Book picks similar to
Three Men in a Boat (Oxford Bookworms: Stage 4) by Diane Mowat
read-in-english
english
friendship-i-impressed
humor
Cry Freedom
Rowena Akinyemi - 1987
It is the story of all people who prefer truth to lies. It is the story of all people who cry 'Freedom', and who are not afraid to die.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon - 2003
He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
James Thurber - 1939
A henpecked husband copes with the frustrations of his dull life by imagining he is a fearless airplane pilot, a brilliant doctor, and other dashing figures.
Mystery In London: Interactive
Helen Brooke - 2000
The series offers original stories in a variety of formats: narrative, interactive, and comic strip. They contain glossaries and exercises and are carefully graded in structure and vocabulary. Cassettes are available for some titles.
All My Sons
Arthur Miller - 1947
Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped punishment and went on to make lots of money. In a work of tremendous power, a love affair between Keller's son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Herbert's daughter, the bitterness of George Keller, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father's partner free, and the reaction of a son to his father's guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity.Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced themes that thread through Miller's work as a whole: the relationship between fathers and sons, and the conflict between business and personal ethics.
Of Mice and Men
Martin Winks - 1975
Drifters in search of work, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie have nothing in the world except each other and a dream--a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch in California’s Salinas Valley, but their hopes are doomed as Lennie, struggling against extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy, becomes a victim of his own strength. Tackling universal themes such as the friendship of a shared vision, and giving voice to America’s lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and Men has proved one of Steinbeck’s most popular works, achieving success as a novel, a Broadway play and three acclaimed films.
I'm the King of the Castle
Susan Hill - 1970
Nevertheless Charles Kingshaw and his mother are soon installed and Edmund sets about persecuting his fearful new playmate.From the dusty back rooms of Warings through the gloomy labyrinth of Hang Wood to the very top of Leydell Castle, Edmund pursues Charles, the balance of power slipping back and forth between bully and victim. With their parents oblivious, the situation speeds towards a crisis...Darkly claustrophobic and morally ambiguous, Susan Hill weaves a classic tale of cruelty, power, and the dangerous games we play as children.'A brilliant tour de force' Guardian'Equalled for poignancy and horror only in Lord of the Flies' Sunday Telegraph'Delves beneath the surface of complex young minds, exposing not only their vulnerabilty and tenderness, their cruelty and malevolence, but also how parents end up turning a blind eye to their pain' Anita Sethi
The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear
Arthur Conan Doyle - 1902
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the classic detective chiller. The Baskerville family is haunted by a phantom beast which roams the mist-enshrouded wilds of Dartmoor. Now The Hound seems to be stalking the young Sir Henry, new heir to the Baskerville estate. Is this devilish spectre the manifestation of the family curse? Or is Sir Henry the victim of a vile and scheming murderer? Only Sherlock Holmes can solve the mystery. In The Valley of Fear a cipher message and a horrible murder begin this dark, powerful tale in which Sherlock Holmes faces his old arch enemy, Professor Moriarty once more. The solution to the riddle lies far away from the disturbed calm of a country house in Sussex, halfway across the world in a location known as The Valley of Fear.
The Playboy of the Western World
J.M. Synge - 1907
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
The Genius And The Goddess
Aldous Huxley - 1955
Now, on Christmas Eve while a small grandson sleeps upstairs, John Rivers is moved to set the record straight about the great man and the radiant, elemental creature he married, who viewed the renowned genius through undazzled eyes.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
William Blake - 1794
It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.
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.
The How To Be British Collection
Martyn Ford - 2003
Drawing on their many years' experience of teaching English as a Foreign Language the authors also offer the wider world a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to get around in English and at the same time make sense of our 'funny ways'. It's a gentle brand of satire, and although there's the occasional barbed arrow for bland food, fashion disasters or dubious standards of hygiene, the tone of The "How To Be British Collection" is more nostalgic than scornful, and the pet-loving, royal-watching, tea drinking characters that populate its pages are viewed with wry affection. Cartoons like "How to be Polite" and "How to Complain" have been reproduced in publications all over the world, perhaps because they put a finger on that peculiar tentativeness that foreigners find so puzzling (and so funny) about us. In order to be British, or at any rate to pass unnoticed in British society, the visitor must learn not to 'make a fuss'. A fuss is something that the true Brit cannot stand. It is nearly as bad as a 'scene', and in the same category as 'drawing attention to yourself'. In the first frame of How To Be Polite, a man -- presumably an uninitiated foreign visitor -- has fallen into a river. He's clearly in trouble and is shouting HELP! -- at the top of his voice, judging by the speech bubble. An English gentleman is walking his dog along the river bank. There's a lifebelt prominently displayed beside them, but the gent and his dog are walking away from the emergency with disapproving expressions. In the next frame, the man in the river has changed his strategy and is calling out: "Excuse me, Sir. I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you would mind helping me a moment, as long as it's no trouble, of course...". And this time, naturally, the English gent is rushing to his aid, throwing the lifebelt into the water. Even the dog is smiling. Much of the material in The "How to be British Collection" is about how cultural differences can prove a minefield for the unwary. To that extent its appeal - in an age where so many of us travel and even set up home overseas - is universal. Every visitor to Britain comes knowing that our favourite conversational gambit is the weather. But how many can successfully do it at 1) Elementary 2) Intermediate and 3) Advanced levels? The book's enduring popularity comes from the recognition factor -- how exposed we can be once we stray away from the comfort zone of our own native language. A hapless visitor, phrase book in hand, stops to ask an old lady in the street for directions. He looks pleased with himself for phrasing the question so nicely, but then is utterly at a loss to understand her long, rambling, minutely detailed reply. We've all been there. To help the poor innocent abroad around these cultural and linguistic booby-traps, the book includes on most pages collectible Expressions to learn and (of course) Expressions to avoid. Thus, under the entry for Real English, which negotiates the difficult area of colloquial speech including "idioms, slang and even the occasional taboo word, as used by flesh and blood native speakers" we find -- Expressions to learn:"'E nicked it off of a lorry and now the coppers 'ave done 'im for it." Expressions to avoid: "That's not correct English, Mrs. Jones -- it says so here in my grammar book".