Popular books

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #01 - Master & Commander

<p class="description">Master and Commander is the first of Patrick O′Brian′s now famous Aubrey-Maturin novels and establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship′s surgeon and an intelligence agent. Master and Commander contains all the action and excitement of a great historical novel. But it alo displays the qualities which have put O′Brian so far ahead of any of his competitors, including his depiction of the detail of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war, of weapons, food, conversation and ambience, of the landscape and of the sea. O′ Brian′s portrayal of each of these is faultless and the sense of period throughout is acute.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #02 - Post Captain

<div><p class="description">This tale begins with Jack Aubrey arriving home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining and enjoying more amorous adventures. </p> <p class="description">Their comfortable existence, however, is cut short when Jack is overnight reduced to a pauper with enough debts to keep him in prison for life. He flees to the continent to seek refuge: instead he finds himself a hunted fugitive as Napoleon has ordered the internment of all Englishmen in France. Aubrey′s adventures in escaping from France and the debtors′ prison will grip the reader as fast as his unequalled actions at sea.</p></div><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #03 - H.M.S. Surprise

<p class="description">H.M.S. Surprise, the third in O′Brian′s acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, follows the variable fortunes of Captain Jack Aubrey′s career in Nelson′s navy as he attempts to hold his ground against admirals, colleagues and the enemy, and accepts a commission to convey a British ambassador to the East Indies. The voyage takes him and his friend Stephen Maturin to the strange sights and smells of the Indian subcontinent, and through the archipelago of Spice Islands where the French have a near-overwhelming local superiority.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #04 - The Mauritius Command

<p class="description">In The Mauritius Command, Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command until his friend, and occasional intelligence agent, Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a Commodore′s pennant. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains , one a pleasure-seeking dilettante, the other liable to provoke the crew to mutiny.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #05 - Desolation Island

<p class="description">Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy , and a treacherous disease which decimates the crew.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #06 - The Fortune Of War

<p class="description">Captain Jack Aubrey, RN, arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a despatch vessel. But the war of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and unexpected scenes where Stephen’s past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #07 - The Surgeon's Mate

<p class="description">Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by despatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers soon become menacing.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #08 - The Ionian Mission

<p class="description">Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior captain commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder and colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days.<br>A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship, and his proverbial luck when fighting against odds, come triumphantly into their own. The book ends with as fierce and thrilling action as any in this magnificent series of novels.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #09 - Treason's Harbour

<p class="description">Much of the plot of Treason′s Harbour depends on intelligence and counter-intelligence, a field in which Aubrey′s friend Stephen Maturin excels. Through him we get a clear insight into the life and habits of the sea officers of Nelson′s time. There is plenty of action and excitement in this novel, but it is the atmosphere of a Malta crowded with senior officers waiting for news of what the French are up to, and wondering whether the war will end before their turn comes for prize money and fame, that is so freshly and vividly conveyed.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #10 - The Far Side Of The World

<p class="description">Patrick O′Brian takes his hero Jack Aubrey and Aubrey′s tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin on a voyage as fascinating as anything he has ever written. It is 1812 and the heroes set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn, they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may lead them. It is a commission after Jack′s own heart. Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #11 - The Reverse Of The Medal

<p class="description">Jack Aubrey returns from his duties protecting whalers off South America and is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make investments in the City on the strength of supposedly certain information. From there he is led into the half worlds of the London criminal underground and of government espionage – the province of his friend, Stephen Maturin, on whom alone he can rely.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #12 - The Letter of Marque

<p class="description">Jack Aubrey is a naval officer, a post-captain of experience and capacity. When The Letter of Marque opens he has been struck off the Navy List for a crime he has not committed. With Aubrey is his friend and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also an unofficial British intelligence agent. Maturin has bought for Aubrey his old ship the Surprise, so that the misery of ejection from the service can be palliated by the command of what Aubrey calls a ‘private man-of-war’ – a letter of marque, a privateer. Together they sail on a voyage which, if successful, might restore Aubrey to the rank, and the raison d’etre, whose loss he so much regrets.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #13 - The Thirteen-Gun Salute

