Great Literature

Set in New York during the Jazz Age, this new adaptation tells the tragic tale of self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby. Consumed with desire for his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby draws new neighbor Nick Carraway into his desperate pursuit to win her back—and into their world of lavish wealth, wild parties, and free-flowing liquor.

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.

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the first surviving account of the geography, climate, and peoples of Britain. The German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania.

Award-winning author Jim Murphy whisks you back in time to witness the disastrous 1871 Chicago fire. He depicts the tragedy so vividly, you can almost feel the scorching heat and hear the roar of the blaze as it reduces the bustling city to a smoldering wasteland.

Every morning, seventeen-year-old Maria Anís Rosario takes the subway an hour from her boisterous and close-knit family in Queens to her private high school on the Upper East Side, where she struggles to fit in as one of the only Latina students - until Rocky welcomes her into this new life. White, rebellious, and ignored by her wealthy parents, Rocky uses her money toward one goal: to get away with anything. To Maria, it’s a dazzling privilege.

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.

Elegant, enigmatic Jay Gatsby yearns for his old love, the beautiful Daisy. But she is married to the insensitive if hugely successful Tom Buchanan, who won’t let her go despite having a mistress himself. In their wealthy haven, these beguiling lives are brought together by the innocent and entranced narrator, Nick – until their decadent deceits spill into violence and tragedy. Part morality tale, part fairy tale, The Great Gatsby is the consummate novel of the Jazz Age. Its tenderness and poetry make it one of the great works of the 20th century.

Chicago, 1923: Ten-year-old Dani Flanagan returns home to find police swarming the house, her parents dead. Michael Malone, the young patrolman assigned to the case, discovers there’s more to the situation—and to Dani Flanagan herself—than the authorities care to explore. Malone is told to shut his mouth, and Dani is sent away to live with her spinster aunts in Cleveland.

Young black bear Lusa has left the comfort of the zoo, determined against all odds to make her way in the wild. It is there that she encounters grizzly cub Toklo and a mysterious changeling named Ujurak. Once united, the cubs find themselves on a journey toward a mystical place - if only they knew where.

August 1914. While Europe enters a brutal conflict unlike any waged before, the Duncan household in Baltimore, Maryland, is the setting for a different struggle. Ruth and Elise Duncan long to escape the roles that society, and their controlling father, demand they play. Together, the sisters volunteer for the war effort - Ruth as a nurse, Elise as a driver.

The kingdoms of Belleger and Amika had been fighting for generations. But then they learned of a terrible threat moving through them to destroy the Last Repository, an immense hidden library. To face this greater enemy, King Bifalt of Belleger and Queen Estie of Amika allied their lands and prepared for war.

A groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians, author of The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton and George Eliot: The Last Victorian. Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left? Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?

Now a major motion picture directed by Stephen Frears ( The Queen, High Fidelity) and starring Judi Dench ( Skyfall, Notes on a Scandal) and Steve Coogan ( The Trip, Hamlet 2): the heartbreaking true story of an Irishwoman and the secret she kept for 50 years. When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a "fallen woman". Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him.

Helen Lewis argues that feminism’s success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. It’s time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women.

"The Great Gatsby" is a 1925 novel by American writer 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 to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

Peace has reigned across the galaxy for over two centuries, and no one can believe that such an accomplishment is nearing an end. However, as dreadnoughts muster in the capital of the Earth Empire and threaten her home nation of the Coalition, Sophia Trotsky finds herself at the dawn of war. Armed with the belief that she can make a difference, the young naval intelligence officer finds herself a front-line combatant—where history cannot be made by one person alone.

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.

The Last Great Dance on Earth is the triumphant final volume of Sandra Gulland's beloved trilogy based on the life of Josephine Bonaparte. When the novel opens, Josephine and Napoleon have been married for four tumultuous years. Napoleon is Josephine's great love, and she his. But their passionate union is troubled from within, as Josephine is unable to produce an heir, and from without, as England makes war against France and Napoleon's Corsican clan makes war against his wife.

Vampires exist. They use, abuse, and discard. If you are one of the lucky ones to survive a relationship with a vampire but are left feeling broken and desperate, there is help. Hope. The cohort support group meets every Sunday night at the community centre. Refreshments included. Victoria suffered unimaginable horrors and trauma from her four-year relationship with her vampire ex-boyfriend.

In January 1879, three columns of British soldiers under the command of Lord Chelmsford, commenced the invasion of the Zulu Kingdom. The southern No. 1 Column led by Colonel Charles Pearson advances on the old mission station at Eshowe. Their intent is to establish a fort and supply depot from which to support the centre No. 3 Column’s advance on the Zulu royal kraal at Ulundi. As the vast column of British soldiers and their African allies slogs its way across the coastal hills, the incessant rain and threat of typhoid promise to be as fearful a nemesis as the lurking armies of Zulu warriors.