English Literature Great

James Boswell forever changed the genre of biography when he painstakingly transformed a scholarly profusion of detail into a perceptive, lifelike portrait of Dr. Samuel Johnson. James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson reveals a man of outsized appetites and private vulnerabilities and is the source of much of what we know about one of the towering figures of English literature.

Thomas Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s List, is universally praised for crafting smooth narratives from authentic historical events. With The Great Shame, he turns his insightful eye toward the Irish struggle through the 19h century. In sharp contrast to much of Europe, Ireland was a terrible place to be during the 1800s. Many of the nation’s finest people set sail for America and Canada.

This collection of short ghost stories includes some of the best-known classics in the genre, as well as some that may be new to ghost story fans. Includes: ”The Damned Thing by Ambrose Bierce, ”The Empty House" by Algernon Blackwood, ”The Consequences" by Willa Cather, ”How It Happened" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ”A Ghost" by Guy De Maupassant, and more.

The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California's limitless bounty and appalled by the country's refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice - paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy.

A young Indian boy from Nipigon country in the Canadian wilderness carves a twelve-inch canoe with a kneeling Indian figure and frees it to undertake a journey to the Atlantic Ocean in his place. He must stay home and help his father, but yearns to learn about the world beyond his life in the village.

For centuries, gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of.... Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages. And it is stolen. In pursuit of the thieves, Rand al’Thor is determined to keep the Horn out of the grasp of The Dark One. But he has also learned that he is The Dragon Reborn - the Champion of Light destined to stand against the Shadow time and again. It is a duty and a destiny that requi

From the Gilded Age until 1914, more than 100 American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles - just like Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, the first of the Downton Abbey characters Julian Fellowes was inspired to create after reading To Marry An English Lord. Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details-plus quotes and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette - To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

Walk in Hell is the incredible second book of best-selling author Harry Turtledove’s alternate history tetralogy of World War I, The Great War. The first book, American Front, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 1998.

In this startlingly vivid portrait of a world torn apart by war and strife, the Confederate States of America ally with Britain and France, while the United States sides with Germany in a World War I that might have been.

In the rolling hills just outside Gaborone, surrounded by a grove of acacia trees, lies the Great Hippopotamus Hotel. With spacious rooms overlooking the Botswanan countryside and a fine and loyal staff, the hotel has served as a refuge to weary travelers for many years. But a sudden string of misfortunes threatens to ruin the hotel’s reputation. Food poisoning befalls an unlucky diner, laundry mysteriously disappears from the drying line, and a scorpion stings one of the guests. Mishap after mishap occurs, until it becomes apparent that these incidents are more than simple coincidences.

Alistair had no choice...and now the Commonwealth hunts him. But are they the only threat? When the Rebels escaped through the portal, the planet they chose seemed like the perfect place to hide. Shrouded in flames, with underground caves and passages, Alistair knew it would give them a chance to regroup. He was wrong. What or who is this dark force that hunts them?

Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them is a highborn Bengali poet named Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature, whose life would be upended by the arrival of war on his Calcutta doorstep.

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than 20 years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

London, June 1835: In the interest of being a good neighbor, Charles checks in on Miss Haverstock, the elderly spinster who resides in the flat above his. But as the young journalist and his fiancee Kate ascend the stairs, they are assaulted by the unmistakable smell of death. Upon entering the woman's quarters, they find her decomposing corpse propped up, adorned in a faded gown that looks like it could have been her wedding dress, had she been married. A murderer has set the stage. But to what purpose?

Pacific Hills, California: Gated communities, ocean views, well-tended lawns, serene pools, and now the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more than an education and their new marriage, this move represents the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. For their children, born and raised in America, success is not so simple. For the most part, these differences are minor irritants, arguments between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But one night, the twelve-year-old son is arrested.

Nevada Barr quickly attracted the attention of mystery fans when her first Anna Pigeon mystery, Track of the Cat, appeared. Now she immerses the intrepid park ranger in a perilous search that will take her far below the waters of Lake Superior. As Anna spends her days patrolling its shores, the surface of Lake Superior fills with tourists. In the depths below lie an ancient ship and the bones of its sailors.

The Great War and Modern Memory was universally acclaimed on publication in 1970. Today, Fussell's landmark study remains as original and gripping as ever: a literate, literary, and unapologetic account of the Great War, the war that changed a generation, ushered in the modern era, and revolutionized how we see the world.

In 1914, they called it The Great War, and few could imagine anything worse. For nearly three decades, a peace forged in blood and fatigue has held sway in North America. Now, Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian Tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory. But behind the façade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to go off. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse.

He's desperate to see Luna again. It might be the only thing keeping Alistair from giving up, because their situation looks grim. As he sits in the captain’s seat, looking out at the vastness of space, he knows what was on its way.

Waldo and company arrive looking for information. What they find is a suspicious mage guild, a delusional queen, an entire city awash in greed and deception, and an old acquaintance who is very happy to see him again. Getting the information he's looking for won't be easy, but when has that ever stopped Waldo?

Alistair made a single wrong assumption, and now he, Thoreaux, and Caesar battle for their lives in a cruel set of games designed to weed out the weak. Losing means death. The game’s giants aren’t the only threat. The corporation’s CEO is hunting them, too. Faced with the horrible reality of an entire race born into servitude, Alistair now only has one option. Find a way to free them...or die trying.