English Literature Great

Go on a worldwide adventure as you discover thirty tales told around the globe in this illustrated collection perfect for listening together! In West Africa you'll meet Anansi as he takes on the King's hot pepper soup, in Ireland you'll meet a girl who tries to outwit a leprechaun, in Australia you'll discover how the Lyrebird got its voice, and in North America you'll laugh out loud at the story of the ghost who needs a bandage. Bursting with magic, mischief, and merriment, this beautifully illustrated treasury of traditional tales will enchant and delight children everywhere.

Groundbreaking for the time in which they were written, the vampire stories of the 1800s have inspired many modern writers. Enjoy the thrilling stories that originated the genre of vampire fiction.

After surviving a brilliantly plotted murder attempt, the richest man in San Francisco is looking to hire the best protection money can buy. Enter Matt Jensen, who, for the princely sum of $5000, agrees to escort millionaire John Gillespie and his very fetching daughter on a railway journey from Frisco to Chicago. There’s just one catch: The world’s deadliest killers are coming along for the ride....

The short story is considered to be one of the most challenging genres because of the need for compact plotlines and the ability to conjure up atmosphere and character in a few sentences and to engage the reader instantly. This collection presents 66 of the greatest examples of the genre - many of them well known, some hidden literary treasures, all of them exquisite examples of the short story at its finest.

Lexington, Kentucky, 1859. After saving John Hunt Morgan from a puma attack, 15-year-old farm boy Will Crump joins Hunt’s militia, the Lexington Rifles. Morgan mentors Will and enrolls him in the local university, where he hopes to study law. As tensions rise between the North and South, Will is torn between his loyalty to Morgan and his love for his family. Will’s sister Albinia, friend of the Clay family, becomes increasingly aware of the plight of the slaves. Luther is one of the first slaves Albinia helps flee the South after his master cruelly abuses his mother and sister.

In this tale of high-spirited and terrifying adventure, set against the background of the West that Larry McMurtry has made his own, By Sorrow’s River is an epic in its own right with the return of the formidable, young Tasmin Berrybender. At the heart of this third volume of his Western saga...

Join Marian and Ana as they travel through a zoo full of magical, mythical creatures, where good training allows for better care of the animals as well as safety for the trainers and public education. Learn about positive reinforcement with some of the most fantastic beasts ever seen—and then try the same techniques with your pets at home!

Warm and delightfully festive, this charming and long forgotten holiday classic was inspired, in part, by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and other celebrations of old-time Yule. Splendid suppers, rural churches, cheerful dances, and hearty spirits imbue this short novel with the magic of the season.

Against the backdrop of a never-colonized North America, a broken Ojibwe detective embarks on an emotional and twisting journey toward solving two murders, rediscovering family, and finding himself.

A typical December for the Alexanders consists of gingerbread baking, movies, and looking at Christmas lights, but after their parents are called in to work, Ava, Nolan, and Charlotte are sent to stay with their most feared relative for a week—Great-Aunt Poppy. Have mom and dad gone mad? Of course, the children are terrified. Who wouldn't be? No one believes them when they say that Poppy—or Groppy as they call her—is a witch. If the haunted house isn't bad enough, there are thousands of crazy cats, chaotic and deadly spells, and even worse—frightening howls from the woods.

Gil Gamesh, the only pitcher who ever literally tried to kill the umpire. The ex-con first baseman, John Baal, “The Babe Ruth of the Big House,” who never hit a home run sober. If you’ve never heard of them—or of the homeless baseball team the Ruppert Mundys—it’s because of the Communist plot, and the capitalist scandal, that expunged the entire Patriot League from baseball memory.

A great new collection of classic short fiction, brilliantly read by a selection of narrators. Includes the following stories: "The Lightening-Rod Man" by Herman Melville, "One of the Missing" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Leopard Man's Story" by Jack London, "Tennessee's Partner" by Bret Harte, "The New Catacomb" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin, "My Watch" and "The Widow's Protest" by Mark Twain, "An Ideal Family" by Kate Mansfield, "A Painful Case" by James Joyce, "Small Fry" by Anton Chekhov, and more!

Mason survived the Devourer's lair, got a prestige class, then he and the other players fought off a murderous wave of orc raiders. But now his brother Blake is trapped in a deadly game in the orc's fortress, and for the first time in his life, Mason can't save him. Instead, the reluctant survivalist is left to manage Nassau, a growing group of civilians and players, and the increasing threats of "phase 2".

As the owner of Great Lakes Investigations, she's seen just about everything there is to see. Murder, embezzlement, infidelity; you name it, she's been there and got the investigative t-shirt.

After usurping control of the world’s most powerful military technology, General Chip Walden knows the endgame is near and tasks scientist Eric Hill with one final assignment. Helped by the love of his life, Jane Hunter, Hill is haunted by premonitions of a coming catastrophe as the technology he created takes on a life of its own. As Hill attempts to avert disaster, FBI Special Agent Bud Brown seeks revenge for the murder of his fellow agents by eco-terrorist Riona Finley. But what no one realizes is that forces are at work that have already decided humanity’s fate.

Paul is a recently demoted adjunct instructor of freshman comp, a divorced but doting Brooklyn father, and a self-desc­ribed “curmudgeonly crank” cataloging his resentment of the priorities of modern life in a book called The Luddite Manifesto. Outraged by the authoritarian creeps ruining the country, he is determined to better the future for his young daughter, one aggrieved lecture at a time.

When twenty-year-old college dropout Moriah Shaker runs into an empty chapel to escape an unexpected storm, she’s catapulted into another world Wizard of Oz style. Unfortunately, she winds up in the treacherous realm of Hakeldama, a fantastical but brutal land where justice is twisted and innocents pay for crimes committed by the elites—and she’s now marked for death.

"The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realized portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, his advisors Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, his wives Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the age, Holbein was a multifaceted genius: a humanist, satirist, and political propagandist, and a deft man whose work was rich in layers of symbolism and allusion.

A groundbreaking new look at an American icon, The Wizard of Oz. Finding Oz tells the remarkable tale behind one of the world’s most enduring and best loved stories. Offering profound new insights into the true origins and meaning of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 masterwork, it delves into the...