Outros livros que poderiam interessá-lo

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  A Saga of the Seas - From their...

  Kenneth Grahame

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  Kenneth Grahame was born on 8th March 1859 in Edinburgh. 
  At age 5 his mother succumbed to puerperal fever.  His father, who had a drinking problem, now sent his 4 children to live with their grandmother at her large house in Cookham, Berkshire. Here the children lived in large open grounds next to the river.  These early experiences would in later years, be retold in his writing through a myriad of characters. 
  Grahame loved being a pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford and wanted to enroll at the university there but his guardian demurred on account of the cost. 
  Instead, a banking career was chosen for him, starting in 1879 at the Bank of England, where he rose steadily to the rank of its Secretary until retiring, with a pension, in 1908 due to ill health. 
  Alongside his commercial career Grahame had written and published various stories and essays in several periodicals. Some were anthologized as ‘Pagan Papers’ in 1893, and two years later ‘The Golden Age’ and later still ‘Dream Days’ and its masterpiece ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ became part of many home libraries.  His ability to view life through the lens of a young and curious child was superb, enabling the reader to easily identify with the character.   
  Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899 and they had one child; Alastair, born semi-blind and plagued by health problems.  In a heart-rending tragedy he would later take his own life whilst attending Oxford University in 1920.   
  In 1908 Grahame reworked many of the bedtime stories he had fashioned for his son into the enduring favourite; ‘The Wind in the Willows’, describing the heart-warming adventures of Mr Toad and his friends.   
  Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on 6th July 1932.

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  HOMER: The Iliad & the Odyssey

  Homer

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  Nearly three thousand years after they were composed, The Iliad and The Odyssey remain two of the most celebrated and widely read stories ever told, yet next to nothing is known about their author. He was certainly an accomplished Greek bard, and he probably lived in the late eighth and early seventh centuries BCE Authorship is traditionally ascribed to a blind poet named Homer, and it is under this name that the works are still published. Greeks of the third and second centuries BCE, however, already questioned whether Homer existed and whether the two epics were even written by a single individual. 
  Most modern scholars believe that even if a single person wrote the epics, his work owed a tremendous debt to a long tradition of unwritten, oral poetry. Stories of a glorious expedition to the East and of its leaders’ fateful journeys home had been circulating in Greece for hundreds of years before The Iliad and The Odyssey were composed. Casual storytellers and semiprofessional minstrels passed these stories down through generations, with each artist developing and polishing the story as he told it. According to this theory, one poet, multiple poets working in collaboration, or perhaps even a series of poets handing down their work in succession finally turned these stories into written works, again with each adding his own touch and expanding or contracting certain episodes in the overall narrative to fit his taste.

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  A Christmas Carol

  Charles Dickens

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  A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens. It was first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation resulting from a supernatural visit by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain, a period when there was strong nostalgia for old Christmas traditions together with the introduction of new customs, such as Christmas trees and greeting cards. Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied, but are, principally, the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.

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  Casting the Runes

  M. R. James

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  'I am about to let loose on the world a plague which could destroy all mankind'
  Casting the Runes originally appeared in M.R. James' second published collection of ghost stories (1911) and has significantly influenced the horror genre, inspiring later writers and filmmakers with its emphasis on atmosphere and psychological tension.
  
  When academic Edward Dunning dismisses a manuscript by the sinister Mr. Karswell, he unwittingly becomes the target of a deadly curse. Almost immediately, he starts to experience strange and inexplicable phenomena, and as these eerie events escalate, Dunning must unravel the mystery of the runes before time runs out.
  Casting the Runes is a chilling tale of occult revenge that highlights the author's masterful ability to build tension through a distinctive blend of scholarly realism and creeping dread.
  Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a distinguished English medievalist scholar and academic, serving as Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and later Eton College. His ghost stories, widely regarded as the finest in the English language, have been widely influential on modern horror and many - including Oh, Whistle and I'll Come For You, My Lad,The Tractate Middoth, A View from a Hill and Casting the Runes (aka Night of the Demon) - have been adapted for the screen

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  The Club of Queer Trades

  G. K. Chesterton

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  Welcome to the whimsical world of "The Club of Queer Trades"! 
  In this collection of tales, G.K. Chesterton invites you to join a secret society unlike any other. Published in 1905, these stories weave a tapestry of mystery, humour, and imagination, showcasing Chesterton's unparalleled wit and flair for the unconventional. 
  At the heart of this collection lies the notion of "queer trades" – professions so unique and eccentric that they defy conventional classification. From an organisation which specialises in injecting adventure and fantasy into humdrum lives, to a company whose sole purpose is to detain people, each story introduces us to characters whose occupations challenge our perceptions and expectations. 
  Head Stories Audio presents " The Club of Queer Trades" by G.K Chesterton, narrated by Simon Hester. With original music.

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  Italian Prisoner 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 ITALIAN PRISONER: The rising of the Italian people from under their unutterable wrongs, and the tardy burst of day upon them after the long long night of oppression that has darkened their beautiful country, have naturally caused my mind to dwell often of late on my own small wanderings in Italy.

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