Other books that might interest you

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  Society A (Unabridged)

  Virginia Woolf

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  THIS IS HOW it all came about. Six or seven of us were sitting one day after tea. Some were gazing across the street into the windows of a milliner's shop where the light still shone brightly upon scarlet feathers and golden slippers. Others were idly occupied in building little towers of sugar upon the edge of the tea tray. After a time, so far as I can remember, we drew round the fire and began as usual to praise men­how strong, how noble, how brilliant, how courageous, how beautiful they were­how we envied those who by hook or by crook managed to get attached to one for life­when Poll, who had said nothing, burst into tears. Poll, I must tell you, has always been queer. For one thing her father was a strange man. He left her a fortune in his will, but on condition that she read all the books in the London Library. We comforted her as best we could; but we knew in our hearts how vain it was. For though we like her, Poll is no beauty; leaves her shoe laces untied; and must have been thinking, while we praised men, that not one of them would ever wish to marry her. At last she dried her tears. For some time we could make nothing of what she said. Strange enough it was in all conscience. She told us that, as we knew, she spent most of her time in the London Library, reading. She had begun, she said, with English literature on the top floor; and was steadily working her way down to the Times on the bottom. And now half, or perhaps only a quarter, way through a terrible thing had happened. She could read no more. Books were not what we thought them. "Books," she cried, rising to her feet and speaking with an intensity of desolation which I shall never forget, "are for the most part unutterably bad!"...

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  Eve's Diary - Twains thought...

  Mark Twain

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  Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on the 30th November 1835 and is far better known by his pen name of Mark Twain.  An American writer and humorist of the first order he is perhaps best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and its sequel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ which are often described with that mythic line The Great American Novel. 
   
  Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri which would later provide the backdrop to these great novels.  Apprenticed to a printer he also became a typesetter and then a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi.  Later, heading west with his brother Orion to make his fortune, he failed at gold mining and instead turned to journalism and thence his true calling as a writer of humorous stories where his wit and humor sparkled from every paragraph, his craft evident with every page and punctured target. 
   
  A staunch supporter of copyright protections this helped him keep much of the wealth his writing created, though much money was also lost on investments that he pursued in his love for science and technology as well as investing in his own inventions. 
    
  Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well.  He died the day after its subsequent return on 21st April 1910, at his house, Stormfield, located in Redding, Connecticut.   
   
  Once again Twain finds a new way to reveal more about humanity.  This time from the baby Eve and her diary   As the first woman she has a very unique perspective and, of course, the author’s way with words.

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  The Turn Of The Screw

  Henry James

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  “If a child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children—?” 
   
  “I don’t know what I don’t see, what I don’t fear!” 
   
  “Miles and Flora saw more — things terrible and unguessable.” 
   
  “For there again, against the glass ... was the hideous author of our woe — the white face of damnation.” 
   
  “I want my own sort!” 
  Henry James 
   
  The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James which first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly. In October 1898, it was collected in The Two Magics, published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London. 
  Henry James OM was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language.

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  Down and Out in Paris and London

  George Orwell

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  This book is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. 
  Its target audience was the middle and upper class members of society—those who were more likely to be well educated—and exposes the poverty existing in two prosperous cities: Paris and London.

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  The Black Tulip

  Alexandre Dumas

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  The tulip craze of seventeenth-century Holland has a dark side! Cornelius van Baerle, a wealthy but naive tulip grower, finds himself entangled in the deadly politics of his time. Cornelius's one desire is to grow the perfect black tulip. But after his godfather is murdered, he finds himself in prison, facing a death sentence. His jailer's lovely daughter holds the key to his survival and his chance to produce the precious black blossom. Yet he has one more enemy to contend with!

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  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  Edith Nesbit, Stacy Aumonier,...

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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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