Great Literature

Raised in squalor in the marsh country of Kent, the orphan Pip is taken under the wing of the eccentric and reclusive Miss Havisham - only to blindly give his heart to the dowager’s beautiful but ice-cold adopted daughter, Estella. Even as a mysterious benefactor helps to shape Pip’s life into one of fortune, success, and self-discovery, the unspeakable secrets of his unrequited love continue to haunt him - and promise to change his life once again.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in the early 1920s, the American Dream was already on the skids. Originally based on the idea that the pursuit of happiness involves not only material success, but moral and spiritual growth, the dream had, by Fitzgerald's time, become increasingly focused on money and pleasure - a phenomenon with which the high-living writer was all too familiar.

Andrew Haswell Green is dead, shot at the venerable age of eighty-three, when he thought life could hold no more surprises. The killing - on Park Avenue in broad daylight, on Friday the 13th - shook the city. Born to a struggling farmer, Green was a self-made man without whom there would be no Central Park, no Metropolitan Museum of Art, no Museum of Natural History, no New York Public Library. But Green had a secret, a life locked within him that now, in the hour of his death, may finally break free.

The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris’s epic story of the British Empire from the accession of Queen Victoria to the death of Winston Churchill. It is a towering achievement: informative, accessible, entertaining and written with all her usual bravura. Heaven’s Command, the first volume, takes us from the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The story moves effortlessly across the world, from the English shores to Fiji, Zululand, the Canadian prairies and beyond.

Orphaned Pip lives with his sister and her blacksmith husband. One day, the boy helps a hiding fugitive. Years pass, and Pip works as an apprentice for his brother-in-law. He is unhappily in love with Estella, a beautiful girl raised by the wealthy, eccentric old Miss Havisham. The young people are separated by one of the most prosaic reasons—financial status.

As the owner of Great Lakes Investigations, she's seen just about everything there is to see. Murder, embezzlement, infidelity; you name it, she's been there and got the investigative t-shirt.

The Complete Charles Dickens Collection: Part Two contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works from 1844 to 1865. Dickens wrote most of his most influential and beloved novels during these years - introducing us to characters such as Pip, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Esther Summerson, and many more who have lived long in the memory for generations. Also included here are a selection of his essays, travelogues, letters, and a short biography of Dickens by his daughter, Mamie.

Present day: When a young anthropologist specializing in ancient technology uncovers a terrible secret concealed in the workings of a three-hundred-year-old mechanical doll, she is thrown into a hidden world that lurks just under the surface of our own. With her career and her life at stake, June Stefanov will ally with a remarkable traveler who exposes her to a reality she never imagined, as they embark on an around-the-world adventure and discover breathtaking secrets of the past….

The Owl Express: Nate, the great detective, and his dog Sludge, hit the rails on their latest case. Their mission: To guard an owl named Hoot. Hoot belongs to Nate’s cousin, Olivia Sharp, and she thinks someone on the train might be out to get her feathered friend. Then Hoot disappears! The Tardy Tortoise: The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and someone is eating the flowers in Nate's garden. A green tortoise is slowly stepping across the lawn, and Nate is slowly following him. It may take all of Nate the Great's patience and sharp eyesight to find out slowly.

George Eliot's first full-length novel Adam Bede is a profound rendering of 19th century English pastoral life. This timeless story of seduction and betrayal follows the virtuous carpenter Adam Bede, whose world is soon disrupted when the all-too-beautiful Hetty betrays him for another villager. Her actions precipitate a turmoil of tragic events that shake the very foundations of their serene rural community.

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.

Promoted to the elite Praetorian Guard in the thick of battle, a young legionary is thrust into a seedy world of imperial politics and corruption. Tasked with uncovering a plot against the newly crowned Emperor Commodus, his mission takes him from the cold Danubian border all the way to the heart of Rome, the villa of the Emperor’s scheming sister, and the great Colosseum. What seems a straightforward, if terrifying, assignment soon descends into Machiavellian treachery and peril as everything in which young Rufinus trusts and believes is called into question....

When Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny boarded a train to help the Reddimus Society return a stolen treasure, they didn't plan on traveling around the world. But after a close call with the society's archrivals - the Argents - it's now up to the Boxcar Children to return the remaining six artifacts to their rightful homes. As the children travel through Egypt, Kenya, England, and Italy, can they stay one step ahead of those trying to sabotage their plans?

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession with reuniting with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. The novel was inspired by a romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922.

Butterbean knew she wasn't always a good dog. Still, she'd never considered herself a BAD dog—until the morning that her owner, Mrs. Food, fell in the hallway. Admittedly the tile was slipperier than usual, mostly because Butterbean had just thrown up on it. Now Butterbean and her fellow pets have to come up with a grand plan to support themselves in case Mrs. Food is unable to keep taking care of them. When they discover a mysterious man in their building who seems to have lots of loot, they plan a heist.

C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?

Alexander's beauty, strength and defiance were apparent from birth, but his boyhood honed those gifts into the makings of a king. His mother, Olympias, and his father, King Philip of Macedon, fought each other for their son's loyalty, teaching Alexander politics and vengeance from the cradle. His love for the youth Hephaistion taught him trust, while Aristotle's tutoring provoked his mind and Homer's Iliad fuelled his aspirations.

When Ned meets governess Phoebe Baker, he becomes intent on gaining her affections. Phoebe wants nothing more than to keep her head down, teach her students, and go unnoticed-especially by the Earl of Ashby. But his rakish secretary has the infuriating habit of constantly crossing her path. Yet Phoebe cannot deny that her pulse quickens in Ned's presence. If this prim-and-proper governess lets her heart rule, will fate intervene where Ned's luck has forsaken him?

Kenneth Rose was one of the most astute observers of the establishment for over 70 years. The wry and amusing journals of the royal biographer and historian made objective observation a sculpted craft. His impeccable social placement located him within the beating heart of the national elite for decades. He was capable of writing substantial history, such as his priceless material on the abdication crisis from conversations with both the Duke of Windsor and the Queen Mother.

In 1787, William Bligh, commander of the Bounty, sailed under Captain Cook on a voyage to Tahiti to collect plants of the breadfruit tree, with a view to acclimatizing the species to the West Indies. During their six-month stay on the island, his men became completely demoralized, and on the return voyage mutinied. Yet a resentful crew, coupled with ravaging storms and ruthless savages, proved to be merely stages leading up to the anxiety-charged ordeal to come.