Great Literature

King George V predicted that his son, Edward VIII, would destroy himself within a year of succeeding to the throne. In December 1936 he was proved right, and the world’s press revealed the king was abandoning his throne to marry Wallis Simpson. A life spent in the shadow of his charismatic elder brother left the new king, George VI, magnificently unprepared for the demands of ruling the kingdom and empire. Drawing on personal accounts from the royal archives, Deborah Cadbury uncovers the very private conflict.

Using the same characters as those found in Miller’s other bestseller, The Secret and one new character, a retired Special Forces Commander, this work aims to help team leaders and team members create high-performing teams. The core message is that Talent, Skills, and Community are all essential to team success, and that team leaders and leaders supervising or training team leaders, need to develop all three in order to create such teams.

The First World War laid waste to a continent and brought about the end of innocence — and the end of faith. Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, however, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis found that the Great War deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination.

It is December 1878, and war looms on the horizon in South Africa. British high commissioner Sir Henry Bartle-Frere seeks to dismantle the powerful neighboring kingdom of the Zulus and uses an incursion along the disputed border as his justification for war. He issues an impossible ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, demanding he disband his armies and pay massive reparations. With a heavy heart, the king prepares his nation for war against their former allies.

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.

Put down the knife, lock away the gun, lay aside the noose - Joy Behar is here to save you from suicide as she hot walks you through the next four years (two if we are lucky, less if liberal dreams come true). Besides despair, the sane response to the insanity in the White House is laughter. On her hit ABC daytime show The View, Joy has been blunt in her condemnation of the comb over-in-chief, and her words have electrified and inspired millions in the resistance for whom #notmypresident has become a rallying cry.

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.

Lady Elizabeth Neville-Ashford wants to travel the world, pursue a career, and marry for love. But in 1914, the stifling restrictions of aristocratic British society and her mother’s rigid expectations forbid Lilly from following her heart. When war breaks out, the spirited young woman seizes her chance for independence. Defying her parents, she moves to London and eventually becomes an ambulance driver in the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps - an exciting and treacherous job that takes her close to the Western Front.

I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So begins Alexander’s extraordinary confession on the eve of his greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating, compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with a warrior’s unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories.

The Greatcoats have found the heir to the throne...but now they must keep her alive, against all the odds. Falcio Val Mond has completed the final task given to him by the late King Paelis: he has found the King's Charoites (well, one at least). But his task isn't over, and now he, Kest and Brasti must protect the girl from those who want her dead.

It's a hard-knock life for America's favorite orphan! Everyone knows the story of the irrepressible Annie, who lives at Miss Hannigan's orphanage until she beats the odds and finds a new life with the benevolent and wealthy Daddy Warbucks. Annie has enchanted millions of fans from her original comic strip appearance to the hit Broadway musical. Now, with a Tony-nominated revival playing on Broadway, Puffin is reissuing this novelization of the classic story, with a new introduction by Tony and Emmy Award-winning author Thomas Meehan.

Two Best-Selling Agatha Christie Novels in One Great Audiobook. In Agatha Christie's class mystery Murder on the Links, Hercule Poirot attempts to unravel the grisly conundrum of not one, but two dead bodies discovered on a French golf course. An urgent cry for help brings Hercule Poirot to France. But he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies face down in a shallow grave on a golf course.

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.

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.

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.

Set against a backdrop of jazz music, bootlegging, and lavish parties, The Great Gatsby is the story of Midwesterner Nick Carraway’s curious introduction to the decadent world of his mysterious, wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby, whose thirst for riches is matched only by his tragic obsession with the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. This dangerously propulsive tale of glitz and glamour continues to be relevant as listeners long for escapist novels—a chance to flee into Gatsby’s famed mansion and lose oneself in the rush of opulence.

A dramatic saga set against the backdrop of growing unrest in Ireland and a world on the brink of the First World War, Redemption weaves together a cast of unforgettable characters that form the heart and soul of three extraordinary Irish families. They love freedom more than life, and they will fight to the death to win it.

The gathering of the tribes of the Mongols has been a long time in coming, but finally, triumphantly, Temujin of the Wolves, Genghis Khan, is given the full accolade of overall leader and their oaths. Now he can begin to meld all the previously warring people into one army, one nation. But the task Genghis has set himself, and them, is formidable. He is determined to travel to the land of the long-time enemy, the Chin, and attack them there.

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. What caused the Indian Mutiny?

Long ago, a mysterious event known as The Great Forget ravaged Earth. Magic was born. Millennia later, a baby with red eyes is abandoned at the gates of a small kingdom whose sole mandate is to guard the Pass of Death. The young orphan, Chip, is condemned by a spiteful king to a life of misery in the castle kitchens, looked upon with disdain and treated as an outcast. In an unexpected turn, Chip catches the eye of the wise wizard Xander, who sees something special in him.