In this sequel to My Father's Dragon. Elmer and Boris's island hopping adventures continue. Views: 1 083
To celebrate Peter's birthday, Frederick Warne is publishing new editions of all 23 of Potter's original tales, which take the very first printings of Potter's works as their guide. The aim of these editions is to be as close as possible to Beatrix Potter's intentions while benefiting from modern printing and design techniques.
The colors and details of the watercolors in the volumes are reproduced more accurately than ever before, and it has now been possible to disguise damage that has affected the artwork over the years. Most notably, The Tale of Peter Rabbit restores six of Potter's original illustrations. Four were sacrificed in 1903 to make space for illustrated endpapers, and two have never been used before. Of course, Beatrix Potter created many memorable children's characters, including Benjamin Bunny, Tom Kitten, Jemima Puddle-duck and Jeremy Fisher. But whatever the tale, both children and adults alike can be delighted by the artistry in Potter's illustrations, while they also enjoy a very good read. Because they have always been completely true to a child's experience, Potter's 23 books continue to endure. Views: 1 083
Set in the town of Travnik, Bosnian Chronicle presents the struggle for supremacy in a region that stubbornly refuses to submit to any outsider. The era is Napoleonic and the novel, both in its historical scope and psychological subtlety, Tolstoyan. In its portrayal of conflict and fierce ethnic loyalties, the story is also eerily relevant. Ottoman viziers, French consuls, and Austrian plenipotentiaries are consumed by an endless game of diplomacy and double-dealing: expansive and courtly face-to-face, brooding and scheming behind closed doors. As they have for centuries, the Bosnians themselves observe and endure the machinations of greater powers that vie, futilely, to absorb them. Ivo Andric's masterwork is imbued with the richness and complexity of a region that has brought so much tragedy to our century and known so little peace Views: 1 082
It seemed like a good idea. Tired of everyday life ashore, Farley Mowat would find a sturdy boat in Newfoundland and roam the salt sea over, free as a bird. What he found was the worst boat in the world, and she nearly drove him mad. The Happy Adventure, despite all that Farley and his Newfoundland helpers could do, leaked like a sieve. Her engine only worked when she felt like it. Typically, on her maiden voyage, with the engine stuck in reverse, she backed out of the harbour under full sail. And she sank, regularly.
How Farley and a varied crew, including the intrepid lady who married him, coaxed the boat from Newfoundland to Lake Ontario is a marvellous story. The encounters with sharks, rum-runners, rum and a host of unforgettable characters on land and sea make this a very funny book for readers of all ages. Views: 1 082
Edgar Award Finalist: When the strange new bus driver passes the last stop, the five teens on board know they’ll be lucky to make it home alive.
Valley Gardens is the last stop on the bus route after school. The neighborhood is known for its wealthy families, perhaps the richest in town. Marianne, Bruce, Glenn, Dexter, and Jesse live in Valley Gardens, and have no trouble guiding the new bus driver to the last stop of the day—but the strange substitute driver keeps driving. Soon the five teenagers are hostages deep in the mountains. Their kidnappers demand stacks of money from their families, even though most of the students aren’t as well off as the abductors assume. Without hope of raising the ransom money, the five teens must find a way out or face terrifying consequences.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Duncan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection. Views: 1 082
Beloved for his fanciful and engrossing children’s literature, controversial for his enthusiasm for British imperialism, Rudyard Kipling remains one of the most widely read writers of Victorian and modern English literature. In addition to writing more than two dozen works of fiction, including Kim and The Jungle Book, Kipling was a prolific poet, composing verse in every classical form from the epigram to the ode.
Kipling’s most distinctive gift was for ballads and narrative poems in which he drew vivid characters in universal situations, articulating profound truths in plain language. Yet he was also a subtle, affecting anatomist of the human heart, and his deep feeling for the natural world was exquisitely expressed in his verse. He was shattered by World War I, in which he lost his only son, and his work darkened in later years but never lost its extraordinary vitality.