<div><p class="description">For all Jack Aubrey′s life he has triumphed, often sensationally, over the dangers of the sea and the violence of the enemy. But his rashness, his guilelessness, his indiscretion have, time and time again, enabled his rivals to prevent him reaping his just rewards. The nadir was reached in The Reverse of the Medal when, the victim of a skilful frame-up, he was convicted of fraud and struck off the Navy List just as he was coming within sight of flag rank. The subsequent exposure of the conspiracy, coupled with his brilliant success in command of a privateer, had brought him to a position where their lordships were more or less bound to reinstate him.</p> <p class="description">This, as the present book opens, they have done, and he and his old friend Dr Maturin are sailing on a secret mission with a hand-picked crew, most of them shipmates from the adventures and lucrative voyages of earlier years.</p></div><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #14 - The Nutmeg Of Consolation

<p class="description">In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #15 - Clarissa Oakes

<p class="description">Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime’s experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking. They know, as he does not, that the Surprise has a stranger aboard: and what they, for their part, do not know is that the stranger is potentially as dangerous as a light in the powder magazine itself.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #16 - The Wine-Dark Sea

<p class="description">At the opening of a voyage filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are in pursuit of a privateer sailing under American colours through the Great South Sea. Stephen’s objective is to set the revolutionary tinder of South America ablaze to relieve the pressure on the British government which has blundered into war with the young and uncomfortably vigorous United States.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #17 - The Commodore

<p class="description">Jack Aubrey’s long service is at last rewarded: he is promoted to the rank of Commodore and given a squadron of ships to command. His mission is twofold – to make a large dent in the slave trade off the coast of Africa and, on his return, to intercept a French fleet set for Bantry Bay with a cargo of weapons for the disaffected among the Irish. Invention and surprise follow at every turn in this tale of nineteenth-century seamanship, as rich, as compelling, as masterly as any of its predecessors.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #18 - The Yellow Admiral

<p class="description">The Yellow Admiral – the eighteenth novel in the sequence hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written – sets the fall and rise of Jack Aubrey in brilliant counterpoint to the fall and rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Life ashore may once again be the undoing of Jack Aubrey. Even Jack’s exploits at sea turn sour in the storm waters off Brest. Worst of all, in the spring of 1814 peace breaks out. But Stephen Maturin returns from a mission in France with news that the Chileans require the service of English officers. Jack is savouring this reprieve for his career when he receives an urgent despatch ordering him to Gibraltar: Napoleon has escaped from Elba.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #19 - The Hundred Days

<p class="description">Following the extraordinary success of The Yellow Admiral, this latest Aubrey-Maturin novel brings alive the sights and sounds of North Africa as well as the great naval battles in the days immediately following Napoleon’s escape from Elba. Aubrey and Maturin are in the thick of the plots and counterplots to prevent his regaining power. Coloured by conspiracies in the Adriatic, in the Berber and Arab lands of the southern shores of the Mediterranean, by night actions, fierce pursuits, slave-trading and lion hunts, The Hundred Days is a masterpiece.</p><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #20 - Blue At The Mizzen

<div><p class="description">The novel′s stirring action follows on from that of The Hundred Days. Napoleon′s hundred days of freedom and his renewed threat to Europe have ended at Waterloo and Aubrey has finally, as the title suggests, become a blue level admiral. He and Maturin have - at last - set sail on their much postponed mission to Chile. </p> <p class="description">Vivid with the salty tang of life at sea, O′Brian′s writing is as powerful as ever - whether he writes of naval hierarchies, night actions or of the most celebrated fictional friendship since that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Blue at the Mizzen also brings alive the sights and sounds of revolutionary South America in a story as exciting as any O′Brian has written.</p></div><

Patrick Obrian

Aubrey–Maturin #21 - The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

EDITORIAL REVIEW: To the delight of millions of Patrick O'Brian fans, here is the final, partial installment of the Aubrey/Maturin series, for the first time in paperback. Blue at the Mizzen (novel #20) ended with Jack Aubrey getting the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. The next novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of the author's death, would have been the chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. The three chapters left on O'Brian's desk are presented here both in printed version-including his corrections to the typescript-and a facsimile of his manuscript, which goes several pages beyond the end of the typescript to include a duel between Stephen Maturin and an impertinent officer who is courting his fiancée. Of course we would rather have had the whole story; instead we have this proof that O'Brian's powers of observation, his humor, and his understanding of his characters were undiminished to the end.<

