Letters Literature

In the Wakemont family, it’s tradition to arrange a marriage before the ink is dry on your birth certificate. I was five hours old when my father promised me to the son of a man with “more money than God.” As we grew older, my future groom and I were encouraged to exchange “love letters” to get better acquainted—except the correspondence he sent read more like hate mail. Slade Delacorte hated the arrangement. But more than that, he hated me. He was moody, intense, arrogant, and darkly gorgeous. A villain—not a prince. The last man on earth I’d ever marry (if I had the choice).

Alice Fraser has a special place in her heart for the sweeping silliness of romance novels. The journey to reach a believable Happily Ever After can go via an unbelievable rollercoaster of intensity, through wildly entertaining twists and unlikely turns. To celebrate the unparalleled joy this genre can bring to listeners and defy its oft maligned status, Alice has created the author, D'Ancey LaGuarde, the ineffably mysterious, outrageously prolific, undisputed regent of the art of romance.

A meditative and inspiring diary of Derek Jarman's famous garden at Dungeness. In 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness. Facing an uncertain future, he nevertheless found solace in nature, growing all manner of plants. While some perished beneath wind and sea-spray, others flourished, creating brilliant, unexpected beauty in the wilderness. Modern Nature is both a diary of the garden and a meditation by Jarman on his own life.

George Horace Lorimer is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post, where he was credited with promoting and discovering authors like Jack London. Lorimer compiled his life advice into the fictional letters from John "Old Gorgon" Graham to his son Pierrepont. John Graham is a Chicago-based pork and finance baron. In the letters Pierrepont receives advice for his different stages of life. Old Gorgon's advice is packed throughout the book, easy to understand, and still rings true today.

Rose Rita wishes she could go to camp like her best friend, Lewis. She's sure that boys get to have all the fun - until Mrs. Zimmermann offers her an adventure of her own. Mrs. Zimmermann's cousin Oley has left her his farm as well as a ring that he thinks is magic. But when the two arrive at the deserted farm, the ring has mysteriously vanished. What power does it have? And will the person who took it use the ring to do evil?

When a young student at a military academy mails some of his poetry to the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, seeking advice, he initiates years of correspondence, during which Rilke expresses his most personal insights into the artist's relationship with life, the interior needs of the individual growing towards maturity, and how the impulse to artistic creation can and should be a source of abiding and developing happiness even for those who cannot become artists.

Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn't need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she's set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange - cut short by the soldier's evident interest in Betty - but Liz can't forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

Arrested in 1962 as South Africa's apartheid regime intensified its brutal campaign against political opponents, 44-year-old lawyer and African National Congress activist Nelson Mandela had no idea that he would spend the next 27 years in jail. During his 10,052 days of incarceration, Mandela wrote hundreds of letters to unyielding prison authorities, fellow activists, government officials, and, most memorably, his courageous wife, Winnie, and his five children. Now, 255 of these letters, a majority of which were previously unpublished, provide the most intimate portrait of Mandela since Long Walk to Freedom.

Letters from your favorite leading men, addressed to your deepest fantasies. This audio-only anthology features love letters from some of your favorite book boyfriends, speaking directly to you - performed by voices you already love. Sometimes the letters are sweet, sometimes they're emotional, sometimes they're just plain filthy. This sultry collection of audio-only shorts is written by best-selling contemporary romance writers and performed by audiobook stars.

Allison felt like she'd stepped into a fairy tale when she married widower Burke Caldwell. But after less than a year of marriage, he's become removed and distant. With everyone so devoted to the memory of Burke's first wife, Kate, how can Allison possibly compete? Then a harrowing car crash leaves Burke badly injured. It becomes achingly clear the woman Burke wants by his side is the wife he lost.... No longer able to dismiss the power Kate still holds, Allison can't resist reading a trove of hidden letters from Kate to Burke. What she discovers sets her mind reeling.

Henry couldn't get over the fact that he had purchased Jenny's home! It was all there in her diary, which he had just discovered the day before. How they had met in 1956 and instantly fell in love and the wonderful summer that followed, only to end when Jenny's family moved away. Although separated for 32 years, their love was sustained by an angelic power that had never waned.

Sensing his mother’s failing health, a struggling teenager pours out his worries in a letter and drops it through the mail slot of an abandoned show house. He’s surprised when a response arrives, promising good fortune for the price of just one name: someone he hates. He’d give anything for his mother. But the true cost may be more than he’s willing to pay.

Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring, and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.

Beneath the oldest willow in Willow Park, Eleanor discovers a secret letter buried by time—and with it, a love she thought was lost forever. At 68, Eleanor has made peace with solitude, until a friend’s gentle insistence leads her back to the park she once shared with her first love, Richard. What she finds beneath the roots is more than a forgotten note—it’s a bridge between past and present, regret and redemption.

The Complete Jane Austen Collection includes all six novels, and Austen's shorter works; Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sandition, and her complete Juvenilia. Jane Austen is famous for her six novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Her works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary as well as her acclaimed plots have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.

A classic fable from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, read by Johnny Morris. Have you ever wondered how and why the animals came to be as they are? In these magical tales, drawn from stories he heard as a child in India as well as on folk traditions he later collected all over the world, Rudyard Kipling gives some wonderfully imaginative explanations.

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter." Set in Puritan New England, this timeless classic delves into themes of sin, guilt, and redemption. The story follows Hester Prynne, a woman branded with a scarlet letter "A" for adultery, as she navigates the complexities of societal judgment and personal redemption. Hawthorne's exquisite prose and rich symbolism bring the characters to life, while exploring the human condition with profound insight.

Paul Celan (1920-70) is one of the best-known German poets of the Holocaust; many of his poems, admired for their spare, precise diction, deal directly with its stark themes. Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of post-World War II German literature’s most important novelists, poets, and playwrights.

Heading back to work the day after she returns from her European honeymoon, Delaney Nichols is excited to get back to the Cracked Spine. But as she disembarks the bus and hurries toward the shop, she and another woman collide, sending a stack of books the woman is carrying to the ground. Delaney's hapless victim's name is Mary, and she and Delaney can't help but notice that they bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. According to Mary, they both also look like the long-beheaded Mary Queen of Scots.

"Lorsque j'ai reçu votre première lettre, chère amie, je vous ai répondu immédiatement. Avoir de vos nouvelles plus de trente ans après m'a procuré une telle émotion que ma réaction ne pouvait être qu'un cri instantané. Votre deuxième lettre, que j'ai sous les yeux, je l'ai gardée longtemps avec moi, c'est seulement aujourd'hui que je tente de vous donner une réponse. La raison de ce retard, vous l'avez sans doute devinée, puisque votre missive contient une singulière requête : 'Parlez-moi de l'âme'..."