Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories


Agatha Christie - 1985
    There are short stories too.Jane Marple is from the village of St Mary Mead and applies her skills of observation and deduction to a wide variety of mysteries. Several of the supporting characters appear in many of these stories, including her nephew Raymond West, Dolly and Arthur Bantry of Gossington Hall, and Sir Henry Clithering formerly of Scotland Yard. The twenty stories are: 1. The Tuesday Night Club; 2. The Idol House of Astarte; 3. Ingots of Gold; 4. The Bloodstained Pavement; 5. Motive v. Opportunity; 6. The Thumbmark of St Peter; 7. The Blue Geranium; 8. The Companion; 9. The Four Suspects; 10. A Christmas Tragedy; 11. The Herb of Death; 12. The Affair at the Bungalow; 13. Death by Drowning; 14. Miss Marple Tells a Story; 15. Strange Jest; 16. The Case of the Perfect Maid; 17. The Case of the Caretaker; 18. Tape-Measure Murder; 19. Greenshaw's Folly; and 20. Sanctuary.Librarian's note: this title includes all 20 Miss Marple short stories. They are taken from four earlier collections: "The Thirteen Problems," "The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories," "Three Blind Mice and Other Stories," and "Double Sin and Other Stories." Entries for each short story, the 12 Miss Marple novels, and these other collections, are located elsewhere on Goodreads. Readers can find individual entries for the short stories by searching Goodreads for: "a Miss Marple Short Story."

Lorna Doone


R.D. Blackmore - 1869
    He is just a boy when his father is slain by the Doones, a lawless clan inhabiting wild Exmoor on the border of Somerset and Devon. Seized by curiosity and a sense of adventure, he makes his way to the valley of the Doones, where he is discovered by the beautiful Lorna. In time their childish fantasies blossom into mature love—a bond that will inspire John to rescue his beloved from the ravages of a stormy winter, rekindling a conflict with his archrival, Carver Doone, that climaxes in heartrending violence. Beloved for its portrait of star-crossed lovers and its surpassing descriptions of the English countryside, Lorna Doone is R. D. Blackmore’s enduring masterpiece.

Moll Flanders


Daniel Defoe - 1722
    It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age.By 1721, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. His political work was tapering off at this point, due to the fall of both Whig and Tory party leaders with whom he had been associated (Robert Walpole was beginning his rise). Defoe was never fully at home with the Walpole group. Defoe's Whig views are nevertheless evident in the story of Moll. The novel's full title gives some insight into this and the outline of the plot: "The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was Born in Newgate, & during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, & died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums."

A Perfect Spy


John le Carré - 1986
    Who is he? Who was he? Who owns him? Who trained him? Secrets of state are at risk. As the truth about Pym gradually emerges, the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought the wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy.

Works of Jules Verne : Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; A Journey to the Center of the Earth; From the Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon; Around the World in Eighty Days


Jules Verne - 1929
    They have been the subject of films, radio dramatizations and have even been presented on ice Read the originals now and one of the world's greatest ever story tellers will give you hours of pleasure and enjoyment.Stories included are: "Around the World in 80 Days, The Clipper of the Clouds, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon" and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide


Douglas Adams - 1989
    Plus, you'll find a perplexingly frank introduction by the author himself, giving a behind-the-scenes look at each book and the zany radio series that inspired them. But that's not all! You also get a ferocious giggle of a short story, starring the two-headed, three-armed, ex-president of the Universe -- Zaphod Beeblebrox. The saga begins and ends...The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--Arthur Dent, mild-mannered, out-to-lunch kind of guy, is plucked from Earth just before it is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Towel in hand, he begins his journey through space and time with his rescuer Ford Prefect, a traveling research for the Guide.The Restaurant at the End of the Universe--where the floor show is Doomsday and Arthur and Ford dine with Zaphod Beeblebrox, well-appendaged, ex-head honcho of the universe, and Trillian, his human girlfriend. The four friends begin their quest for answers to some of the most confounding questions challenging mankind. When will they finish eating? What is the question to the ultimate answer? (which happens to be 42).Life, the Universe and Everything--Everything important and then some is examined in this third book, when Arthur Dent and his companions find they must avert Armageddon and save the Universe for life as we know it (or think we know it!).So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish--Galaxy-weary space traveler Arthur Dent returns to Earth With his new voidoid gang to discover that it has been mysteriously reinstated. But more pertinent questions remain: Why did all the dolphins disappear? What is God's Final Message to His Creation? What really happened the day the Earth was demolished?And finally, in Young Zaphod Plays it Safe--the two-headed hero travels to the depths of the ocean floor to investigate the mysterious destruction of the ship that "could one hundred percent positively never crash." with the annoying assistance of the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration, Zaphod learns some disturbing secrets...If you're just discovering Douglas Adams's galactic gangbuster of a series, don't panic--The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide is your chance to have it all! (Towel not included.)--jacket

First Among Equals


Jeffrey Archer - 1984
    . . In the 1960s, four ambitious new MPs take their seats at Westminster. Over three decades they share the turbulent passions of the race for power with their wives and families, men and women caught up in a dramatic game for the higest stakes of all. But only one man can gain the ultimate goal - the office of Prime Minister.