Richard Overy

The Battle of Britain

SUMMARY: 'No individual British victory after Trafalgar was more decisive in challenging the course of a major war than was the Battle of Britain ...In his carefully argued, clearly explained and impressively documented book ...Richard Overy is at pains to dispose of the myths and expose the real history of what he does not doubt was a great British victory ...the best historical analysis in readable form which has yet appeared on this prime subject' Noble Frankland, The Times Literary Supplement<

Caragh M Obrien

Birthmarked

SUMMARY: IN THE ENCLAVE, YOUR SCARS SET YOU APART, and the newly born will change the future. Sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone and her mother faithfully deliver their quota of three infants every month. But when Gaia's mother is brutally taken away by the very people she serves, Gaia must question whether the Enclave deserves such loyalty. A stunning adventure brought to life by a memorable heroine, this dystopian debut will have readers racing all the way to the dramatic finish.<

Lorie Oclare

Black Surrender

Charlie Owen

Bravo Jubilee

George Orwell

Burmese Days

SUMMARY: A corrupt Burmese politician uses the powers of his office to win membership in a British club<

Jonathan Oliver

The Call of Kerberos

Tess Oliver

Camille

At a time when society conforms to the strictest rules and most proper etiquette, sixteen-year-old Camille Kennecott and her guardian, Dr. Bennett, live a most unconventional life. They hunt werewolves.When unwitting victim, Nathaniel Strider, wanders into one of their full moon pursuits, Camille and Dr. Bennett believe they have found a specimen for their study. Finding a scientific key to unlocking the mystery of lycanthropy would end their late night excursions. Yet beneath the irresistible exterior, Nathaniel is transforming into a flesh-tearing monster, and as each experiment fails, Camille loses another inch of her soul to him. In a month's time, she must face the prospect of destroying the boy who has stolen her heart.<

Perri Oshaughnessy

Case of Lies

<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>A math genius, a tough courtroom adversary and an even tougher judge make the 11th legal thriller in the Nina Reilly series (<em>Unlucky in Law</em>, etc.) the most intriguing yet. Back in Lake Tahoe, Nina gets her next case from a masseuse whose aunt was killed during a motel robbery. Unless Nina acts, the lawsuit filed against the Ace High Lodge will be dismissed, as no one has been able to locate the witnesses. Reluctant to call on ex-lover PI Paul van Wagoner for help, Nina hires her assistant's PI son, Wish, who discovers that the witnesses are MIT students with a sideline counting cards. While the old case takes on new life, people connected to it are threatened and worse. O'Shaughnessy (lawyer Pamela and editor Mary O'Shaughnessy) takes the reader inside the beautiful mind of emotionally immature, occasionally delusional, quantitatively inspired Elliott Wakefield as he solves equations, cares for his father and plays blackjack. In thrillers as in math proofs, neatness counts. Here, the Internet and national security bring Elliott's story to an almost too-neat conclusion, while Nina ingeniously solves the problem of replacing Paul in her personal life. As always, O'Shaughnessy keeps legal procedure straight, language crisp and plot consistently absorbing. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From Booklist</h3><p>David Hanna witnessed the murder of his wife (and her unborn fetus) outside a hotel on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Now it's two years later, and Hanna enlists the help of Nina Reilly, a formidable attorney of some local notoriety (and star of 10 previous O'Shaughnessy adventures). The plan is to hold the hotel accountable for its lack of security, which made possible the robbery that produced the stray bullet that, in turn, killed Hanna's wife. The perp was never caught, and the three robbery victims, who Nina feels are the key to the case, have been no help, purposely staying in California so that the Nevada court has no jurisdiction over them. Nina's search for the truth takes her all the way to Europe--and into the arms of her former husband. O'Shaunessy (pseudonym for a sister team) has a knack for plotting and for combining suspenseful action with a light and playful tone. Another fine addition to an appealing and popular series. <em>Mary Frances Wilkens</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p><

