English Literature Great

Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny chart a course for China to return the Reddimus Society's fourth artifact! Along the way they meet old friends and make new ones, but a thief threatens to ruin their trip. Then, after an unexpected stop in Thailand, they meet a suspicious man claiming to work for the Reddimus Society. The Aldens wonder if someone close to them is working for the other side. Who can the Boxcar Children trust to help them?

The Complete Charles Dickens Collection: Part Two contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works from 1844 to 1865. Dickens wrote most of his most influential and beloved novels during these years - introducing us to characters such as Pip, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Esther Summerson, and many more who have lived long in the memory for generations. Also included here are a selection of his essays, travelogues, letters, and a short biography of Dickens by his daughter, Mamie.

James Baldwin gives an electrifying reading about a young gay American in Paris recalling a dramatic and transforming incident from his boyhood, as he struggles to accept his sexual identity.

Elizabeth Bankroft is a thoroughly modern teenager in the Edwardian age. She spends part of the year with her parents in British India and part of the year with her grandparents in England. When her parents decide to send her to a college, Elizabeth resents the idea of what she calls a “finishing school” in India. At the Viceroy’s College in the foothills of the Himalayas, “finishing” will take on a whole new meaning. The college is, in fact, the British India's school for spies.

With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Caravaggio to Edward Hopper, Secret Lives of Great Artists recounts the seamy, steamy, and gritty history behind the great masters of international art. You'll learn that Michelangelo's body odor was so bad, his assistants couldn't stand working for him; that Vincent van Gogh sometimes ate paint directly from the tube; and Georgia O'Keeffe loved to paint in the nude. This is one art history lesson you'll never forget!

Julia Cummings has long been acquainted with loss - her mother, her brother, her sister, her friend, all gone too soon. But the loss that pushed her grief to the limit as a young girl was that of her best friend, Lucas Jonquil, who abandoned her without looking back. Now, eight years later, Lucas has returned to Lampton Park, and Julia has steeled herself - she will never forgive the man who broke her heart.

For two decades he served...and never questioned the orders. Would one act of mercy cost him? Alistair believed in the work. It was important to stop the rebels for the good of the Commonwealth. Over his career he’d become the greatest Titan the Corp had ever seen. It was a simple mission. Then the rebels said one thing...and Alistair’s life changed forever.

"The Great Gatsby" is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

In this set of exciting, dramatized audio stories, you'll enjoy hearing the compelling adventures of Thomas Jefferson, the heroism of Polish social worker Irena Sendler during the Nazi occupation of her country in WWII, the perseverance of the civilian passengers of the sunken ship Zamzam, the compassion of pioneering woman doctor Helena Wink in Dakota territory, and the lifesaving inventions of Garrett Morgan. Enjoy these and other heart-warming stories of courage and character.

Now a major motion picture directed by Stephen Frears ( The Queen, High Fidelity) and starring Judi Dench ( Skyfall, Notes on a Scandal) and Steve Coogan ( The Trip, Hamlet 2): the heartbreaking true story of an Irishwoman and the secret she kept for 50 years. When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a "fallen woman". Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him.

Hennie Comfort is 86 and has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was Colorado. Nit Spindle is just 17 and newly married. She and her husband have just moved to the high country in search of work. It's 1936 and the depression has ravaged the country and Nit and her husband have suffered greatly. Hennie notices the young woman loitering near the old sign outside of her house that promises "Prayers For Sale".

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.

It is early 1846, and many Saints, including most of the Steeds, begin the difficult journey across Iowa as they move toward a new and distant home in the Rocky Mountains. Among them is the volatile Joshua Steed, who, intent on accompanying his now widowed mother, has temporarily left his wife and children behind in Nauvoo. With trouble brewing in that dying city, will they be in danger? And what is the secret that Joshua feels compelled to keep hidden from the other Steeds?

With over one million copies sold, The Great American Bathroom Book is the perfect companion for the burgeoning intellect on the go. Whether you're an avid reader in need of a refresher course or a novice who wouldn't know his Longfellow from his Dickens, The Great American Bathroom Book: Volume 1 provides nearly 120 comprehensive summaries and thought-provoking commentaries on the literary world's finest classics.

The second volume of the best-selling Great American Bathroom Book series delivers a comprehensive crash course in more than 170 iconic literary masterpieces. You'll be well on your way to becoming the most popular trivia partner not named Ken Jennings after you're done devouring The Great American Bathroom Book: Volume 2!

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.

In January 1879, three columns of British soldiers under the command of Lord Chelmsford, commenced the invasion of the Zulu Kingdom. The southern No. 1 Column led by Colonel Charles Pearson advances on the old mission station at Eshowe. Their intent is to establish a fort and supply depot from which to support the centre No. 3 Column’s advance on the Zulu royal kraal at Ulundi. As the vast column of British soldiers and their African allies slogs its way across the coastal hills, the incessant rain and threat of typhoid promise to be as fearful a nemesis as the lurking armies of Zulu warriors.

In the snowy, magical world of the North Pole, there lived a kind little elf named Beth who was always ready to help. She loved Christmas more than anything and worked hard in her cozy toy workshop, full of lights, ribbons, and joy. But just before Christmas, Santa and Mrs. Claus came to Beth with a big problem: Astar, the youngest reindeer, had run away. He was too scared to fly—and without him, Santa’s sleigh wouldn’t have enough reindeer to fly around the world.

This bundle includes The Great Detective Race, The Ghost at the Drive-In Movie, and The Mystery of the Traveling Tomatoes.

In the vein of Such a Fun Age, a whip-smart, compulsively readable novel about two upper-class stay-at-home mothers—one white, one Black—living in a ""perfect"" suburb that explores motherhood, friendship, and the true meaning of sisterhood amidst the backdrop of America’s all-too-familiar...