Simon Prebble
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It is Christmastime, 1914, and World War I rages. A young French soldier named Pierre who had quietly left his regiment to visit his family for two days is imprisoned when he returns. Now he faces execution for desertion, and as he waits in isolation, he meditates on big questions: the nature of patriotism, the horrors of war, the joys of friendship, the love of family, and how, even in times of danger, there is a whole world inside every one of us-and...
3) Raven's gate
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Sent to live in a foster home in a remote Yorkshire village, Matt, a troubled fourteen-year-old English boy, uncovers an evil plot involving witchcraft and the site of an ancient stone circle.
4) Titanic
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Discusses the Titanic, including its design, how the ship sank, the passengers onboard, and why the ship's legacy lives on.
5) Nightrise
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As fourteen-year-old telepathic twins struggle to escape from the Nightrise Corporation, one of them travels through dreams and learns the role that he and the other Gatekeepers must play to keep the world safe from the Old Ones' return.
6) Necropolis
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To stop the evil corporation Nightrise from unleashing its devastating power around the globe, fifteen-year-old Matt and three other Gatekeepers travel to Hong Kong to find Scarlet, the final Gatekeeper, whose fate is inextricably joined to their own.
7) The Gambler
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First published in Russian in 1866, "The Gambler", by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is a gripping narrative of the dangers of gambling. As was common with Dostoyevsky's other writings, he draws upon his own life in a semi-autobiographical way. Dostoyevksy himself suffered from a compulsion to gambling and had to complete "The Gambler" under a strict deadline to pay off his own debts. These first-hand experiences bring a depth of realism to the novel and to...
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My Man Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse is a collection of comedic work featuring three of Wodehouse's famous characters. Bertie is an idle rich man, who is always ready to help his friends. However, he would never be able to do so without the help of his odd but intelligent valet, Jeeves. Said to be the prototype for Bertie, Reggie Pepper is also rich Englishman dedicated to assisting his friends, however, unlike Bertie, he often has to act as the brains...
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The Kreutzer Sonata, one of the most controversial novels written by Leo Tolstoy. It was named after Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata and attracted immediate attention of censors on both sides of the Atlantic when it first appeared. The narrative follows the main character, Pozdnyshev who relates the events leading up to his killing his wife.
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In the 1840s, Charles Dickens wrote 5 short stories with strong social and moral messages. The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home, is the third of these stories. Following the home life of John Peerybingle, the story introduces the many people in John's family and life along with a cricket that acts as the guardian angel of the family. Like its predecessors, this story also contains heavy social and moral implications. However, it differs...
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A cult classic in the UK since its first publication there in the 1970s, Don't Point that Thing at Me is the hilarious and dark humored crime thriller featuring the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai: degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and general knave-about-Piccadilly. With his thuggish manservant Jock, Mortdecai endures all manner of nastiness involving secret police, angry foreign governments, stolen paintings,...
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Featuring the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai-degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and general knave-about-Piccadilly-Something Nasty In the Woodshed is, chronologically, the third in the Mortdecai trilogy, after Don't Point That Thing at Me and After You With the Pistol, although written second. The players are, once again, Charlie, Johanna, and Jock (the thuggish anti-Jeeves), and there is plenty of liquor,...
13) Utopia
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Utopia, by Sir Thomas More, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
Biographies of the authors
Chronologies of contemporary...
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One-time police detective Peter Diamond loses his job as a security guard when he fails to spot a small Japanese child hiding in the furniture department of Harrods. Weeks later, she's still unclaimed; Diamond is unable to forget the frightened eyes of the silent little girl and takes on the challenge of uncovering her identity. Now Diamond is back in the sleuthing business, following a trail that leads from London to New York to Tokyo and to a shocking...
15) The circle
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Widowed van driver Bob Naylor is prodded into joining the Chichester Writers' Circle by his teenage daughter. Bob writes limericks and jingles, and fears he will be out of his class among the literati. But the members of the circle come from all walks of life and practice many forms of writing, from fantasy to household hints. There seems to be nothing about any of them to incite a serial killer. However, there is an arsonist in their midst, burning...
16) Not my blood
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Scotland Yard Detective Joe Sandilands investigates the murder of a teacher at a boys' boarding school and discovers that students have gone missing from the school for years and their disappearances have not been questioned.
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The environment has long been the undisputed territory of the political Left, which casts international capitalism, consumerism, and the overexploitation of natural resources as the principle threats to the planet and sees top-down interventions as the most effective solution. In How to Think Seriously about the Planet, Roger Scruton rejects this view and offers a fresh approach to tackling the most important political problem of our time. He contends...
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James Allen's From Poverty to Power (1901) and As a Man Thinketh (1902) stand as seminal texts in the self-help genre that have served as sources of inspiration since their publication at the beginning of the twentieth century. Loosely based in its principles around the Biblical proverb "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," As a Man Thinketh asserts the powerful idea that belief is central to bringing about positive events in one's life. From...
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You are a secret agent working for the British in Berlin. You are due to go home on leave, but you are being followed. A man meets you in the theater and briefs you on a plot to revive the power of Nazi Germany. The next day you make contact with a beautiful girl who may know something. Someone tries to kill both of you. You are Quiller, spy extraordinaire.
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In December, 1924, a murder took place on a chicken farm in East Sussex, England. Although Norman Thorne never confessed to killing his girlfriend, Elsie, he was tried and hanged for the crime. In Chickenfeed, Walters burrows deep into an English legend, creating a suspenseful tale of fiction based in fact. Was Thorne guilty? If so, what was his motive? Set in the small village of Sowerbridge, The Tinder Box is a tale of chilling ambition. Patrick...