Other books that might interest you

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  The Wizard of Oz

  L. Frank Baum

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  ‘“Come along, Toto,” she said. “We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.”’ 
  Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home. 
  With her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy experiences an adventure full of friendship, magic and danger. A much-loved children’s classic, The Wizard of Oz continues to delight readers young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and silver shoes.

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  The Philistine - A touching...

  E M Delafield

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  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.

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  The Double

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  First published in 1846, The Double: A Petersburg Poem marks one of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s earliest and most daring explorations of the human psyche. Often overshadowed by his later masterpieces, The Double is nevertheless a crucial work in Dostoevsky’s literary evolution — a precursor to the psychological complexity and existential themes that would define Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and Notes from Underground. 
  The novella tells the story of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a low-ranking civil servant whose already fragile identity begins to unravel when he encounters his exact double — a man who is identical in appearance but possesses all the social charm and confidence Golyadkin lacks. What follows is a haunting descent into paranoia, self-alienation, and mental disintegration, all set against the bureaucratic backdrop of 19th-century St. Petersburg.

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  Crime and Punishment - The...

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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  Crime and Punishment is the second of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia, and is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing. The novel focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov, in an attempt to defend his actions, argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime while ridding the world of a vermin, and to test a theory of his that some people are naturally superior and have the right to commit crimes if it is in pursuit of a higher purpose. 

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  Sense and Sensibility

  Jane Austen

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  "The more I know of this world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!" 
  The two oldest Dashwood sisters approach romance differently. One impulsively jumps into love while the other is far more prudent. When tragedy strikes they find themselves searching for suitable husbands. Elinor feels ill-equipped to compete with the self-centred, fortune-driven society she finds herself in, whilst Marianne's unshakeable belief in her own feelings makes her susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men.  
  Can they find true love?  
  Jane Austen's first published book was Sense and Sensibility, and her tale of love in late 18th-century England has captivated audiences since it was published. Rich in irony, wit, and romance, Austen is known for her critique of claustrophobic society and the role of women within it.

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  Vision of Hell The - The Divine...

  Dante Alighieri

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  Dante's Inferno by Dante Alighieri. The first part of Dante's Divine Comedy , the "Inferno" (or "Hell") begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, "halfway along our life's path". Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical life expectancy of 70, lost in a dark wood, assailed by beasts he cannot evade, and unable to find the straight way to salvation. Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a deep place where the sun is silent, Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Inferno is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice.

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