Showing results by author "Beauty_23" in All Categories

The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush—a period in which strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara Valley of California as the story opens. Stolen from his home and sold into service as sled dog in Alaska, he reverts to a wild state. Buck is forced to fight in order to dominate other dogs in a harsh climate. Eventually he sheds the veneer of civilization, relying on primordial instincts and learned ...

As usual, gentleman thief Arsène Lupin finds himself wrongfully accused of murder, and must find the real killer to clear his coloured name. (Summary by Cathy Barratt)

A suspicious accident reveals itself to be a murder! Our story is narrated by a lawyer who turns detective in order to uncover the real murderer, and leads us on a chase through Bolshevik headquarters, country clubs, and a dry creek bed, before the real clues come to light. Up-in-the-air excitement! (Summary by Brenda Price)

Dating back to the 6th century BC, Aesop's Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Though almost nothing is known of Aesop himself, and some scholars question whether he existed at all, these stories stand as timeless classics known in almost every culture in the world. This is volume 1 of 12. (Summary by Chip)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his famous detective. They were originally published in the Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The title character was named after famous American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays and is thought to be the most famous love story in Western history. It concerns the fate of two very young lovers who would do anything to be togetherThe Montagues and the Capulets of Verona, Italy, are in the midst of a long-standing feud when Romeo Montague drops in on a masquerade party at the Capulets’. While there he meets and woos the daughter of the house, Juliet. She likewise returns his passion, and their secret meeting later that night on her bedroom balcony begins a series of tragic events that no one could have ...

These are three imaginative SF stories by an author I admire a lot, William Tenn. Venus is a Man's World, (Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1951), Project Hush (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1954_ and Of All Possible Worlds.

A Christmas Carol (full title: A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one evening. (Wikipedia)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of A Modern Grandmother, by Helen Leah Reed. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 26, 2023. ------ Helen Leah Reed is perhaps best known for her "Brenda" series of novels, which reflect at least some of the experiences in her own life in a women's university, and social work. In addition to novels, she both wrote her own poetry, and translated other poems. This is one of her lighter ones. - Summary by redrun

Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen’s novels, and its opening is one of the most famous lines in English literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797, and was initially called First Impressions, but was never published under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813 by the same Mr. Egerton of the Military Library, Whitehall, who had brought out Sense and Sensibility. Like both its predecessor and ...

Daniel Defoe’s The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (1719) is considered by many the first English novel. Based on the real-life experiences of the castaway Alexander Selkirk, the book has had a perennial appeal among readers of all ages-–especially the young adult reading public–-who continue to find inspiration in the inventive resourcefulness of its hero, sole survivor of a shipwreck who is marooned on an uninhabited island. Especially poignant, after more than two decades of unbroken solitude, is the affection that Robinson develops for ...

Orphaned Mary Lennox is sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire, and finds herself in a house full of secrets and mysteries.

Don Quijote de la Mancha (ortografía y título original —1605—, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha) es una de las obras cumbre de la literatura española y la literatura universal, el libro más traducido después de la Biblia, escrito por Miguel de Cervantes. La novela consta de dos partes: la primera, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, fue publicada en 1605; la segunda, El ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, en 1615. La primera parte se imprimió en Madrid, en casa de Juan de la Cuesta, a fines de 1604. Salió a la venta en enero de 1605 con numerosas ...

This volume contains sermons and articles on the Christian life, the Christian ministry, politics, exegetical works, apologetics, biography and education. (Summary by InTheDesert)

This classic tale tells of an orphan, Pip, who through a series of strange circumstances first finds a trade as a blacksmith's apprentice and then learns that he has "great expectations" of a future inheritance from an anonymous benefactor. He soon learns to live the profligate life of a gentleman as he gradually sheds his associations with the gentle souls of his past, Joe (the blacksmith) and Biddy (a level-headed young lady). He throws his money at improving the prospects of his roommate and friend Herbert and his heart at an "ice princess" whose heart will never respond. But then an ...

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other Homeric epic. The Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon; it is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature, while the Iliad is the oldest. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia. The poem mainly focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths), king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to...

In the Jungle Books, Kipling tells 9 wonderful and exciting tales about Mowgli, the human baby raised by a pack of wolves in the jungles of India. His exploits and adventures are many and varied especially his dealing with the other animals such as his wolf mother and father and brother wolves, Baloo the wise bear who teaches him the Law of the Jungle, and in his life long battle with Shere-Kahn, the lame human killing tiger. I have enjoyed these stories so much that I decided to take all 9 of them that are scattered throughout the first and second Jungle Books, as well as a few of his songs, ...

After the death of his father, Nicholas must provide for his mother and sister. His wealthy uncle provides him with employment at a boys' school, run by the villainous Mr. Squeers. But when Nicholas has seen enough of the brutal manner in which Squeers treats the boys, he attacks him--and is forced to go on the run to avoid the ramifications. - Summary by Brad "Hamlet" Filippone

Hard Times was Dickens's shortest novel and the only one to be set in the industrial north of England. A fast moving story with a typical cast of larger than life characters, the novel is a vehicle for a humanist critique of both utilitarian education ('Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts', says Mr. Gradgrind in the opening paragraph) and the mutual antagonism between capital and the trade union. A humanist education system, it turns out, is Dickens's solution to the class struggle. Hard Times is set in the fictional Coketown and was partly inspired by a visit to Preston during the ...

"I do not pretend to say the young man is without faults; but they are all the faults of wildness and of youth; faults which he may, nay, which I am certain he will, relinquish."One of the great works of the English literary canon, this comic masterpiece, first published in 1749, draws us into the lives of two neighbouring Somersetshire squires and friends, one genial and generous, the other a hot-headed lover of the hunt and the bottle, who conspire together, on the basis of a mutual misunderstanding, to marry the former's nephew to the latter's daughter, very much to the discomfort of the ...