Great Literature

The ultimate collection of great short stories by the best Russian classic authors. 1. "Her Lover" by Maxim Gorky 2. "The Empty Drum" by Count Leo Tolstoy 3. "The Hoop" by Fedor Sologub 4. "The District Doctor" by Ivan Turgenev 5. "The White Dog" by Fedor Sologub 6. "The Cloak" by Nikolai Gogol 7. "A Soothing Dream" by Fedor Sologub 8. "The Christmas Tree and the Wedding" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 9. "A Work of Art" by Anton Chekhov 10. "Children Wiser Than Their Fathers" by Count Leo Tolstoy

Oliver needs a new computer because nobody wants to play with him as every move and save takes way too long. To raise money, he has the brilliant idea to write another book and sell it at school. So, he picks a topic he thinks lots of kids will like—animals. But when he starts to think about it, he wonders where do animals come from, and that leads him to wonder where life comes from and how animals evolve. Subjects range from the origins of life (primordial soup and life in early Earth—mostly scum/bacteria) to small organisms and fish to dinosaurs, of course!

Here are some of the finest narrative poems in the English language, dating from an age of rich inspiration.

From the internationally best-selling author of The History of Love comes this stunning novel. Great House follows the multiple owners of one writing desk and how the desk shapes their lives. A young novelist inherited the desk from a poet taken by Pinochet’s police. Then the desk is stolen from her by the poet’s supposed daughter. In its drawers, another man discovers a long-kept secret about his wife....

Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece and Egypt to India.After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. his only direct heirs were two unborn sons and a simpleton half-brother. Every long-simmering faction exploded into the vacuum of power. Wives, distant relatives and generals all vied for the loyalty of the increasingly undisciplined Macedonian army. Most failed and were killed in the attempt.

In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge schoolmate—a handsome, aristocratic young poet named Cecil Valance—to his family’s modest home outside London for the weekend. George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sixteen-year-old sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him and the stories he tells about Corley Court, the country estate he is heir to.

The award-winning writer, whose stories have appeared in four consecutive editions of The Best American Short Stories, returns with a highly anticipated collection. A reality show producer manipulates two contestants into falling in love, even as her own relationship falls apart. Just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a young boy has a revelation about his father’s past. When the prized elephant of a traveling circus keels over dead, the small-town minister tasked with burying its remains comes to question his own faith.

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".

In this final installment of Ted Dekker's groundbreaking Circle Trilogy, Thomas Hunter has only days to survive two separate realms of danger, deceit, and destruction. The fate of both worlds hinges on his unique ability to shift realities through his dreams.

America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, median wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess?

The true horror of the Great Silence has been revealed. As nation after nation succumbs to the mind-plague and Sova scrambles to enlist help from across the globe, Ambassador Renata Rainer has been given a simple task: save the world. While she travels to the Principality of Casimir to enlist the help of the Empire’s oldest enemy, Lieutenant Peter Kleist returns to the haunted forests of the New East to search for ancient answers—and finally confront the terrible fate that awaits him.

Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are going down under. Off the coast of Australia, they dive in to explore the Great Barrier Reef. With the help of their conservationist guide, Kayla, they learn about ways to help rebuild the damaged reef. But coral reefs take a long time to take shape. Can the Aldens find ways to help the animals that need help now?

Many of Shakespeare's greatest and best-loved speeches are brought together in this superb collection, performed by outstanding artists who bring to vivid life words which are an integral part of our language, our culture and our everyday lives.

This mesmerizing, poetic novel won the 2003 National Book Award for fiction and has earned universal acclaim. Set against the beautiful but tragic landscape of post-World War II Asia, The Great Fire tells a sweeping tale of the search for new beginnings in a world ravaged by tragedy.

The Great Bobbert has lost his weasel again. Where can that pesky Popgoes be? A story from the world of P.A.W.S., written by Debbie Manber Kupfer.

The Great Gatsby, a work that seriously examines the theme of aspiration in an American setting, defines the classic American novel. The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with a socialite, and by parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

Balto has a quiet life as a sled dog - until tragedy strikes. Dozens of children in Nome become sick with diphtheria. Without antitoxin serum, they will perish - and the closest supply is 650 miles away! The only way to get the serum to Nome is by sled, but can the dogs deliver it in time? Heading bravely into a brutal blizzard, Balto leads the race for life.

It is 1929. The world is about to change. Finn Evans is a successful Boston banker harboring a secret that threatens to unravel his carefully constructed idyllic life. Isabelle Lazar, a young Ukrainian farmer, endures unspeakable hardships in her homeland as she fights to save her family from the Soviet Union's iron grip. Barely escaping the Terror-Famine, she washes up alone on America's distant shores. Fate throws Finn and Isabelle together just as the stock market crash causes a devastating collapse of his world.

1921. Survivors of the Great War are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. Francis is presumed to have been killed in action, but Edie believes he might still be alive. Harry, Francis’s brother, was there the day Francis was wounded. He was certain it was a fatal wound, but Harry begins questioning his memory of what happened. Hired by grieving families, Harry returns to the Western Front to photograph gravesites. He searches for evidence of Francis.

In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.