Classics World Literature

French author Jules Verne earned recognition as one of the founders of science-fiction tales. Although, as one of those called “fathers of science fiction”, Verne often said he had not aimed at seeming scientific, claiming, “I have invented nothing." However, he did feel, “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.” As one of those “other” men he did exactly that in his marvelous description of Phileas Fogg and his remarkable journey Around the World in Eighty Days, a trip done without any modern transportation.

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, its the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice.

"L'art de la guerre" est le premier traité de stratégie militaire écrit au monde. Son auteur, Sun Tzu développe des thèses originales qui s'inspirent de la philosophie chinoise ancienne.

The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?

The brilliant conclusion to the Palliser novels, this touching story follows the elderly Duke of Omnium, the former prime minister of England, as he struggles to overcome his grief at the loss of his beloved wife, Lady Glencora. To complicate matters, he must also deal with the willfulness of his three adult children as he tries to guide and support them - his plans for them are quite different from their own. While his two sons, sent down from university in disgrace, rack up gambling debts, the duke’s only daughter yearns to marry the poor son of a country squire.

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

On Midsummer Eve in a Sussex meadow, Dan and Una act out their version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Suddenly, Puck, as old as Time itself, miraculously appears. The youngsters are swept into the past as Puck conjures up villages of long ago, filled with craftsmen, a Roman centurion, and a Norman knight. Rudyard Kipling’s magical tale brings English history dramatically to life to captivate both the young and the young at heart.

Catriona, first published in 1893, is the sequel to Kidnapped and continues the adventures of David Balfour and his friend Alan Breck. Balfour returns to the city in order to defend Breck against false charges in the Appin murder. In so doing, he becomes a pawn in a game between feuding Scottish clans; he also sets eyes on a young woman whose involvement in the same matter becomes as central to his actions as his desire to vindicate his comrade in arms.

Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more than a story—it becomes an experience to remember forever. The Notebook is such a book. It is a celebration of how passion can be ageless and timeless, a tale that moves us to laughter and tears and makes us believe in true love all over again . . .

Octave Mouret, précurseur inspiré, bouleverse sa corporation comme Haussmann bouleverse la ville. Il parie tout sur les femmes, sur leurs envies et sur leur incapacité à surmonter les tentations.
Une lui résiste : Denise, incarnation de la vertu et de la générosité. Elle devient une obsession pour cet ogre.

Can Danny and his father outsmart the villainous Mr. Hazell? Danny has a life any boy would love - his home is a gypsy caravan, he's the youngest master car mechanic around, and his best friend is his dad, who never runs out of wonderful stories to tell. But one night Danny discovers a shocking secret that his father has kept hidden for years. Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most incredible plot ever attempted against nasty Victor Hazell, a wealthy landowner with a bad attitude. Can they pull it off? If so, Danny will truly be the champion of the world.

Russie, début du XIXe siècle. À l'Ouest de l'Empire, les guerres napoléoniennes font rage et se rapprochent dangereusement des frontières. De Moscou à Saint-Pétersbourg, la noblesse et la grande bourgeoisie vivent inconscientes du danger, et organisent dîners et bals. Ainsi le comte Rostov qui s'apprête à célébrer la fête de sa fille Natacha ; du prince André Bolkonski et de sa jeune épouse, Lise, enceinte.

An "enormously entertaining" portrait of "a Bronx Tom Sawyer" (San Francisco Chronicle), City Boy is a sharp and moving novel of boyhood from Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk.

In My Religion, Leo Tolstoy accuses the church of hiding the true meaning of Jesus, which is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount and the call to resist evil. For Tolstoy, it is this command that has been most damaged by ecclesiastical interpretation. Tolstoy had not always been possessed of the religious ideas set forth in My Religion. For 35 years of his life, he was, in the proper acceptation of the word, a nihilist - not a revolutionary socialist but a man who believed in nothing.

When the shah is thrown out of Iran, the nation's turmoil becomes world headlines. Caught in this shifting world of fanaticism, ambition, duplicity, and violent death are the foreign helicopter pilots who have been servicing the oil fields up and down the country. Their one objective is to make a bold, concerted escape to safety across the Gulf.

Under Western Eyes, Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression, begins with a bomb that kills a hated Russian minister of police along with innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape. This masterwork, published six years before the Russian Revolution, is a chillingly accurate prophecy of what was to come.

Set in 2540 CE, Brave New World is a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley that was published in 1932. The novel takes place in a futuristic society called The World State, where life revolves around science and efficiency. Emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children, and citizens are socially engineered into an intelligence-based hierarchy. People are kept in a passive state through their consumption of a soothing drug called soma, and trouble-makers are exiled to various islands.

The First World War brought an abrupt end to Lanny Budd’s idyllic youth. Now, in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles, he barely recognizes the beloved Europe of his boyhood. At the start of his career as an international art dealer, Lanny travels to Italy and witnesses the brutal charisma of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Meanwhile, in Germany, the failed Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party strikes an ominous note foreshadowing the devastation to come.

Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men was written in response to a competition run by the Academy of Dijon answering the prompt: What is the origin of inequality among men, and whether such inequality is authorized by natural law? Rousseau puts forth the concept of two types of inequity: natural/physical and moral/political. He focuses on moral inequality and its link to power and wealth. He also covers the areas of self-love, compassion for others, and free-agency.

The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse.