English Literature Great

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.

Tempers are fraying and the cream is melting as summer temperatures hit the competition tent at Broomewode in the UK just in time for patisserie week. With only four contestants left, the pressure is mounting in the race to be chosen the best amateur baker in the UK. Poppy's working hard to find out who her parents were and what happened to them, even as she's trying to become a more accomplished witch, so she definitely doesn't have time for romance. Then someone dies and it looks like a crime of passion. Can she unmask a killer before she's the one who gets creamed?

As Pip unravels the truth behind his own "great expectations" in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him toward maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself.

Step into the glitz and glamour of the Roaring Twenties with F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterful novel, The Great Gatsby. Immerse yourself in a world of opulence, passion, and shattered dreams as you follow the captivating journey of Jay Gatsby, a man driven by an unrelenting desire to reclaim a lost love. Set against the backdrop of vibrant New York City, this literary classic takes you on a seductive exploration of the American Dream and the illusions it weaves.

The mighty river has broken. Everyone wants to get to the other side. Ain’t that always the way?

A collection of timeless Westerns from some of the most well-known authors of the genre, including Zane Grey and Max Brand: "The Little Gold Miners" by Joaquin Miller, "Bulger's Reputation" by Bret Harte, "The Leaf of Red Rose" by W.H.H. Murray, "The Secret of Macarger's Gulch" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Californian's Tale" by Mark Twain, "Twelve O'Clock" by Stephen Crane, "The Vengeance of Padre Arroyo" by Gerturde Atherton, "A Deal in Wheat" by Frank Norris, "The Caballero's Way" by O. Henry, and more.

From heroic George Washington to the dastardly Richard Nixon, the oval office has been occupied by larger-than-life personalities since 1789. The position comes with enormous power and responsibility, and every American president thus far has managed to achieve great things. However, the President of the United States is only human - and oftentimes far from perfect. While some men suffered through only minor mishaps during their time in office, others are famously remembered for leaving behind much bigger messes.

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.

After receiving news that her brother has been killed in action during the Great War, 21-year-old Charlotte Zielinski enlists as a medical volunteer. She eventually begins working in the death ward of the field hospital near Soissons, France, holding dying men's hands and singing them into eternity.

In 1940 a group of artists, sculptors, film makers, theatre designers and set painters came together to form the Camouflage Unit. Led by Major Geoffrey Barkas and including among their number the internationally renowned stage magician Jasper Maskelyne, the unit's projects became a crucial battlefield weapon.

This collection of wonderful stories read by John Lavelle and penned by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat will find a place on any Nate the Great fan's bookshelf.

Jessie and Benny are participating in the Great Greenfield Bake-Off, a local baking competition for kids. But ingredients get mixed up during the competition, and then the power goes out. Is someone trying to put an end to the contest?

2084: Global warming has proven worse than even the most dire predictions scientists had made at the turn of the century. No country - and no one - has remained unscathed. Through interviews with scientists, political leaders, and citizens around the globe, this riveting fictional oral history describes in graphic detail the irreversible effects the Great Warming has had on humankind and the planet.

In this engaging and deeply informed audiobook, Stephen Knight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood at different times and places in a mythic biography with a thematic structure. The best way to get at the essence of the Robin Hood myth, Knight believes, is in terms not of chronological and generic progression but of the purposes served by heroes.

Keira Westcombe, aka Lady Penda, marries Lucas Harwood, a man fifty years her senior. They’re not in love but they are firm friends and their marriage makes sense for them.

On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.

Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In The Art of X-Ray Reading, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye and many more.

Northwestern Hemisphere, 2529: an Earth on which half of people are now born literally invisible. Sweetmint, a young woman, is one of them and thus relegated to second-class citizenship. She has done everything right her entire life, from school to landing a highly sought-after apprenticeship. But all she has fought so hard to earn comes crashing down when she learns that her brother (whom she had presumed dead) is not only alive and well but also the primary suspect in a high-profile political murder.

A young woman dies in a brutal nighttime attack, and all signs indicate her killer was a Florida panther–an endangered species that hasn’t killed a human in more than 70 years. When a second attack occurs in the same manner, the locals go into an uproar. News of the killer panther will ruin the tourist season and devastate their businesses.

Pearl Spence has been through more in her young life than most folks could handle. But through it all, her family has been by her side. They may not be perfect, but they love her, and they all love each other, come what may. That's one thing Pearl no longer questions.