Publisher: Adelphi Press
This Side of Paradise follows life of Amory Blaine, an attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature and formulates his own philosophy of romantic egoism. The novel explores post war uncertainties, the theme of love, greed and status-seeking.
Elizabeth von Arnim, who is best known for her later novel The Enchanted April, married a Prussian aristocrat and, with their five children, lived in Nassenheide, Pomerania. Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a semi-autobiographical novel about the joy that the protagonist finds in the delights of her Pomeranian garden, which provides relief from the stifling environment of her household. The novel was originally published anonymously because von Arnim feared that her husband, whom she satirised in the book, would disapprove.Each season of the year is wittily recorded, bringing new events and visitors, conveyed through von Arnim’s idiosyncratic perspective, while the ‘kingdom of heaven’ of the garden provides a calm place where the author finds solace.Show book
The Book of Jona is about Jonah who rejects an employment offer by God and boards a ship away from Israel to escape God. God is not taking no for an offer, and causes a storm which flushes Jona down into the ocean where a whale swallows him. Miraculously Jona survives and agrees to carry out Gods mission. To go to the large city on Nineveh and tell them to improve their behaviour so God doesn't have to murder them all. Jona's mission succeeds and the city is saved. In a great plot twist that surprises both the reader and God, Jona is upset as he wanted God to destroy Nineveh. Jona asks God to kill him, but God refrains from doing so.Show book
A short thriller and a comic crime novel by the author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explore murderous greed in nineteenth-century Scotland.The Wrong Box: Two elderly brothers, Joseph and Masterman, are the last surviving members of an investment agreement known as a tontine. All their two nephews have to do to inherit everything is make sure Joseph outlives Masterman. But that’s easier said than done. Robert Louis Stevenson cowrote this comic crime novel with his stepson Lloyd Osbourn.The Body Snatcher: Inspired by the notorious Burke and Hare murders, this chilling short story tells the tale of two medical students in charge of receiving human cadavers for dissection in their anatomy class. When one of them begins to suspect murder is afoot, the other starts acting increasingly suspicious—until both find themselves in a terrifying predicament.Show book
Calamity strikes when the precious gift of a white elephant from the King of Siam to the Queen of England is stolen in America. But it is the hilarious antics of the detectives trying to track down the beast which occupies us. As the rampaging elephant heads east, or maybe west, or possibly north or south, it leaves a trail of death and destruction. But it seems that not even the finest detectives in the land and offers of ever greater rewards can pinpoint the animal's whereabouts. Until finally it turns up in the least likely place of all...Show book
Join Alice as she goes down into the mysterious rabbit hole and then enters a land of wonder and curiosity. This all-time classic tale by Lewis Carroll as told by Catherine O’Hara will simply delight and enchant every listener.Show book
Ozma of Oz was the third book of L. Frank Baum's Oz series. It was the first in which Baum was clearly intending a series of Oz books.It is the first Oz book where the majority of the action takes place outside of the Land of Oz. Only the final two chapters take place in Oz itself. This reflects a subtle change in theme: in the first book, Oz is the dangerous land through which Dorothy must win her way back to Kansas; in the third, Oz is the end and aim of the book. Dorothy's desire to return home is not as desperate as in the first book, and it is her uncle's need for her rather than hers for him that makes her return.Show book
