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  These Old Shades

  Georgette Heyer

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  The Georgian romance that launched the career of the New York Times–bestselling author is “the sort of tale which leaves us breathless with delight.” —Boston Evening Transcript   When the Duke of Avon encounters a mistreated young boy on the streets of Paris, he employs the lad as his page. As the duke’s closest friends ponder his actions, the precocious Léon soon becomes the talk of the aristocracy.   Léon cannot believe his good fortune after being saved from a brutal beating by his older brother. He follows the duke around like a loyal puppy, a constant source of amusement for the duke, who is seen by himself—and by society—as a devious scoundrel, well deserving of his nickname, Satanas.   But when Avon uncovers Léon’s biggest secret—that the boy is in fact a girl named Léonie—he acts honorably, taking her to his sister in London to learn the ways of the fairer sex, before he can adopt her. For Avon can’t believe his luck. A trump card has fallen into his hands. If Léonie is who the duke suspects she is, she’ll be the perfect weapon to use against his greatest nemesis. He embarks on his quest for revenge, never foreseeing just how Léonie’s transformation will change the game . . .   “Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic.” —Katie Fforde   “A world of high romance, of adventure, of passions that shimmer just beneath the surface.” —Stephanie Laurens, #1 New York Times–bestselling author   “You’re in for a treat.” —Nora Roberts, #1 New York Times–bestselling authorThe Georgian romance that launched the career of the New York Times–bestselling author is “the sort of tale which leaves us breathless with delight.” —Boston Evening Transcript   When the Duke of Avon encounters a mistreated young boy on the streets of Paris, he employs the lad as his page. As the duke’s closest friends ponder his actions, the precocious Léon soon becomes the talk of the aristocracy.   Léon cannot believe his good fortune after being saved from a brutal beating by his older brother. He follows the duke around like a loyal puppy, a constant source of amusement for the duke, who is seen by himself—and by society—as a devious scoundrel, well deserving of his nickname, Satanas.   But when Avon uncovers Léon’s biggest secret—that the boy is in fact a girl named Léonie—he acts honorably, taking her to his sister in London to learn the ways of the fairer sex, before he can adopt her. For Avon can’t believe his luck. A trump card has fallen into his hands. If Léonie is who the duke suspects she is, she’ll be the perfect weapon to use against his greatest nemesis. He embarks on his quest for revenge, never foreseeing just how Léonie’s transformation will change the game . . .   “Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic.” —Katie Fforde   “A world of high romance, of adventure, of passions that shimmer just beneath the surface.” —Stephanie Laurens, #1 New York Times–bestselling author   “You’re in for a treat.” —Nora Roberts, #1 New York Times–bestselling author

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  The Watsons

  Jane Austen

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  Left impoverished upon the death of her aunt, Emma Watson has no option but to be reunited with her estranged father and siblings. Initially delighted with her new life—including the fashionable society balls to which she now has access—Emma soon realizes that her family harbors many ill feelings, not least those springing from the sisters' hopes—and disappointments—in snaring a husband. So when the eligible and suitably rich Tom Musgrove begins to transfer his affections from her sister Margaret to Emma, the result can only be further sibling rivalry and unrest. A delightful, exquisitely drawn portrait of family life, The Watsons is Jane Austen at her storytelling best. Author of the masterpieces Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Jane Austen (1775–1817) is one of the most beloved novelists of all time.

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  Short-Timers The (Unabridged)

  Charles Dickens

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  Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.THE SHORT-TIMERS: Within so many yards of this Covent-garden lodging of mine, as within so many yards of Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul's Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, the Prisons, the Courts of Justice, all the Institutions that govern the land, I can find must find...

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  Finnegans Wake

  James Joyce

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  Finnegans Wake, the greatest avant-garde novel of all time, was first published seventy years ago – and people are still trying to work out what it is about. There is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker – aka HCE (Here Comes Everyone) – and Anna Livia Plurabelle, but also Finnegan the hod carrier (or was he a giant?), whose wake is the subject of the book. This masterly reading of the abridged version, with copious notes aiding comprehension, is republished with a new cover.

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  First Love

  Ivan Turgenev

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  The title of the novella is almost an adequate summary in itself. The "boy-meets-girl-then-loses-her" story is universal but not, I think, banal - despite a surprise ending which notoriously turns out to be very little of a surprise. First Love is given its originality and poignancy by Turgenev's mastery of the piercing turning-point (akin to Joyce's "epiphanies") that transforms the character's whole being, making a tragic outcome inevitable. Even the nature symbolism is rescued from triteness by lovely poetic similes - e.g. "but at that point my attention was arrested by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who busily climbed up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a musician behind the bass-viol." (Summary by Martin Geeson)

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  The End of the Affair

  Graham Greene

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  Graham Greene’s masterful novel of love and betrayal in World War II London is “undeniably a major work of art” (The New Yorker).   Maurice Bendrix, a writer in Clapham during the Blitz, develops an acquaintance with Sarah Miles, the bored, beautiful wife of a dull civil servant named Henry. Maurice claims it’s to divine a character for his novel-in-progress. That’s the first deception. What he really wants is Sarah, and what Sarah needs is a man with passion. So begins a series of reckless trysts doomed by Maurice’s increasing romantic demands and Sarah’s tortured sense of guilt. Then, after Maurice miraculously survives a bombing, Sarah ends the affair—quickly, absolutely, and without explanation. It’s only when Maurice crosses paths with Sarah’s husband that he discovers the fallout of their duplicity—and it’s more unexpected than Maurice, Henry, or Sarah herself could have imagined.   Adapted for film in both 1956 and 1999, Greene’s novel of all that inspires love—and all that poisons it—is “singularly moving and beautiful” (Evelyn Waugh).

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