Michael Ondaatje

The Cat's Table

<h3>Review</h3><h1>1 – <em>Maclean’s </em>Bestseller</h1><h1>1 – <em>Globe &amp; Mail</em> Bestseller</h1><p>“A tour de force....startling, enchanting.”<br />—<em>Maclean's</em><br /><br /> “Ondaatje slowly unravels a tapestry of images and dramatic (and exotic) tableaux…. [He] creates fascinating visual and sensual effects.” <br />—<em>Toronto Star </em><br /><br />“Ondaatje’s most intimate yet.... Wonderful, offering all the best pleasures of Ondaatje’s writing.” <br />—<em>Globe and Mail</em><br /><br />“Ondaatje's most accessible, compelling novel to date.  It may also be his finest...A breathtaking account not only of boyhood, but of its loss....Universal in its themes, heartbreakingly so, and a journey the reader will never forget.” <br />—<em>Vancouver Sun, (Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald)</em><br /><br />“Ondaatje here fashions an entire world…. Is there a novelist who writes more compellingly about tenderness than Ondaatje?... Breathtaking.” <br />—<em>Montreal Gazette</em><br /><br />“A convincing and genuinely moving narrative.” <br />—<em>National Post</em><br /><br />“Michael Ondaatje wows with his tale of three boys who find friendship and intrigue on a sea voyage carrying them to the brink of adulthood.” <br />—<em>Chatelaine</em><br /></p><p>“The mystery and magic of <strong>The Cat’s Table</strong><em> </em>– and this can be said of all of Ondaatje’s writing, including his best-known novel, <strong>The English Patient</strong> (1992) – lies in its sinuous narrative weave between present, past and a future sometimes contemplated, sometimes fated, and then always inhabited…. As the latest of Ondaatje’s artful and glowing geographies and histories of the human heart, this vessel makes another, differently disposed, but related voyage across several strangely familiar seas.” <br />—<em>Winnipeg Free Press</em><br /></p><p>“A story so enveloping and beautifully rendered, one is reluctant to disembark at the end of the journey….  Though the ocean journey in <strong>The Cat’s Table</strong> lasts a mere 21 days, it encapsulates the fullness of a lifetime.” <br />—<em>Quill and Quire</em><br /></p><p>“[Ondaatje] is justly recognised as a master of literary craft….As we read into <strong>The Cat’s Table</strong> the story becomes more complex, more deadly, with an increasing sense of lives twisted awry, of misplaced devotion….The novel tells of a journey from childhood to the adult world, as well as a passage from the homeland to another country…. All that was seen and experienced, is carried ashore by the passengers in memories, damaged psyches, degrees of loss, evanescent joy and reordered lives.” <br />—Annie Proulx, <em>The Guardian</em><br /></p><p>“No one who has read a novel or poem by Ondaatje can easily forget its powerful imagery…. His wondrous prose feels more alive to the world than ever before.” <br />—<em>Financial Times</em><br /><br />“Three children mapping the hidden regions of a floating world – a world of displaced people, of travelers between lands…. <strong>The Cat’s Table</strong> deserves to be recognized for the beauty and poetry of its writing: pages that lull you with their carefully constructed rhythm, sailing you effortlessly from chapter to chapter and leaving you bereft when forced to disembark at the novel’s end.” <br />— <em>The Telegraph</em> (UK)<br /><br />“Ondaatje’s great achievement is demonstrating that fiction can be stranger than truth.” <br />— <em>The Spectator</em> (UK)<br /><br />“An eloquent, elegiac tribute to the game of youth and how it shapes what follows…. Sheer brilliance of characterization on show. The bit players on board The Oronsay are almost Dickensian in their eccentricity and lovability….. Ondaatje has created a beautiful and poetic study here of what it means to have your very existence metaphorically, as well as literally, at sea.” <br />—<em>The Independent on Sunday</em> (UK)<br /><br />“<strong>The Cat’s Table</strong> is an exquisite example of the richness that can   flourish in the gaps between fact and fiction…. It is an adventure story, it is a meditation on power, memory, art, childhood, love and loss. It displays a technique so formidable as to seem almost playful. It is one of those rare books that one could reread an infinite number of times, and always find something new within its pages.” <br />—<em>London Evening Standard</em><br /></p><p>“In a novel superbly poised between the magic of innocence and the melancholy of experience, Mr. Ondaatje probes what it means to have a cautious heart.” <br />—<em>The Economist</em><br /><br />“<strong>The* <strong><em /></strong>Cat's Table</strong>* shimmers with the freshness of a child's wide-eyed and openhearted perspective….a yearning tribute with an almost fairytale-like aura to the memories of awe that pervade our dreams (and nightmares and fears), and the memories of sometimes unlikely affiliation and love and what we mistake as love that pervade and haunt our hearts, guide us or sometimes lead us astray.” <br />—Bookgaga (blog) </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: one man talks with them about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of literature. The narrator’s elusive, beautiful cousin Emily becomes his confidante, allowing him to see himself “with a distant eye” for the first time, and to feel the first stirring of desire. Another Cat’s Table denizen, the shadowy Miss Lasqueti, is perhaps more than what she seems. And very late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever. <br /><br />As the narrative moves between the decks and holds of the ship and the boy’s adult years, it tells a spellbinding story—by turns poignant and electrifying—about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage. </p><

