Great Literature

Warm and delightfully festive, this charming and long forgotten holiday classic was inspired, in part, by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and other celebrations of old-time Yule. Splendid suppers, rural churches, cheerful dances, and hearty spirits imbue this short novel with the magic of the season.

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.

Abby Carpenter is in a tailspin knowing she is about to spend 10 days in the company of her ex-girlfriend - who is now engaged to her brother - for a family holiday gathering in Red River, New Mexico. The same ex-girlfriend who last year at Christmas had lured her into bed. Abby’s solution? A pretend girlfriend for the holidays would surely keep her ex away and in her own room at night, right?

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander's life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas is sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but finds freedom with Alexander the Great after the Macedon army conquers his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper.

Everyone's favorite game maker, Mr. Lemoncello, is testing out his new Fabulous Fact-Finding Frenzy game! If Kyle can make it through the first round, he and the other lucky finalists will go on a great race - by bicycle, bookmobile, and even Mr. Lemoncello's corporate banana jet - to find fascinating facts about famous Americans. The first to bring their facts back to the library will win spectacular prizes! But when a few surprising "facts" surface about Mr. Lemoncello, it might be go to jail and lose a turn all at once!

Tig Costello has arrived in Darren, Kentucky, commissioned to paint a portrait honoring her grandfather Benjamin. His contributions to the rural Appalachian town and his unimpeachable war service have made him a local hero. But to Tig, he’s a relative stranger. To find out more about him, Tig wants to talk to the person who knew her grandfather best: Eloise Price, the woman who murdered him fifty years ago.

From best-selling and National Book Award-nominated author Tahereh Mafi comes a stunning novel about love and loneliness, navigating the hyphen of dual identity, and reclaiming your right to joy - even when you’re trapped in the amber of sorrow.

Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life.

Helia has served as the Sage of Hope for the Great Library of Tomorrow for centuries. She is one of the chosen few who embody and protect the values of humanity across the numerous realms of Paperworld, which are connected within the Library itself via magical portals controlled by the Book of Wisdom. But even her hope is tested when she and her partner, Xavier, the Sage of Truth, are attacked while visiting the famous Rose Garden in the realm of Silvyra. Wounded and in shock amid a storm of fire, they are confronted by a deadly figure known to them as the Ash Man.

Classic stories collected by America's Storyteller, Joe Wheeler. This audio collection contains nine separate short stories: "Nearest His Heart", by Josephine DeFord Terrill; "A Promise and a Ski Run" (author unknown); "The Song of Songs", by Mabel McKee; "The Unmousing of Jean", by Edna Geister; "An Hour of Victory", by Earl Reed Silvers; "Shop Around A While", by Mae Foster Jay; "The Boy Who Couldn't Be Saved" (author unknown); "Between Strokes", and more.

Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.

To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders. Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside.

In this collection you'll hear Stephen Fry narrating Great Expectations, Scrooge's ghostly journey narrated by Jason Isaacs, Juliet Stevenson leading us through The Old Curiosity Shop, and many more award-winning narrators bringing Dickens' words to life. Also included here is a short introduction to Dickens' life and works from Dr Pete Orford, an internationally renowned Dickens expert and the Course Director for the Charles Dickens Studies MA at the University of Buckingham.

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.

Philip is a good boy, a really good boy, who accidentally gets sent to hell to become the devil's heir. The devil, Lucifer, is dying and desperately in need of a successor, but there's been a mistake, and Philip is the wrong boy. Lucifer has no other choice than to begin the difficult task of training Philip in the ways of evil. Philip is terrible at being bad, but when he falls in love with the she-devil Satina and experiences the powerful forces of love and jealousy, the task becomes much easier.

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.

Born a veritable great lion of God to a devout Jewish family, Saul of Tarsus is raised by his parents to embrace their love of humanity. Dogged by what he perceives as a lack of true faith, he embarks on a journey to save his people from sacrilege. But on the road to Damascus a vision of the resurrected Jesus changes the course of his life. Converting to Christianity, the newly christened Paul transforms from persecutor of blasphemers into apostle to the gentiles, becoming one of the supreme influences on the Catholic Church and the Western world.

John Keats was largely unappreciated during his lifetime and died in Rome at the age of 26. Most of his 150 poems were written in just nine extraordinary months in 1819. This selection contains some of his finest works, including the principal "Odes", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Old Meg", and "Much Have I Travelled".

In spring 1782, young Revolutionary War veteran Barnabas Locke and his Abenaki friend, the visionary Squando, reunite to cross the Mississippi and travel deep into the Great Plains. At the riverbank, they find their hired keelboat commandeered by the imperious young Spanish Isabella and her brother Ramon, who are fleeing the river pirate Joe Fontaine with a cache of jewels.