Other books that might interest you

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  Quicksand

  Nella Larsen

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  Nella Larsen's "Quicksand" paints a poignant portrait of Helga Crane, a young woman grappling with her mixed racial heritage in the 1920s. Caught between societal expectations and her yearning for identity, Helga navigates different settings – the segregated South, bustling Harlem, and even Denmark – searching for a place to belong. Yet, societal constraints and her own internal struggles leave her feeling trapped, like sinking in quicksand. Through Helga's journey, Larsen explores themes of race, class, and the search for self in a world fraught with prejudice and limited options.

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  Around the World in Eighty Days...

  Jules Verne

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  A twenty-thousand pound wager. A relentlessly ticking clock. And a frantic chase across continents that will define the very meaning of adventure. 
  It is London, 1872. The enigmatic and meticulously punctual Phileas Fogg shocks the distinguished members of the Reform Club with a seemingly impossible declaration: he can circumnavigate the globe in a mere eighty days. Risking his entire fortune, Fogg instantly departs with his newly hired, fiercely loyal French valet, Jean Passepartout. But their journey is anything but simple. Hunted by the relentless Detective Fix, who mistakenly believes Fogg is a fleeing bank robber, the duo must navigate tumultuous seas, treacherous jungles, and sabotage at every turn. From the bustling ports of Suez and Bombay to perilous elephant rides through dense Indian forests, every second counts in this desperate, high-stakes sprint around the planet. 
  Why You Will Love This: A true masterpiece of Adventure Fiction, this fast-paced classic delivers a gripping blend of ticking-clock tension, exotic world-building, and brilliant ingenuity. Listeners who crave sweeping historical sagas, thrilling global escapes, and unforgettable character dynamics will be utterly captivated by this iconic race against time. 
  About the Author: Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a pioneering French novelist whose visionary works laid the foundations for science fiction and modern adventure writing. Celebrated for his boundless imagination and meticulous geographic detail, Verne's enduring legacy continues to thrill readers worldwide.

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  Big Red - A Novel Starring Rita...

  Jerome Charyn

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  Since he first appeared on the American literary scene, Jerome Charyn has dazzled readers with his "blunt, brilliantly crafted prose" (Washington Post). Yet Charyn, a beloved comedic novelist, also possesses an extraordinary knowledge of Golden Age Hollywood, having taught film history both in the United States and France. 
   
   
   
  With Big Red, Charyn reimagines the life of one of America's most enduring icons, "Gilda" herself, Rita Hayworth, whose fiery red tresses and hypnotic dancing graced the silver screen over sixty times in her nearly forty-year career. The quintessential movie star of the 1940s, Hayworth has long been objectified as a sex symbol, pin-up girl, and so-called Love Goddess. Here Charyn, channeling the ghosts of a buried past, finally lifts the veils that have long enshrouded Hayworth, evoking her emotional complexity—her passions, her pain, and her inner turmoil. 
   
   
   
  Reanimating such classic films as Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, Big Red is a bittersweet paean to Hollywood's Golden Age, a tender yet honest portrait of a time before blockbusters and film franchises—one that promises to consume both Hollywood cinephiles and neophytes alike. Lauded for his "polymorphous imagination" (Jonathan Lethem), Charyn once again has created one of the most inventive novels in recent American literature.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Charles...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  This mid-century decade reveals a journey traversing continents and genres as authors explore and revel in the telling of tumultuous times of social upheaval as nations are divided by Civil War or expand with the brute force of Imperial Dreams.  Our writers are here to document and narrate more about this fascinating decade. 
   
  01 - The Top 10 - The 1860's - The Men - An Introduction 
  02 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 1 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  03 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 2 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
  04 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 
  05 - The Generous Gambler by Charles Baudelaire 
  06 - The Romance of Certain Old Clothes by Henry James 
  07 - Malachi's Cove by Anthony Trollope 
  08 - The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte 
  05 - The Astounding Adventure of Wheeler J Calamity, Related by Himslef by W S Gilbert 
  10 - The Spectre Bridegroom by William Hunt 
  11 - The 9.30 Up-Train by Sabine Baring-Gould 
  12 - The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale

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  Under Ground - Jem Flockhart Book 6

  E S Thomson

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  A plague is coming to London. Dreaded more than the Devil himself, cholera - the 'blue death' - spares no one. As fear grows across the city, Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain are called to the bedside of a dead man, murdered, and with his throat torn out, in the back room of a brothel. When an innocent man is taken to Newgate, Jem and Will have until execution day to save him. The search for the identity of the corpse, and the killer, takes them to the gates of Blackwater Hall, home to the secretive, and corrupt Mortmain family. With the approach of autumn, no one is safe, for the fog brings with it an evil and poisonous sickness - the perfect shroud for murder. 
  When family secrets are prised out into the open, people begin dying. But who, or what, is the cause? Searching for answers, Jem and Will are driven underground, to the passages and tunnels beneath the city's teeming streets. Here, their adversary proves to be more elusive, and more deadly, than ever. 
  'Jem Flockhart books are the best I've read in years' - KIRSTY LOGAN 
  'A marvel . . . thoroughly engrossing' - MARY PAULSON ELLIS

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  The Jam Maker

  Mary-Lou Stephens

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  Jam is sweet but it can also burn. 
   
  Tasmania, 1874. Growing up in the impoverished tenements along the Hobart Rivulet, Harriet Brown is used to doing whatever it takes to survive. Including, at just twelve years old, shearing off her hair and pretending to be a boy to secure a job as label-paster at the George Peacock and Sons jam factory. 
   
  Four years later, the deceit becomes too much to bear and Harriet risks everything on the chance at a future with her ambitious friend and workmate Henry Jones. But this decision forces her into a new deception: play the role of expert jam maker, or else be cast out onto the streets. 
   
  As the secrets and lies grow, Harriet is driven to more and more desperate choices. Choices that will end with a dangerous secret which, if discovered, could destroy not only her life but the lives of those she loves and protects. 
   
  Intertwined with the fascinating history of the Tasmanian jam industry and the striking historical figure Henry Jones, The Jam Maker is a tale of danger, deceit and the desperate measures one woman will take to succeed in love and life.

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