Book picks similar to
The Girl with Red Hair by Christine Lindop
oxford-bookworms
english
graded-readers
bookworms
Erewhon
Samuel Butler - 1872
Butler wrote a sequel to the novel, Erewhon Revisited.
Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year
Demi Lovato - 2012
Those commitments are the bedrock of her recovery and her work helping other young people dealing with the issues she lives with every single day. Demi is a platinum-selling recording artist whose latest album—DEMI—is already a smash hit. She’s about to embark on her second season as a judge on X-Factor, and just launched The Lovato Treatment Scholarship Program. And she is an outspoken advocate for young people everywhere. Demi is also a young woman finding her way in the world. She has dealt deftly with her struggles in the face of public scrutiny, and she has always relied, not just on friends and family, but daily affirmations of her self-worth and value. Affirmations that steady her days and strengthen her resolve. Those affirmations have grown into STAYING STRONG, a powerful 365-day collection of Demi’s most powerful, honest, and hopeful insights. Each day will provide the readers with a quote, a personal reflection and a goal. These are Demi’s words. Words she lives by and shares with the people she loves and total strangers alike. They are a powerful testament to a young woman standing up and fighting back.
Killer in the Rain
Raymond Chandler - 1964
Here then, from the well-thumbed pages of 'Black Mask' and 'Dime Detective Magazine', are eight of his finest stories including 'The Man Who Liked Dogs', 'The Lady in the Lake' and 'Bay City Blues'. Sharper than a hoodlum's switchblade, more exciting than an unexpected red-head and stronger than a double shot of whisky, they are packed full of the punchy poetry and laconic wit that makes Chandler the undisputed master of his genre.'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony BurgessBest-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business.
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Frances Hodgson Burnett - 1886
Cedric Errol is a generous, kind, and exemplary middle-class American boy who is suddenly found to be the heir of the Earl of Dorincourt. Saying loving goodbyes to his working-class friends, Cedric goes to England together with his mother to embrace his new fortune. His grandfather, the old earl, is a bitter old man ridden with gout and a foul temper, trusting no one. However the angelic boy elicits a profound transformation in the grandfather, which not only benefits the castle household but the whole populace of the earldom. If only the old man's heart would soften toward Cedric's estranged mother, the family would be healed at last. And when another potential heir to the earldom makes a claim, it seems that everything is lost.... But all things are possible through a child's innocent trust, true friendship, and unconditional love.
Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know
Hamilton Wright Mabie - 1905
It is, in its earliest form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart.Classics included in this volume include:One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes,The Magic Mirror,The Enchanted Stag,Hansel and Grethel,The Story of Aladdin,This Story of Ali Baba,The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor,The White Cat,The Golden Goose,The Twelve Brothers,The Fair One With the Golden Locks,Tom Thumb,Blue Beard,Cinderella,Puss In Boots,The Sleeping Beauty In the Wood,Jack and The Bean-Stalk
Lady Anna
Anthony Trollope - 1874
It is a tightly constructed and passionate study of enforced marriage in the world of Radical politics and social inequality. "Lady Anna" records the lifelong attempt of Countess Lovel to justify her claim to her title, and her daughter Anna's legitimacy, after her husband announces that he already has a wife. Anna falls in love with the journeyman tailor and young Radical Daniel Thwaite, but her mother wishes her to marry her cousin, heir to her father's title. Can Anna be allowed - can she allow herself - to change her mind? Though the conclusion is a foregone one, Trollope's ambivalence on the question is profound, and the novel both intense and powerful.Excerpt from Lady Anna:Of course She told her father. Of course she invoked every Murray in and out of Scotland. Of course there were many threats. A duel was fought up near London, in which Lord Lovel consented to be shot at twice, - declaring that after that he did not think that the circumstances of the case required that he Should be shot at any more. In the midst of this a daughter was born to her and her father died, - during which time She was still allowed to live at Lovel Grange. But what was it expedient that she should do? He declared that he had a former wife when he married her, and that therefore she was not and could not be his wife. Should she institute a prosecution against him for bigamy, thereby acknowledging that She was herself no wife and that her Child was illegitimate? From such evidence as she could get, She believed that the Italian woman whom the earl in former years had married had died before her own marriage. The earl declared that the countess, the real countess, had not paid her debt to nature, till some months after the little ceremony which had taken place in Apple thwaite Church. In a moment of weakness Josephine fell at his feet and asked him to renew the ceremony. He stooped over her, kissed her, and smiled. My pretty child, he said, Why should I do that? He never kissed her again.
