Other books that might interest you

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  Swann's Way

  Marcel Proust

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  Swann’s Way forms the first part of Marcel Proust’s magnificent autobiographical cycle Remembrance of Things Past. Here, Proust’s vision, psychological understanding and vivid powers of description combine to create one of the most poetic and magical works in all literature. For lovers of the original text there are new delights to be found in this audiobook version, while those discovering the work for the first time may be surprised to find it so accessible.

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  The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Originally published in the Strand Magazine between December 1894 and September 1903. The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle, the celebrated author of Sherlock Holmes and the Lost, follows the adventures of Brigadier Etienne Gerard, a courageous soldier in the service of Napoleon. From a sleepy cafe in Paris, he whiles away the hours recounting his glories in the service of France.  
  From his victory over the Count of the Castle of Gloom, the mysterious affair of the Ajaccio Brothers and his daring escape from Dartmoor Prison to his brush with the dastardly Marshal Millefleurs and his successful conveying of the Emperors own despatches through the enemy held towns of Soison and Senlis. Gerard never wavers in his dedication to the Emperor, or his convictions that he is the finest soldier in all of france, and therefore, the world.  
  Adapted into several films and radio dramas across the years, George McDonald Fraser once cited Brigadier Gerard as a major inspiration for his own fictional comedic adventurer Harry Flashman.  
  Narrated by Michael Ward.

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  Desiree's Baby

  Kate Chopin

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  Desiree's Baby BY Kate Chopin is about the daughter of Monsieur and Madame Valmondé, who are wealthy French Creoles in antebellum Louisiana. Abandoned as a baby, Desiree was found by Monsieur Valmondé lying in the shadow of a stone pillar near the Valmondé gateway. She is courted by the son of another wealthy, well-known and respected French Creole family, Armand. They marry and have a child. People who see the baby have the sense it is different. Eventually they realize that the baby's skin is the same color as a quadroon (one-quarter African)—the baby has African ancestry. At the time of the story, this would have been considered a problem for a person believed to be white.

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  Little Women (Unabridged)

  Louisa May Alcott

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  Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) which was originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. Alcott wrote the book over several months at the request of her publisher. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy - and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. It is loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters.

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  The Valley of Fear

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Valley of Fear is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is loosely based on the Molly Maguires and Pinkerton agent James McParland. The story was first published in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. The novel starts with Sherlock Holmes receiving a cipher message from Fred Porlock, a pseudonymous agent of Professor Moriarty. After Porlock sends the message, however, he changes his mind for fear of Moriarty's discovering that he is a traitor. He decides not to send the key to the cipher, but he sends Holmes a note telling of this decision. From the cipher message and the second note, Holmes is able to deduce that it is a book cipher and that the book used for the encryption is a common book, large (with at least 534 pages), printed in two columns per page, and standardised. An almanac fits these conditions exactly. Holmes tries the latest edition of Whitaker's Almanac, which he had only received a few days earlier, and fails; he then tries the previous edition. With this almanac, Holmes is able to decipher the message as a warning that "some devilry is intended against one "Douglas", a country gentleman residing at Birlstone House.Unlike many of the other Holmes novels, mostly linear entertainments, Doyle crafted The Valley of Fear as "two parts and a coda and carefully stage managed the elements of fear and terror".Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World.

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  Cheerful Weather for the Wedding

  Julia Strachey

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  Young bride-to-be Dolly must overcome several obstacles in this hilarious, sardonic novella by Julia Strachey set in 1930s England. Following an excellent film adaptation in 2012, this audio edition of Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is read by internationally acclaimed actress Miriam Margoyles. Dolly is twenty-three and about to marry the Honourable Owen Bigham. Her wedding day is filled with hasty and chaotic preparations for the entire household. Matters are complicated further by Dolly swigging from a bottle of Jamaica rum, which she later transfers into the folds of her white dress. Will she arrive at her own wedding on time, or will the fumbling advances of Joseph, the man she really loves, get in the way? Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This edition was first published in 1932 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press. It includes a preface by the late author Frances Partridge, a longtime friend of Strachey’s who wrote her biography, Julia, A Portrait of Julia Strachey (1983).‘A very cute, clever, indeed rather remarkable acidulated story . . . I think it is astonishingly good – complete and sharp and individual’ – Virginia Woolf

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