{"product_id":"fantastic-fables","title":"Fantastic Fables","description":"\u003cp data-start=\"169\" data-end=\"650\"\u003e\u003cem data-start=\"169\" data-end=\"187\"\u003eFantastic Fables\u003c\/em\u003e is a collection of concise, darkly comic tales that use animals, politicians, judges, businessmen, clergymen, writers, and personified ideas to expose human hypocrisy and institutional corruption. Rather than offering the reassuring moral lessons associated with traditional fables, Ambrose Bierce frequently reverses familiar expectations: virtue gives way to self-interest, authority protects itself, and apparently noble language disguises greed or absurdity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"652\" data-end=\"1098\"\u003eMany stories target politics, law, journalism, religion, war, and public morality. Politicians manipulate appearances, officials confuse incompetence with service, and respectable institutions become vehicles for personal advantage. Even the fabulist himself is treated satirically, while animals complain that criticism is acceptable only when directed at someone else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1100\" data-end=\"1318\"\u003eWritten in a sharp, economical style, the collection relies on irony, wordplay, reversals, and abrupt punch-line endings. Its central concern is the gap between what people publicly claim and what their actions reveal.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nite read","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44440784633944,"sku":null,"price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0709\/5998\/8824\/files\/ChatGPTImage2026_7_23_22_43_46.png?v=1784817834","url":"https:\/\/www.niteread.com\/products\/fantastic-fables","provider":"Nite Read","version":"1.0","type":"link"}