Outros livros que poderiam interessá-lo

• 

  The Velveteen Rabbit

  Margery Williams

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "Real isn't how you are made, it's a thing that happens to you."   A shy toy rabbit has dreams of becoming real, even as he learns that being real comes with wear, love, and sometimes pain, but as the wise Skin Horse says, "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt." Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) is a story of love, imagination and a little bit of nursery magic. First appearing in Harper's Bazaar in 1921 and published in book form the following year, this timeless classic continues to inspire readers with its touching reflections on childhood.

  Ver livro

• 

  How to Live to be 200 - From...

  Stephen leacock

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Stephen P H Butler Leacock FRSC was born on 30th December 1869 in Swanmore, near Southampton, England.  He was the third of eleven children. 
  The family emigrated to Canada in 1876, settling on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario.  There Leacock was home-schooled until, funded by his grandfather, he was enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto.  Academically he was very strong.  In 1887, at age 17, he became head boy and then proceeded on to the University of Toronto to study languages and literature.  Despite completing two years of study in only one, he was obliged to leave the university because his father, an alcoholic, had abandoned the family and finances could not be stretched to continue his attendance.  Leacock now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher with a regular income. 
  He worked at Upper Canada College from 1889 through 1899 and later resumed his studies part-time at the University of Toronto, graduating with a B A in 1891.  It was during this period that he was first published in The Varsity, a campus newspaper.  But his passion was now economics and political theory.  In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903. 
  Leacock had married Beatrix Hamilton in 1900 and 15 years later the couple had their only child, Stephen.  In time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son’s diminutive stature of only four feet.  
  Accepting a post at McGill University Leacock would remain there until he retired in 1936.  In 1906, he wrote ‘Elements of Political Science’, quickly adopted as a standard textbook for the next two decades and his most profitable book.  He also began public speaking and lecturing, and took a year's leave of absence in 1907 to speak throughout Canada on the subject of national unity.  
  Leacock had submitted humourous articles to the Toronto magazine Grip in 1894, and was soon published in other Canadian and US magazines.  In 1910, he printed privately a collection of these as ‘Literary Lapses’.  Acquired by the British publisher, John Lane, it was released in London and New York.   He was now a commercially successful writer.  There soon followed ‘Nonsense Novels’ (1911) and the sentimental favourite, ‘Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town’ (1912).  His ‘Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich’ (1914) is a darker collection that satirizes city life.  Collections of sketches continued to be published almost annually, filled with a mixture of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire. 
  In later life, he wrote on the art of humour writing and published biographies on Twain and Dickens.  Together with continued speaking tours he also added to his non-fiction with many well-regarded and award-winning volumes on Canada. 
  Politically Leacock was a social conservative and a partisan Conservative.  He opposed women’s right to vote and had a varied record on non-English immigration.  He was a champion of Empire but an advocate of social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views towards blacks and Indigenous peoples. 
  Leacock has for some time been forgotten as an economist, but it’s often quoted that in 1911 more people had heard of him than had heard of Canada.  For the decade after 1915 Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world. 
  Stephen Leacock died on 28th March 1944 of throat cancer in Toronto, Canada.  He was 74.  He was buried in the St George the Martyr Churchyard, Sutton, Ontario.

  Ver livro

• 

  The Legacy of Cain

  Wilkie Collins

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Legacy of Cain is a thought-provoking and emotionally charged novel by Wilkie Collins that confronts one of the most controversial questions of the Victorian age: is human behavior shaped by heredity or by upbringing? Blending social critique with psychological depth, Collins crafts a compelling narrative that challenges conventional ideas of morality, justice, and personal responsibility.
  
  The story begins with a crime that casts a long shadow over the lives of those connected to it. Two young women—raised in starkly different environments—become the focus of an unsettling moral experiment, as their futures are shaped by secrets surrounding birth, inheritance, and reputation. As their lives unfold, love, fear, and suspicion intertwine, forcing those around them to confront uncomfortable truths about prejudice and judgment.
  
  Collins builds suspense not through sensational action alone, but through intense psychological tension and ethical debate. His characters are deeply human—flawed, compassionate, and often conflicted—making their struggles resonate long after the final page. Themes of crime and punishment, nature versus nurture, and the power of social conditioning run throughout the novel, giving it both narrative drive and philosophical weight.
  
  Written with Collins's trademark clarity and emotional intelligence, The Legacy of Cain stands apart from traditional mystery novels by focusing on consequences rather than detection. It is a bold and unsettling work that questions whether society creates criminals—or merely condemns them.
  
  A striking blend of classic fiction and moral inquiry, The Legacy of Cain is essential reading for fans of Victorian literature, psychological drama, and socially conscious storytelling.

  Ver livro

• 

  Dracula – Chapter 7: Cutting...

