A young widow and mother, her services were engaged in the 1860's by King Mongkut of Siam to help him communicate with foreign governments and be the tutor to his children and favored concubines. Stepping off the steamer from London, Anna found herself in an exotic land she could have only dreamed of lush landscape of mystic faiths and curious people, and king's palace bustling with royal pageantry, ancient custom, and harems. One of her pupils, the young prince Chulalongkorn, was particularly influenced by Leonowens and her Western ideals. He learned about Abraham Lincoln and the tenets of democracy from her, and years later he would become Siam's most progressive king. He guided the country's transformation from a feudal state to a modern society, abolshing slavery and making many other radical reforms.Weaving meticulously researched facts with beautifully imagined scenes, Margret Landon recreates an unforgettable portrait of life in a forgotten extotic land. Written more than fifty years ago, and translated into dozens of languages, Anna and the King of Siam (the inspiration for the magical play and film The King and I)continues to delight and enchant readers around the world.

    But there are also tales told for pleasure about magic, treasure and adventure - even the first ever Cinderella story.

    Every genre and style, from the celebrated No plays to the poetry and novels of the seventeenth century, find a place in this book. An introduction by Donald Keene places the selections in their proper historical context, allowing the readers to enjoy the book both as literature and as a guide to the cultural history of Japan. Selections include “Man’yoshu” or “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves” from the ancient period; “Kokinshu” or “Collection of Ancient and Modern Poetry,” “The Tosa Diary” of Ki No Tsurayuki, “Yugao” from “Tales of Genji” of Murasaki Shikibu, and “The Pillow Book” of Sei Shonagon from the Heian Period; “The Tale of the Heike” from the Kamakura Period; Plan of the No Stage, “Birds of Sorrow” of Seami Motokiyo, and “Three Poets at Minase” from the Muromachi Period; and Sections from Basho, including “The Narrow Road of Oku,” “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki” by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and Waka and haiku of the Tokugawa Period.

    He was the self-styled spokesman of the "Lost Generation" and author of The Great Gatsby (1925). His debut novel, This Side of Paradise (1920) examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Flappers and Philosophers (1920) was his first collection of short stories. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), demonstrates an evolution and maturity in his writing, and provides an excellent portrait of America during the Jazz Age, as does Tales of the Jazz Age (1922).

    In the Dam Square in Amsterdam, long-haired young people wearing vibrant clothes and burning incense could be found meditating, playing music and discussing sexual liberation, the expansion of consciousness and the search for an inner truth. They were a generation refusing to live the robotic and unquestioning life that their parents had known.At this time, Paulo is a young, skinny Brazilian with a goatee and long, flowing hair who wants to become a writer. He sets off on a journey in search of freedom and a deeper meaning for his life: first, with a girlfriend, on the famous “Death Train to Bolivia,” then on to Peru and later hitchhiking through Chile and Argentina.His travels take him further, to the famous square in Amsterdam, where Paulo meets Karla, a Dutch woman also in her 20s. She convinces Paulo to join her on a trip to Nepal, aboard the Magic Bus that travels across Europe and Central Asia to Kathmandu. They embark on a journey in the company of fascinating fellow travelers, each of whom has a story to tell, and each of whom will undergo a transformation, changing their priorities and values, along the way. As they travel together, Paulo and Karla explore their own relationship, an awakening on every level that brings each of them to a choice and a decision that sets the course for their lives thereafter.

     Links to free, full-length audio recordings of the novels and stories in this collection. An individual, active Table of Contents for each book accessible from the Kindle "go to" feature. Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with Kindle's Text-to-Speech features. A low, can't-say-no price! Forty-Eight Complete WorksFour novels and forty-four short stories starring Sherlock Holmes, in order and unabridged. Books included:Novels: A Study in Scarlet The Sign of the Four The Hound of the Baskervilles The Valley of Fear Short Story Collections: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes The Return of Sherlock Holmes His Last Bow Additional Fan ResourcesAlso included are special features for any Holmes enthusiast, including: A list of films and television series starring the character Sherlock Holmes. A Reading Guide to additional books about Sherlock Holmes by other authors. Links to free, full-length audio recordings of all the novels and short stories in this collection.

    His dissections of science, spiritual faith, legal systems, vanity, and love make him the undisputed master of social commentary.

    . ."I am Murgen, Standardbearer of the Black Company, though I bear the shame of having lost that standard in battle. I am keeping these Annals because Croaker is dead, One-Eye won't, and hardly anyone else can read or write. I will be your guide for however long it takes the Shadowlanders to force our present predicament to its inevitable end. . ."The Return of the Black Company comprises the novels Bleak Seasons and She is the Darkness—the third omnibus volume of Glen Cook's fantasy epic Chronicles of the Black Company.

