"The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn are agog with curiousity when the Gazette advertises 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddoks at 6.30 p.m.' A childish practical joke? Or a spiteful hoax? Unable to resiste the mysterious invitation, the locals arrive at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out and a gun is fired. When they come back on, a gruesome scene is revealed....
"Charles Dickens's first historical novel-set during the anti-Catholic riots of 1780-is an unparalleled portrayal of the terror of a rampaging mob, seen through the eyes of the individuals swept up in the chaos. Those individuals include Emma, a Catholic, and Edward, a Protestant, whose forbidden love weaves through the heart of the story; and the simpleminded Barnaby, one of the riot leaders, whose fate is tied to a mysterious murder and whose beloved...
Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections - between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed. Bleak House defies a single description. It...
An audio protrait of Churchill that draws on a wealth of archive broadcasts by, among others, Robert Boothby, Violet Bonham Carter, Nancy Astor, Oswald Mosley and Churchill himself, and encompasses the whole of his political life.
From the Publisher: When David Copperfield's widowed mother remarries, David suffers from his stepfather's abuse. At age 8, David is sent away to a harsh school where the principal routinely beats the students. David's circumstances become even worse when he is removed from school and, at age 10, forced to labor from morning to night in a London warehouse. David then decides to take desperate action. He will run away to his great-aunt, who lives...
In the midst of a twelfth-century civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud, a hostage exchange is put in jeopardy when one of the prisoners dies, and Brother Cadfael determines that he was murdered.
Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh leaves London to vacation in Norfolk and becomes enmeshed in the hunt for the perpetrator of a series of murders of young women, which continues even after the murderer's capture.
There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, and the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: no charge.
We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful...
Hercule Poirot is enjoying a well-deserved holiday on Smugglers' Island off the coast of Devon until he finds himself caught up in a murder investigation. The beautiful bronzed body of a glamorous actress Arlena Stuart lies facedown on the beach. But strangely, there is no sun and Arlena is no sunbathing. She's dead ... strangled! Ever since Arlena's arrival the air had been thick with sexual tension. Each of the guests had a motive to kill her, including...
According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter--the world's only _totally reliable_ guide to the future--the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea. Which means that Armageddon will happen on a Saturday night. There will be seas of fire, rains of fish, the moon turning to blood and the massed armies of Heaven and Hell will sort it out once and for all. Which is a major problem for Crowley, Hell's most approachable...
"Great Expectations is among the most masterful of Charles Dickens's novels. Displaying extraordinary tragicomic range, Dickens blends an atmosphere of brooding violence and guilt with sharp and often disturbing humor to create a drama charged with the thrilling intensity of a detective story and the poignancy of a spiritual autobiography. Much of the novel's power comes from Dickens's unequaled skill at making even the most wildly eccentric of characters...
"Hard Times is perhaps the archetypal Dickens novel, full as it is with family difficulties, estrangement, rotten values and unhappiness. It was published in 1854 and it is the story of the family of Thomas Gradgrind, and occurs in the imaginary Coketown, an industrial city inspired by Preston. Gradgrind is a man obsessed with misguided 'Utilitarian' values that make him trust facts, statistics and practicality more than emotion and is based upon...
Full-cast dramatization of Life, the universe and everything, the third book in Adams's famous "trilogy in five parts." Arthur Dent is transported from a prehistoric Earth to a cricket match at Lords' Cricket Ground, two days before the Earth is to be demolished by the Vogens.
The epitome of the chivalric novel, Ivanhoe sweeps readers into Medieval England and the lives of a memorable cast of characters. Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-the-Lion-Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman is defended by Ivanhoe against a charge of witchcraft -- but it is Lady Rowena who is Ivanhoe's true love. The wicked Prince John plots to usurp England's...
Bertie Wooster, trapped in the English countryside with his ex-fiancee Florence Craye, her father, brother, and new fiancé Stilton Cheesewright, is facing the double threats of the return of Florence's affections and the ire of Stilton, when Jeeves arrives to save the day.
"For generations, children around the world have come of age with Louisa May Alcott's March girls: hardworking eldest sister Meg, headstrong, impulsive Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. With their father away at war, and their loving mother Marmee working to support the family, the four sisters have to rely on one another for support as they endure the hardships of wartime and poverty. We witness the sisters growing up and figuring out what role...
