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  The Bottle Factory Outing - A Novel

  Beryl Bainbridge

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  Named by the Observer as “one of the 100 greatest novels of all time,” this dark comedy with a disturbing twist follows two working-class women in 1970s London. Unlikely friends Brenda and Freda share a rundown room in London and toil away at an Italian factory pasting labels onto wine bottles. Brenda, a shy and passive thirty-three-year-old brunette, recently ran away to the city to escape an abusive husband. Freda, meanwhile, is a rebellious twenty-six-year-old blonde with big dreams and a penchant for bossing people around.   The two women are the only English workers at the bottling facility, and their presence certainly stirs up trouble. Freda has a crush on the trainee manager, Vittorio, and tries to get close to him despite the fact that he’s engaged to an Italian girl. Brenda, on the other hand, spends a fair amount of time trying to distance herself from the advances of the factory’s manager, Mr. Rossi.   When Freda organizes a company outing, what’s supposed to be a day of freedom and fun turns into a dark and chaotic tragedy. The workers plan to travel by van to a stately castle, where they will picnic and drink wine before visiting an African safari. But the van never shows up, and when they finally do make it to the castle, something goes fatally wrong.   Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, The Bottle Factory Outing was inspired by author Beryl Bainbridge’s own experiences working as a cellar girl in the mid-twentieth century. Intertwining themes of loneliness and friendship, sexual frustration and personal power, passion and murder, this tragicomedy is a British classic that depicts working-class life as something both terribly morose and wickedly funny.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Beryl Bainbridge including rare images from the author’s estate.  

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  The Master of the World

  Jules Verne

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  A deviously brilliant inventor is out to control the world in this 1904 thriller by the pioneering science fiction author.Reports of strange occurrences in the mountains of South Carolina have reached the desk of government agent John Strock. Though the Blue Ridge Mountains are not volcanic, rumblings and smoke have led some to fear an eruption. Then new reports emerge of unidentified objects racing across air, land, and water at incredible speeds. Behind it all is a mastermind named Robur whose ambition is as boundless as his genius. On his quest to stop Robur, Agent Strock is taken captive and finds himself onboard the Terror: a single vehicle with capacities far beyond anything mankind has seen before. Though global powers offer Robur enormous sums for his invention, he chooses to keep it—and its unrivaled power—for himself.

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  Classic Short Stories - Volume 8...

  Katherine Mansfield, H G Wells

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  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

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  The Cactus

  O. Henry

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  O. Henry's poignant tale of a failed courtship. On the day his beloved marries another man, Trysdale reflects on his own courtship and how it came to a peculiar end. He had asked the girl to marry him and the next day she had sent him a cactus in a pot. No note, no message. But from that moment the relationship fell apart. But why? Who was to blame? What was the meaning of the cactus?O. Henry at his most ingenious... and with a wonderful twist in the tale.

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  Typee

  Herman Melville

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  Typee is Herman Melville's first book, recounting his experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands in 1842, and becoming a captive of a cannibal island tribe. It was an immediate success in America and England, and was Melville's most popular work during his lifetime. It was not until the end of the 1930's that it was surpassed in popularity by Moby Dick, more than thirty years after his death. The story provoked harsh criticism for its condemnation of missionary efforts in the Pacific Islands. Many sought to discredit the book, claiming that it was a work of fiction, but this criticism ended when the events it described were corroborated by Melville's fellow castaway, Richard T. Greene, who appears in the story as the character Toby

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  David Copperfield

  Charles Dickens

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  In one of his most energetic and enjoyable novels, Dickens tells the life story of David Copperfield, from his birth in Suffolk, through the various struggles of his childhood, to his successful career as a novelist. The early scenes are particularly masterful, depicting the world as seen from the perspective of a fatherless small boy, whose idyllic life with his mother is ruined when his mother marries again, this time to a domineering and cruel man. The novel is partly modeled on Dickens’s own experiences, but that is not to say that it is in any way a direct autobiography. Indeed, one of the great joys of the book lies in its outlandish cast of characters, which includes the glamorous Steerforth, the cheerful, verbose Mr. Micawber, the villainous Uriah Heep, and David’s eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood. Dickens described it as his ‘ favorite child’ among his novels.

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