deemed them the two most precious things in the city. This is affirmed by God and they live forever in his city of gold and garden of paradise.

This book was written to stimulate interest in self-awareness, and to highlight the connection between well-being and performance. It provides practical information on how to manage our emotions and our thoughts, using multiple approaches.It is aimed at coaches, young players, educators and parents, in football but also in sport in general. It provides tools to help us exercise self-control in difficult situations.