    Emphasizing Paine’s American career, it brings together his best-known works—Common Sense, The American Crisis, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason—along with scores of letters, articles, and pamphlets.Paine came to America in 1774 at age 37 after a life of obscurity and failure in England. Within fourteen months he published Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet for the American Revolution, and began a career that would see him prosecuted in England, imprisoned and nearly executed in France, and hailed and reviled in the American nation he helped create. In Common Sense, Paine set forth an inspiring vision of an independent America as an asylum for freedom and an example of popular self-government in a world oppressed by despotism and hereditary privilege. The American Crisis, begun during “the times that try men’s souls” in 1776, is a masterpiece of popular pamphleteering in which Paine vividly reports current developments, taunts and ridicules British adversaries, and enjoins his readers to remember the immense stakes of their struggle. Among the many other items included in the volume are the combative “Forester” letters, written in a reply to a Tory critic of Common Sense, and several pieces concerning the French Revolution, including an incisive argument against executing Louis XVI.Rights of Man (1791–1792), written in response to Edmund Burke’s attacks on the French Revolution, is a bold vision of an egalitarian society founded on natural rights and unbound by tradition. Paine’s detailed proposal for government assistance to the poor inspired generations of subsequent radicals and reformers.The Age of Reason (1794–1795), Paine’s most controversial work, is an unrestrained assault on the authority of the Bible and a fervent defense of the benevolent God of deism.Included in this volume are a detailed chronology of Paine’s life, informative notes, an essay on the complex printing history of Paine’s work, and an index.

    Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: "What is not in it, is nowhere." But even now, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life. The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance telling the tale of heroic men and women, and of some who were divine. It is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival.

    Hugh Conway saw humanity at its worst while fighting in the trenches of the First World War. Now, more than a decade later, Conway is a British diplomat serving in Afghanistan and facing war yet again—this time, a civil conflict forces him to flee the country by plane.   When his plane crashes high in the Himalayas, Conway and the other survivors are found by a mysterious guide and led to a breathtaking discovery: the hidden valley of Shangri-La.   Kept secret from the world for more than two hundred years, Shangri-La is like paradise—a place whose inhabitants live for centuries amid the peace and harmony of the fertile valley. But when the leader of the Shangri-La monastery falls ill, Conway and the others must face the daunting prospect of returning home to a world about to be torn open by war.   Thrilling and timeless, Lost Horizon is a masterpiece of modern fiction, and one of the most enduring classics of the twentieth century.

    He had been found guilty of conspiring with the devil to seduce an entire convent of nuns in what was the most sensational case of mass possession and sexual hysteria in history. Grandier maintained his innocence to the end and four years after his death the nuns were still being subjected to exorcisms to free them from their demonic bondage. Huxley's vivid account of this bizarre tale of religious and sexual obsession transforms our understanding of the medieval world.

    It presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought that emphasizes outwitting one’s opponent through speed, stealth, flexibility, and a minimum of force—an approach very different from that stressed in the West, where the advantages of brute strength have overshadowed more subtle methods.Safeguarded for centuries by the ruling elites of imperial China, even in modern times these writings have been known only to a handful of Western specialists. In this volume are seven separate essays, written between 500 b.c. and a.d. 700, that preserve the essential tenets of strategy distilled from the experience of the most brilliant warriors of ancient China.Only one of these seven essays, Sun Tzu’s famous Art of War, has been readily available in the West. Thanks to this faithful translation of the complete Seven Military Classics, the insights of these ancient Chinese texts are now accessible in their entirety.It’s not uncommon to see a “salaryman” on a crowded Tokyo subway studying one of the many popular Japanese editions of these essays. But why do so many businesspeople in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan study a 2,000-year-old military text? Because it embodies the strategic tradition of outwitting an opponent through speed, stealth, flexibility, and a minimum of effort. These principles have been proven both on the battlefield and in the marketplace. Now they are available in the West for the first time in their entirety.The lessons found in this book were exploited by such pivotal Asian war leaders as Japan’s Yamamoto, China’s Mao Tse-tung, and Vietnam’s Giap to inflict terrible defeats on their enemies. And in more recent times, when Japan and others have decided to win their laurels on the field of international economic competition, these principles have been a key to the achievements of many Asian corporations. Executives in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan regularly study the Seven Military Classics. Unfortunately, even those far-sighted Western business leaders who have read Sun Tzu have glimpsed only a fraction of the knowledge their best Asian competitors use to plan corporate strategy—until now.Those who appreciate Chinese literature and philosophy will also discover much that is new in these pages. Here is a substantial but previously inaccessible body of thought that stands in contrast to Confucianism, which deprecated the military sphere in favor of self-cultivation and the ethical life.The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China remedies a serious gap in Western knowledge of Asian thought. This accurate translation is based on the best available classical Chinese manuscripts, some only recently discovered by archaeologists. It is a uniquely important contribution to the world’s military literature and is essential reading for anyone interested in China’s rich cultural heritage or in the timeless principles of successful strategy.

    To survive, he must find a deep strength greater than all the events that surround him.Shanghai, 1941 — a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.Ballard's enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

    From the eerie incantations of “The Raven” to the persistent fright of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” his stories and poems are unforgettable explorations of the darker side of life that still offer lessons and insight into human behavior today, making them an integral component of just about any library.   This Canterbury Classics edition of Edgar Allan Poe collects some of his best-known work--from “Annabel Lee” to “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Lenore” to “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and many, many more. With an impressive leather cover, specially designed endpapers, and other all-new enhancements, as well as an essay by a Poe scholar, Edgar Allan Poe is the perfect introduction for new readers and the perfect resource for devoted fans.   Poe's writings were truly original--and this unique book is the perfect look at his uncommon genius.