The Charles Quiz

On Wine and Hashish by Charles Baudelaire

Initially composed for newspaper publication, and inspired by Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, Baudelaire's musings on wine and hashish provide acute and fascinating psychological insight into the mind of the addict. On Wine and Hashish asserts the ambivalence of memory, urging a union of willpower and sensual pleasure as Baudelaire claims that wine and hashish...

Dangling in the Tournefortia by Charles Bukowski

A poetry collection: perceptive, self-deprecating, and frequently and unexpectedly funny as hell.

Insectivorous Plants by Charles Darwin

It follows from these few facts that different kinds of seeds excite the leaves in very different degrees; whether this is solely due to the nature of their coats is not clear. In the case of the cress seeds, the partial removal of the layer of mucus hastened the inflection of the tentacles. Whenever the leaves remain inflected during several days over seeds, it is clear that they...

The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint

On the Day of the Dead, the Solona Music Hall is jumping. That's where Altagracia Quintero meets John Burns, just two weeks too late. Altagracia - her friends call her Grace - has a tattoo of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia on her shoulder, she's got a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg, and she has grease worked so deep into her hands that it'll never wash out. Grace...

A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens

"If you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and Scotland form the greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the next in size. The little neighbouring islands, which are so small upon the Map as to be mere dots, are chiefly little bits of...

The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson

This is the story of a man in the grip of alcohol; it moves forward with speed, force, and heartbreaking truth. Don Birnam is someone you know and care about. His loneliness, his need to drink, his dangerous hangovers, his daydreams of himself as a genius and actual nightmares are unforgettable experiences. No matter how it shocks or upsets you, you will find, after reading The Lost...

The Bears of Blue River by Charles Major

Away back in the 'twenties', when Indiana was a baby state, and great forests of tall trees and tangled underbrush darkened what are now her bright plains and sunny hills, there stood upon the east bank of Big Blue River, a mile or two north of the point where that stream crosses the Michigan road, a cozy log cabin of two rooms-one front and one back.

True Grit by Charles Portis

The story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into...

Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

Created by an Irish clergyman, Melmoth is one of the most fiendish characters in literature. In a satanic bargain, Melmoth exchanges his soul for immortality. The story of his tortured wanderings through the centuries is pieced together through those who have been implored by Melmoth to take over his pact with the devil. Influenced by the Gothic romances of the late 18th century...

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

Bob Howard, geekish demonology hacker extraordinaire for "The Laundry," must stop ruthless billionaire Ellis Billington from unleashing an eldritch horror, codenamed "Jennifer Morgue," from the ocean's depths for the purpose of ruling the world...