Swami and Friends
R.K. Narayan - 1935
Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian."—Graham GreeneOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre-partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief."The experience of reading one of his novels is . . . comparable to one's first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness—like one's own reflection seen in a green twilight."—Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune"The novels of R.K. Narayan are the best I have read in any language for a long time. . . . His work gives the conviction that it is possible to capture in English, a language not born of India, the distinctive characteristics of Indian family life."—Amit Roy, Daily Telegraph
Good-Bye, Mr. Chips
James Hilton - 1934
Hilton's classic story of an English schoolmaster.Mr. Chipping, the classics master at Brookfield School since 1870, takes readers on a beguiling journey through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sometimes Chips, as he is affectionately known, is an old man who dreams by the fire; then he's a difficult young taskmaster schooling his students, or a middle-aged man encountering the lovely Katherine, whose "new woman" opinions work far-reaching changes in him. As succeeding generations of boys march onward through Chips' mind, Hilton's narrative remains masterful. He seamlessly interweaves a poignant love story with the jokes and eccentricities of English public school life, while also chronicling a new, uncertain world full of conflict and upheaval that extends far beyond the turrets of Brookfield.
Starter for Ten
David Nicholls - 2003
Brian Jackson, a working-class kid on full scholarship, has started his first term at university. He has a dark secret—a long-held, burning ambition to appear on the wildly popular British TV quiz show University Challenge—and now, finally, it seems the dream is about to become reality. He's made the school team, and they've completed the qualifying rounds and are limbering up for their first televised match. (And, what's more, he's fallen head over heels for one of his teammates, the beautiful, brainy, and intimidatingly posh Alice Harbinson.) Life seems perfect and triumph inevitable—but as his world opens up, Brian learns that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
A Good Man in Africa
William Boyd - 1981
His love of women, his fondness for drink, and his loathing for the country prove formidable obstacles on his road to any kind of success. But when he becomes an operative in Operation Kingpin and is charged with monitoring the front runner in Kinjanja’s national elections, Morgan senses an opportunity to achieve real professional recognition and, more importantly, reassignment.After he finds himself being blackmailed, diagnosed with a venereal disease, attempting bribery, and confounded with a dead body, Morgan realizes that very little is going according to plan.
The Best American Short Stories of the Century
John UpdikeF. Scott Fitzgerald - 2000
Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY brings together the best of the best - fifty-five extraordinary stories that represent a century's worth of unsurpassed accomplishments in this quintessentially American literary genre. Here are the stories that have endured the test of time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Cynthia Ozick, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us as we enter the next century. Their artistry is represented splendidly in these pages. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series has also always been known for making literary discoveries, and discovery proved to be an essential part of selecting the stories for this volume too. Collections from years past yielded a rich harvest of surprises, stories that may have been forgotten but still retain their relevance and luster. The result is a volume that not only gathers some of the most significant stories of our century between two covers but resurrects a handful of lost literary gems as well. Of all the great writers whose work has appeared in the series, only John Updike's contributions have spanned five consecutive decades, from his first appearance, in 1959. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison to choose stories from each decade that meet his own high standards of literary quality.
Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
Jonathan Swift - 1726
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. In Lilliput he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the people and their city, he is able to view their society from the viewpoint of a god. However, in Brobdingnag, a land of giants, tiny Gulliver himself comes under observation, exhibited as a curiosity at markets and fairs. In Laputa, a flying island, he encounters a society of speculators and projectors who have lost all grip on everyday reality; while they plan and calculate, their country lies in ruins. Gulliver's final voyage takes him to the land of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses whom he quickly comes to admire - in contrast to the Yahoos, filthy bestial creatures who bear a disturbing resemblance to humans. This text, based on the first edition of 1726, reproduces all the original illustrations and includes an introduction by Robert Demaria, Jr, which discusses the ways Gulliver's Travels has been interpreted since its first publication. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was born in Dublin. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Henry David Thoreau - 1849
Contained in this volume are the following essays: Civil Disobedience, Natural History of Massachusetts, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Winter Walk, The Succession of Forest Trees, Walking, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples, Night and Moonlight, Aulus Persius Flaccus, Herald of Freedom, Life Without Principle, Paradise (to be) Regained, A Plea for John Brown, The Last Days of John Brown, After the Death of John Brown, The Service, Slavery in Massachusetts, and Wendell Phillips Before Concord Lyceum.