All of these aspects of Kipling’s poetry are represented in this selection, which ranges from such well-known compositions as “Mandalay” and “If” to the less-familiar, emotionally powerful, and personal epigrams he wrote in response to the war. Views: 1 081
In this classic volume, Matthiessen exquisitely combines both nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully portrays the daily lives of herdsmen and hunter-gatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; and the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories. Views: 1 081
Living in a rat-infested hotel in Franco’s post-war Spain, André Bennett, a Canadian painter, loves Toni, his girl friend, who wants him to return home. Roger Kraus, a Nazi on the run, shadows the young artist day and night. They meet on a bridge during the last night of the fiesta, and as the sky is shredded by exploding fireworks, the story draws to its violent climax. Originally published in 1954, The Acrobats marks Mordecai Richler’s stunning debut as a novelist. Views: 1 081
The eighth novel in Anthony Powell's brilliant twelve-novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time.
Discover the extraordinary life of Anthony Powell – captured by acclaimed biographer Hilary Spurling in Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time – available now in hardback and ebook from Hamish Hamilton. Views: 1 080
The ever maturing art and ever more ambitious imaginative reach of Anton Chekhov, one of the world's greatest masters of the short story, led him in his last years to an increasingly profound exploration of the troubled depths of Russian society and life. This powerful and revealing selection from Chekhov's final works, made by the legendary American critic Edmund Wilson, offers stories of novelistic richness and complexity, published in the only formatp edition to present them in chronological order.
Table of Contents
003 A Woman’s Kingdom (1894)
053 Three Years (1895)
161 The Murder (1895)
199 My Life (1896)
311 Peasants (1897)
363 The New Villa (1899)
383 In The Ravine (1900)
433 The Bishop (1902)
455 Betrothed (1903) Views: 1 080
The main character is a great scientist and lover of nature with a beautiful wife whom he loves dearly. However, despite the love Aylmer has for his wife, he wonders whether the birthmark she has on her cheek can be removed. Views: 1 080
Living on his posh French estate with his elegant heiress wife, Tom Ripley, on the cusp of middle age, is no longer the striving comer of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Having accrued considerable wealth through a long career of crime—forgery, extortion, serial murder—Ripley still finds his appetite unquenched and longs to get back in the game. In Ripley's Game, first published in 1974, Patricia Highsmith's classic chameleon relishes the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and help a friend commit a crime—and escape the doldrums of his idyllic retirement. This third novel in Highsmith's series is one of her most psychologically nuanced—particularly memorable for its dark, absurd humor—and was hailed by critics for its ability to manipulate the tropes of the genre. With the creation of Ripley, one of literature's most seductive sociopaths, Highsmith anticipated the likes of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter years before their appearance. Views: 1 079
Each of these delightful interconnected tales is devoted to a family living in a fertile valley on the outskirts of Monterey, California, and the effects that one particular family has on them all. Steinbeck tackles two important literary traditions here; American naturalism, with its focus on the conflict between natural instincts and the demand to conform to society's norms, and the short story cycle. Set in the heart of 'Steinbeck land', the lush Californian valleys. Views: 1 079
John le Carré's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him unprecedented worldwide acclaim.
THE LOOKING GLASS WAR
Once upon a time the distinction had been clear: the Circus handled all things political while the Department dealt with matters military. But over the years, power shifted and the Circus elbowed the Department out. Now, suddenly, the Department has a job on its hands. Evidence suggests Soviet missiles are being positioned close to the German border. Vital film is missing and a courier is dead. Lacking active agents, but possessed of an outdated mandate to proceed, the Department has to find an old hand to prove its mettle. Fred Leiser, German-speaking Pole turned Englishman -- once a qualified radio operator, now involved in the motor trade -- must be called back to the colors and sent East.... Views: 1 079
The irresistible call of adventure brings lovely Christina Wakefield to the alluring Arabian desert. But fate imprisons her after she encounters Sheik Abu, the strikingly handsome though arrogant adventurer, whom she had known in England as Philip Caxton.
Once Christina had rejected Philip's fervent offer of marriage. But now she is to be his slave -- desperate for the freedoms denied her...yet weakened by her heart's blazing desire to willingly explore her virile captor's most sensuous cravings. Views: 1 078
