English Literature Great

Many years ago, the storytellers say, the great King Arthur brought justice to England with the help of his gallant Knights of the Round Table. Of these worthy knights, there was never one so fearless, so chivalrous, so honorable, so...shiny as the dashing Sir Lancelot, who was quite good at defending the helpless and protecting the weak, just as long as he’d had his afternoon nap. Behold the very exciting and very funny adventures of Lancelot the Great, as only the acclaimed Arthurian author Gerald Morris can tell them.

One of the most violent conflicts in the history of civilization, World War I has been strangely forgotten in American culture. It has become a ghostly war fought in a haze of memory, often seen merely as a distant preamble to World War II. In The Long Shadow critically-acclaimed historian David Reynolds seeks to broaden our vision by assessing the impact of the Great War across the twentieth century. He shows how events in that turbulent century—particularly World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of Communism—shaped and reshaped attitudes to 1914–18.

When the young orphan called Pip encounters the escaped convict Magwitch, the child's life is altered forever - in ways he cannot even imagine. In the course of his story, Pip encounters such memorable characters as the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella - and a mysterious benefactor. This recording includes both of the endings Dickens wrote for this classic novel.

December 13, 1920. It was a typical Monday morning when three US Navy officials boarded a hot-air balloon for an easy, routine training flight. But as evening came, heavy rain and wind knocked Lieutenants Louis Kloor, Stephen Farrell, and Walter Hinton off course, eventually forcing a crash landing deep within the snowy Canadian wilderness. As the men searched for salvation, they were overcome by freezing temperatures, starvation, and fatigue. To survive this harrowing experience, the brave military officers would have to go up against their greatest enemies yet.

The ultimate battle which will decide the fate of Heaven and Earth has finally come. Everett and Courtney Carroll have fared better than most through the past seven years of the Great Tribulation, but the eve of Armageddon refuses to let them live out the last hours of this present age without conflict, trouble, and persistent peril.

The year is 1918, the war on the Western Front all but over. An ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay-Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and then surreptitiously shoots them in the back to incite his men to attack the German lines. When another of D'Aulnay-Pradelle's soldiers, Albert Maillard, reaches the bodies and discovers how they died, the lieutenant shoves him into a shell hole to silence him. Albert is rescued by fellow soldier, the artist Edouard Péricourt, who takes a bullet in the face.

It’s the big finale of the Great British Baking Contest. Who will fall flatter than an eggless soufflé? And will amateur baker and witch Poppy survive to find out? Dark forces are at work in the picture-perfect village of Broomewode, Somerset. Poppy’s getting closer to solving the mystery of her beginnings, but so many questions remain. Will she finally meet her birth mother? Is the local coven helping or hindering her search? Will she and sexy Viscount Benedict finally have their first date? There are old and new mysteries to solve in this final installment of the series!

When orphan Pip meets the escaped convict Magwitch in an overgrown churchyard on the Kent marshes, little does he know that the incident will change his life forever. Some years later, now apprenticed to his blacksmith brother-in-law, Pip falls in love with the beautiful Estella. Her half-crazed and bitter guardian Miss Havisham, however, exerts a malign influence over the girl and forces a wedge between the two.

At nearly 90, retired nature writer Hattie Bloom prefers the company of birds to people, but when a fall lands her in a nursing home, she struggles to cope with the loss of independence and privacy. From the confines of her 'room with a view' of the carpark, she dreams of escape. A fellow 'inmate', the gregarious would-be comedian Walter Clements, also plans on returning home as soon as he is fit and able to take charge of his mobility scooter.

Bucky Wunderlick, rock star and budding messiah, has hit a spiritual wall. In midtour he bolts from his band to hole up in a dingy East Village apartment and separate himself from the paranoid machine that propels the culture he has helped create. As faithful fans await messages, Bucky encounters every sort of roiling farce he is trying to escape.

The year is 1922, and young Nick Carraway moves to the village of West Egg, where he discovers that his neighbor is the eclectic millionaire Jay Gatsby. As he and Gatsby become acquainted, Nick is thrown into a world full of dazzling parties, unrequited love, and unchecked idealism. Gatsby, surrounded by riches, yearns for the love of a woman who chose another man. He waits for her every night, using a green light at the end of his dock to call out to her from across the water.

In the newest novel by beloved National Book Award finalist Lisa Graff, kids have turned the tables on their parents, and all the rules have been tossed out the window. But does Winnie have what it takes to hold her ground and keep everyone happy? This story, with a pitch-perfect middle grade voice and zany yet poignant situation, is perfect for fans of Sharon Creech, Louis Sachar, and Jack Gantos.

Your Story Hour is proud to present this new set of exciting, dramatized stories. You’ll enjoy hearing the adventures of dynamic Theodore Roosevelt; pioneering scientist like Wilhelm Roentgen, who discovered the X-ray; and Alexander Fleming’s quest for penicillin - plus Russia’s brilliant female mathematician Sonya Kovalevskaya. Enjoy these heart-warming stories of courage and character. Great listening and entertainment for the whole family!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in Cockermouth, in the Lake District. His Lyrical Ballads, written in collaboration with Coleridge, was published in 1798, and shortly afterwards he settled in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, with his sister Dorothy. Inspired in his early manhood by the French Revolution, he grew disillusioned with revolutionary politics and in later life became decidedly conservative. He left a vast body of work, ranging from delicately simple lyrics to deeply meditative odes.

It was a strange, uncertain world that Harriet entered when she married Guy Pringle. Guy taught English at the university at Bucharest, a city of vivid contrasts, where professional beggars exist alongside the excesses of mid-European royalty and expatriate journalists with a taste for truffles and quails in aspic. Underlying this is a fitful awareness of the proximity of the Nazi threat to a Romania which is enjoying an uneasy peace.

Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny chart a course for China to return the Reddimus Society's fourth artifact! Along the way they meet old friends and make new ones, but a thief threatens to ruin their trip. Then, after an unexpected stop in Thailand, they meet a suspicious man claiming to work for the Reddimus Society. The Aldens wonder if someone close to them is working for the other side. Who can the Boxcar Children trust to help them?

Written in 1923 and originally published in France, The Great American Novel examines the impossibility of writing such work in America. Williams not only writes the novel with poetic satire and pathos but allows us into his writing process, as he strives to define a young America at the end of a World War and the beginning of the “Roaring ‘20s”.

The vast and deadly conflict between Alexander the Great's former generals as they battle for control of his empire has reached a tense stalemate. No one seems able to strike the decisive blow. But with everything in the balance, a secret emerges: hidden in the remote mountains is a young man who could change everything: Herakles, the son of Alexander. Whoever aspires to Alexander's mantle must now control his one legitimate heir - or destroy him - and a war being played across the known world is set for its final, bloody conclusion.

Stranded on an inhospitable planet. Lost in an unknown time. Faced with an unfamiliar galaxy. And a dear friend nearing death. Nathan Scott and the crew of the Aurora must make alliances quickly, or they will lose one of their own.

This third volume of Great Sci-Fi Stories contains "Young Man from Elsewhen" by Sylvia Jacobs, "Asleep in Armageddon" by Ray Bradbury, "Living Space" by Isaac Asimov, and more.