THE KING OF THE GREEKS by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
Jack London's life was full of adventure and his days working for the Fish Patrol on the California coast around Oakland were no exception. In those days Fish Patrol agents were getting shot by poachers- and one of the biggest and baddest was Big Alec, who was called "the King of the Greeks". Big Alec swore he would never be caught alive, and that's how it looked. That's when an unusual opportunity presented itself to the Fish patrol....
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A DAUGHTER OF THE AURORA by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
"A Daughter of the Aurora" by Jack London: Joy Molineau was half-French, half-Indian, and all knowing when it came to winning her man. She had one in mind, but wasn't quite sure if he could meet her standards- so she arranged a test of steel to see if he had what it takes....
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THE UNEXPECTED by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
Why You Should Read... The Unexpected by Jack London Short review by Evan C. Lewis “The Unexpected is true to its name, full of twists and turns.” The Unexpected is true to its name, full of twists and turns. But these surprises don’t just come in the form of dramatic plot events, they also come in an unexpected change of tone. Because, while in the beginning, the story seems set to become a thriller, it instead becomes a literary piece on morality and willpower. This is the best of Jack London using hardship to test his protagonist. Rather than the central tension revolving around the...
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THE UNPARALLELED INVASION
1001 Best of Jack London
In this futuristic and frighteningly prescient short story, written by Jack London in 1906, America and its allies wage biological warfare on an overreaching China in 1976 using airships to drop glass tubes filled with a variety of plagues destined to destroy China's population of 500 million.
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THE BONES OF KAHEKILI by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
A fascinating journey into early Hawaiian history mixing story with the legend of High Chief Kahekili who was the rival of Chief Kamehameha.Some believe Kahekili's bones are locatd in a shrine- others say they are part of the ocean. This story builds to a climax near the end as we learn the fate of the great Maui Chief. Enjoy our website at www.bestof1001stories.com
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THE MADNESS OF JOHN HARNED by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
A wealthy Ecuadorian landowner attends a bullfight with his American cousin and both see it differently...
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THE LEOPARD MAN'S STORY by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
Our narrator relates the time he tried to get a life story from a lion tamer and the man relates the time he witnessed a murder of another lion tamer by the jealous husband of one of the performers. Join us whereevr great podcasts are found or at www.bestof1001stories.com.
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A PIECE OF STEAK by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
Jack London wrote this great short story based upon experience he had gained as a boxing manager and promoter in Alaska and later in life. It first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1909, and tells the story of an aging prize fighter who is down on his luck and too broke to eat any decent food the night before he enters a winner take all bout with a rising young star. One good piece of steak would have made all the difference.
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BALD FACE and JAN THE UNREPENTANT
1001 Best of Jack London
Bald Face- An old prospector shares a tale of running into two grizzly bears he calls "Bald Face" and, failing to scare them off the trail, ends up running for his life
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THE NIGHT-BORN by JACK LONDON
1001 Best of Jack London
From our new collection at 1001's Best of Jack London- Three men meet at a San Francisco bar to reminisce about their experiences in the Yukon years before- and one of them recalls a woman that he met "1000 miles from anywhere" living with a tribe of Indians in the sub-arctic. She was a white woman- and her story was incredible. She had known she was "night-born"- born to seek adventure and the romance of the wild- and she had found it. He had fallen in love with her...and he shares their story.
info_outlineWhy You Should Read... The Unexpected by Jack London
Short review by Evan C. Lewis
“The Unexpected is true to its name, full of twists and turns.”
The Unexpected is true to its name, full of twists and turns. But these surprises don’t just come in the form of dramatic plot events, they also come in an unexpected change of tone. Because, while in the beginning, the story seems set to become a thriller, it instead becomes a literary piece on morality and willpower.
This is the best of Jack London using hardship to test his protagonist. Rather than the central tension revolving around the protagonist fighting her adversity, it revolves around her struggle to keep to her morals while doing so. She makes an ethical decision to do something the right way, despite everything pushing her to take the easy way out. It’s interesting, perhaps not very surprising, that this narrative choice would occur in one of the very few stories of the earliest 20th century with a female protagonist.
Similar to Jack London’s survival adventures such as To Build a Fire and Love of Life, the story is filled with exhaustion, hunger, cold and pain. But in The Unexpected, it mostly takes place inside of a cabin with the forces behind the suffering, rather than being wind, snow, and sickness; being other people.
The unexpected pushes forward an idea that life should be a struggle. As tumultuous and traumatising as the protagonist Edith’s life is shown to be, the introduction philosophises that it is a much more human, much more worthwhile life to lead than one of complacency.
But the ending paints no clear picture, with no sign of heroic triumph or a return to safety. Life goes on, it seems to say. Whether you like it or not.
“The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity.” - The Narrator
But the Great Unexpected was yet to come into her life and put its test upon her.