  Bram Stoker

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In this chapter, the narrative leaves personal journals behind and shifts into a gripping newspaper account — a dramatic report of a violent storm at sea and the arrival of a ghostly ship. The Russian vessel Demeter crashes onto the Whitby shore with no crew left aboard, its captain found dead and lashed to the wheel. A huge dog-like creature leaps from the wreck and disappears into the night, leaving only fear and speculation behind. 
  Through eyewitness testimony and sensational reporting, we witness the creeping intrusion of the supernatural into everyday Victorian life. Mina and Lucy remain unaware of the dark presence now stalking their peaceful seaside town, while the shadow of Dracula spreads farther into England with every passing moment. 
  This is Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, narrated by Amazon bestselling horror author Jonathan Dunne — part of a complete chapter-by-chapter audiobook series that brings the Gothic classic to life with haunting atmosphere, rich characterization, and cinematic storytelling. 
  Experience the mystery of the doomed ship, the storm-lashed terror, and the sinister arrival that marks the beginning of England’s nightmare. 
  📖 Public domain text. Original publication: 1897.

  Ver livro

• 

  H2 etc - From their pens to your...

  A J lan

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Leslie Harrison Lambert was born on 11th November 1883 in Nottingham.  
  After attending Rugby School he trained to be a surveyor. One of his passions was magic and such was his prowess that he joined The Magic Circle, and performed at society events. 
  By the beginning of World War I he was an amateur radio ham and volunteered to work at a coastguard station in Norfolk to intercept German radio transmissions. By November 1914 he was with the Admiralty at Naval Intelligence Room 40.  By 1919 this had become part of the new Government Code and Cypher School.  He was still there as World War II erupted across Europe and with many of his colleagues he transferred to Bletchley Park.  There, in Hut 8, he was quoted as saying that "in contrast to his outrageously unconventional stories" that he led his life on "a monotonously regular timetable". 
  Life outside the Intelligence services was very different.  He married but the couple had no children.  They lived at Holland Park with a second home at Potter Heigham for sailing on the Norfolk Broads.  Other interests were as an amateur radio operator, using the call sign G2ST, and an authority on food and wine. 
  He contacted the BBC to suggest he might tell one of his own short stories on the radio.  Thus was born A J Alan, and his broadcast of ‘My Adventure in Jermyn Street’, on New Year’s Eve, 1924.  It was an immediate success and although he only broadcast a handful of times a year he was one of the most popular radio personalities of the time.  He spent weeks working on each short story, honing his conversational style, making his stories seem like anecdotes that had peculiarly happened to him.  
  A live broadcast was, in fact, a performance.  He used cards to avoid any rustling noises and kept a candle lit in case the lights failed.  His attire was a dinner jacket with eye glass, and a slim black briefcase.  
  Many of his stories were subsequently printed in newspapers and magazines. 
  By 1937 his health had deteriorated and he reduced his radio work making his last broadcast on 21st March 1940.  
  A J Alan died on 13th December 1941.

  Ver livro

• 

  The Philistine - A touching...

  E M Delafield

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture, and more commonly known as E M Delafield, was born in Steyning, Sussex on 9th June 1890.   
   
  Raised in the fading years of the Victorian era with its Empire and strict moral codes Delafield, not yet married at twenty-one, joined a French religious order, in Belgium, but soon decided that this was a totally wrong choice for her.   
   
  Her next challenge was her work during the horror of the First World War.  Delafield decided to take up a position as a nurse in a Voluntary Aid Detachment in Exeter.  It was whilst here that she managed to write her first novel, ‘Zella Sees Herself’.   
   
  With the end of the war new opportunities were sought and she now took up a position for the South-West Region of the Ministry of National Service in Bristol.  With it came enough time to write two more novels: ‘The War Workers’ (1918) and ‘The Pelicans’ (1918).   
   
  On 17th July 1919, she married Colonel Arthur Paul Dashwood, OBE, an engineer responsible for building the massive docks at Hong Kong Harbour.  The marriage produced two children; Lionel and Rosamund.  That same year her fourth novel, ‘Consequences’, was published.   
   
  The couple spent their early years in Malaya but returned to England to live in Croyle, an old house in Kentisbeare, Devon.  Delafield continued to collect responsibilities and organise whatever she could.  At the initial meeting of the Kentisbeare Women's Institute, Delafield was unanimously elected president, and also became a Justice of the Peace, raised the children and, of course, continued to write her best-selling novels.   
   
  Her greatest work is undoubtedly the largely autobiographical ‘Diary of a Provincial Lady’, which is a simply structured journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman, living mostly in a Devon village of the 1930s.  It spawned several best-selling sequels.  Her works also includes stage and radio plays, film scripts and short stories.  
   
  After the death of her son in 1940, her health began to markedly decline.    
   
  E M Delafield died on 2nd December 1943 after collapsing whilst giving a lecture in Oxford.  She was 53.

  Ver livro