The World of Jeeves


P.G. Wodehouse - 1967
    Contains the books Carry On, Jeeves, The Inimitable Jeeves and Very Good, Jeeves and the short stories Jeeves Makes an Omelette and Jeeves and the Greasy Bird.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories


Washington Irving - 1810
    In two sketches, he experiments with tales transplanted from Europe, thereby creating the first classic American short stories, Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Based on Irving's final revision of his most popular work, this new edition includes comprehensive explanatory notes of The Sketch-Book's sources for the modern reader.

Villette


Charlotte Brontë - 1853
    First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.

The Human Factor


Graham Greene - 1978
    The sort of atmosphere where mistakes could be made? For Maurice Castle it is the end of the line anyway and time for him to retire with his African wife, Sarah.The Human Factor is Greene’s most extensive attempt to incorporate into fiction what he had learned of espionage when recruited by MI6 during World War II . . . What it offers is a veteran excursion into Greene’s imaginative world . . . Sometimes seen as a brooding prober into the dark recesses of the soul where sins and scruples alike fester, he is equally at home in sending a narrative careering along at break-neck pace . . . Raising the demarcation line between ‘serious’ fiction and fast-plotted entertainment, Greene ensures that components of both jostle energizingly together in his pages.” –from the Introduction by Peter Kemp --

The Dead Secret


Wilkie Collins - 1856
    The experiment proved successful both in this country and in America. Two of the characters which appear in these pages -- "Rosamond," and "Uncle Joseph" -- had the good fortune to find friends everywhere who took a hearty liking to them. A more elaborately drawn personage in the story -- "Sarah Leeson" -- was, I think, less generally understood. The idea of tracing, in this character, the influence of a heavy responsibility on a naturally timid woman, whose mind was neither strong enough to bear it, nor bold enough to drop it altogether, was a favorite idea with me, at the time, and is so much a favorite still, that I privately give "Sarah Leeson" the place of honor in the little portrait-gallery which my story contains. Perhaps, in saying this, I am only acknowledging, in other words, that the parents of literary families share the well-known inconsistencies of parents in general, and are sometimes unreasonably fond of the child who has always given them the most trouble. -- Wilkie Collins, _January, 1861_

The Secret Agent


Joseph Conrad - 1907
    When Verloc is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be "a simple tale" proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats, and London's fashionable society in the darkest and most surprising interrelations.Based on the text which Conrad's first English readers enjoyed, this new edition includes a full and up-to-date bibliography, a comprehensive chronology and a critical introduction which describes Conrad's great London novel as the realization of a "monstrous town," a place of idiocy, madness, criminality, and savage butchery. It also discusses contemporary anarchist activity in the UK, imperialism, and Conrad's narrative techniques.

Tales of the Unexpected


Roald Dahl - 1979
    A decrepit old man with a masterpiece tattooed on his back. A voracious adventuress, a gentle cuckold, and a garden sculpture that becomes an instrument of sadistic vengeance. Social climbers who climb a bit too quickly. Philanderers whose deceptions are a trifle too ornate. Impeccable servants whose bland masks slip for one vertiginous instant.In these deliciously nasty stories an internationally acclaimed practitioner of the short narrative works his own brand of black magic: tantalizing, amusing, and sometimes terrifying readers into a new sense of what lurks beneath the ordinary. Included in Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected are such notorious gems of the bizarre as "The Sound Machine," "Lamb to Slaughter," "Neck," and "The Landlady."Cover illustration by Seth JabenCover design by Heidi NorthContents:- Taste- Lamb to the Slaughter- Man from the South- My Lady Love, My Dove- Dip in the Pool- Galloping Foxley- Skin - Neck - Nunc Dimittis - The Landlady - William and Mary - The Way Up to Heaven- Parson's Pleasure- Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat- Royal Jelly- Edward the Conqueror- The Sound Machine- Georgy Porgy - The Hitchhiker- Poison - The Boy Who Talked with Animals- The Umbrella Man- Genesis and Catastrophe- The Butler

Vanity Fair


William Makepeace Thackeray - 1847
    A novel that chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a typically naive Victorian heroine, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family.