Coming back to the nest of his family home in Russia after years of fruitless endeavours away from his roots, Lavretsky decides to turn his back on the vacuous salons of Paris and his frivolous and unfaithful wife Varvara Pavlovna. On his return he meets Liza, the daughter of one of his cousins, whom he had known wh…Read More »
This is to be a story of a battle, at least one murder, and several sudden deaths. For that reason it begins with a pink tea and among the mingled odors of many delicate perfumes and the hale, frank smell of Caroline Testout roses. There had been a great number of debutantes 'coming out' that season in San Francis…Read More »
Today, a family would think nothing of the fact that one of their sons had fallen in love with an Australian woman. In the stodgy nineteenth century, however, the news was taken somewhat differently. Indeed, for the proper British Bligh family in E. W. Hornung's A Bride From the Bush, a dispatch delivering this info…Read More »
When platonic archetypes begin to invade London and the heavenly world intrudes on our own, a small number of people who know what is happening react in varying ways. Some attempt to control these rabid Ideas while others run and hide. One ignores their existence and another vows to stop their impending rule.
Earthman Carson Napier had found his share of adventure on the cloud-shrouded planet of Venus. He had rescued his beloved Princess Duare from one peril after another. But when Carson finally restored Duare to her home in the lofty kingdom of Vepaja, she was sentenced to death for daring to love a lesser mortal! Once…Read More »
The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower, who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy-commands the three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnai…Read More »
So ten-year-old Maria, orphaned mistress of Malplaquet, discovers the secret of her deteriorating estate: on a deserted island at its far corner, in the temple long ago nicknamed Mistress Masham's Repose, live an entire community of people — 'The People', as they call themselves—all only inches tall. With the help…Read More »
Prospecting was a lonely business for Tappan, but his burro Jenet was good company, and more. She knew the trails and waterholes better than Tappan, from the scorching heat and poison air of Death Valley to the blinding blizzards of Arizona's mountains. Jenet tracked with him, faithful, his only friend. And he repai…Read More »
Orwell's moving reflections on the English character and his passionate belief in the need for political change. The Lion and the Unicorn was written in London during the worst period of the blitz. It is vintage Orwell, a dynamic outline of his belief in socialism, patriotism and an English revolution. His fullest…Read More »
This is the story of Neils Bork, an alcoholic and failure raised to supernal heights of scientific genius and altruism by a scientific accident. And it is the story of what became of his golden dream of free, limitless energy for all, and of the marriage he thought would be crowned with glorious offspring.
This ama…Read More »
The nineteenth century dawns and the Napoleonic Wars rage as Horatio Hornblower is ordered to the Caribbean and dangerous waters. New Lieutenant Hornblower's latest ship is HMS Renown, a sound vessel whose captain is unfortunately of rather unsound mind. When ordered to attack a Spanish anchorage, the chain of comma…Read More »
The Holy Grail mysteriously surfaces in an obscure country parish becoming a sacramental object to protect, or a vessel of power to exploit. Williams gives a contemporary setting to the traditional Grail quest, examining the distinction between magic and religion. War in Heaven is an eerily disturbing book, one th…Read More »
The tragic tale of a young woman caught between the attractions of two very different men. England is at war with France, and press gangs are seizing young men for service. Charley Kinraid, a whaling harpooner who captured the heart of Sylvia Robson, was one of their victims. After her true love is believed to have …Read More »
The fabled Stone of Suleiman (King Solomon) is illegally purchased from its Islamic guardian in Baghdad by an evil antique dealer. On returning to England he discovers not only that the Stone can multiply itself infinitely without diminishing the original, but that it also allows its possessor to transcend the barr…Read More »
A classic novel of time travel into the future. Mankind is extinct and two other intelligent races fight for control of Earth. In this far-future Earth where mankind is extinct, new intelligent species have thrived. George encounters the Amphibians, the troglodytic Dwellers Underground, and the giant Dwellers, who a…Read More »
The narrator not only depicts the class tensions of a changing France at the beginning of the twentieth century but also exposes the decadence of aristocratic Parisian society and muses upon the subjects of homosexuality and sexual jealousy. Taking up for the first time in his novels, Proust explores the theme of ho…Read More »
Wilhelm Meister, the son of a merchant, has been seduced by the chimerical world of the theater and embarks on the ambitious quest to become a great theatrical performer and dramatist. The Apprenticeship was a landmark in European literature, as not only one of the key works of Weimar Classicism, and the prototyp…Read More »
Some time in the far past or distant future, on the scientifically advanced world of Eos (which just might be Earth), Cheryl demands the right to marry the man she loves, even though genetic analysis shows that their children will have undesirable genes. But our story does not start here. It starts in the 20th centu…Read More »
Nuclear energy is playing a vital role in the life of every man, woman, and child in the world today. Now and in the years ahead, it will continue to affect all the peoples of the Earth. It is essential that we educate ourselves in the understanding of this vital force if we are to discharge thoughtfully our respons…Read More »
Logan Huett believed he knew the West. Once a scout in the Army, he was familiar with both the hardships and rewards of living the pioneer life, but not even Logan could have foreseen the challenges that lay ahead for him and his young wife Lucinda–raising theit brood of headstrong children. After many struggles to…Read More »
A classic story of adventure and romance, perhaps better known as the novel that inspired the legendary movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. As World War I reaches the heart of the African jungle, Charlie Allnutt and Rose Sayer, a dishevelled trader and an English spinster missionary, find themselve…Read More »
It is unknown what happened to the final volumes of Casanova's manuscripts; did the author die before the work was complete, were they destroyed by himself or his literary executors, did they fall into bad hands? We do know, however, that Casanova finally succeeded in obtaining his pardon from the authorities of the…Read More »
Stranded on an unknown island in the Pacific, Charlton Foyle must fight goat-like hominids, giant, semi-intelligent birds, degenerate pirate settlers, and the remnants of an ancient race of men with powers to foretell the future, in order to save the life and love of a beautiful French girl.
England is forced into war when the French challenge the legitimacy of Johns claim to the throne and are determined to install his nephew Arthur in his place. Political principles, hypocritically flaunted, are soon forgotten as the French and English kings form an alliance based on cynical self-interest. And as the …Read More »
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob….Read More »
The story of a character typical to Turgenev – a 'superfluous' man, weak of will, brimming with indecisive frustration – and yet tormented by ideals. Rudin is made impotent by the dissonance of honoring the older generations while at the same time embracing the new bold epoch of pre-revolutionary Russia. The the…Read More »
Keith Stewart is an ordinary man. However, one day he is called upon to undertake an extraordinary task. When his sister's boat is wrecked in the Pacific, he becomes trustee for his little niece. In order to save her from destitution he has to embark on a 2,000 mile voyage in a small yacht in inhospitable waters. Hi…Read More »
The concluding volume of the Three Cities trilogy is very different from Lourdes and Rome. Whilst recounting the struggles and fate of Abbe Froment and his brother Guillaume, and entering largely into the problem of Capital and Labour, which problem has done so much to turn the masses away from Christianity, it …Read More »
The Castle of Death shelters a poisoned garden, curated by a criminal mastermind and set atop a rocky Japanese island. Bond is shattered by the murder of his wife at the hands of Ernst Stavro Blofeld but M. gives him one last chance. To save his job, James Bond needs to infiltrate and destroy the Castle of Death in …Read More »
Blixen takes up the absorbing story of her life in Kenya begun in the unforgettable Out of Africa, which she published under the name of Isak Dinesen. With warmth and humanity these four stories illuminate her love both for the African people, their dignity and traditions, and for the beauty and wildness of the la…Read More »