Gregg Olsen

Closer Than Blood

<h3>About the Author</h3><p>Throughout his career, Gregg Olsen has demonstrated an ability to create a detailed narrative that offers readers fascinating insights into the lives of people caught in extraordinary circumstances.<br /></p><p>A New York Times bestselling author, Olsen has written eight nonfiction books, five novels, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child.<br /></p><p>The award-winning author has been a guest on dozens of national and local television shows, including educational programs for the History Channel, Learning Channel, and Discovery Channel. He has also appeared on Dateline NBC, William Shatner's Aftermath, Deadly Women on Investigation Discovery, Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Today Show, FOX News; CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight, CBS 48 Hours, Oxygen's Snapped, Court TV's Crier Live, Inside Edition, Extra, Access Hollywood, and A&amp;E's Biography.<br /></p><p>The Deep Dark was named Idaho Book of the Year by the ILA and Starvation Heights was honored by Washington's Secretary of State for the book's contribution to Washington state history and culture.<br /></p><p>All of his books are available in the Kindle format. </p><

Michael Ondaatje

Coming Through Slaughter

George Orwell

Coming Up for Air

SUMMARY: Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth. I remember the morning well. At about a quarter to eight I'd nipped out of bed and got into the bathroom just in time to shut the kids out. It was a beastly January morning, with a dirty yellowish-grey sky. Down below, out of the little square of bathroom window, I could see the ten yards by five of grass, with a privet hedge round it and a bare patch in the middle, that we call the back garden. There's the same back garden, some privets, and same grass, behind every house in Ellesmere Road. Only difference- where there are no kids there's no bare patch in the middle. I was trying to shave with a bluntish razor-blade while the water ran into the bath. My face looked back at me out of the mirror, and underneath, in a tumbler of water on the little shelf over the washbasin, the teeth that belonged in the face. It was the temporary set that Warner, my dentist, had given me to wear while the new ones were being made. I haven't such a bad face, really. It's one of those bricky-red faces that go with butter-coloured hair and pale-blue eyes. I've never gone grey or bald, thank God, and when I've got my teeth in I probably don't look my age, which is forty-five.<

George Orwell

The Complete Novels Of George Orwell

<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Animal FarmBurmese DaysA Clergyman's DaughterComing Up for AirKeep the Aspidistra FlyingNineteen Eighty-FourDescribed by Anthony Burgess as 'the best-loved of all twentieth-century British writers', George Orwell still has as much power to move, amuse and provoke today.His best-known novels, Animal Farm, describing a revolution that goes horribly wrong, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, portraying a world where human freedom has been crushed, are two of the most famous, well-quoted and influential political satires ever written. The other novels in this volume also tell stories of people at odds with repressive institutions: the corrupt imperialism of Burmese Days, disaffection with materialistic society in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the perils of modern suburban living in Coming Up for Air and surviving on the streets in A Clergyman's Daughter.All the novels brought together here display Orwell's humour, his understanding of human nature and his great compassion.</p><

William Ollie

The Damned

<h3>Product Description</h3><p>It came on a Friday afternoon, wiping everything good from the land. It came, followed by Hell on earth, bands of brutes and nightmarish creatures, the hopeless and… The Damned.<br /></p><p>Scott thought it had to be a joke when a raving lunatic heralding the end of the world broke onto the airwaves. Then an incident of bullets and blood left him in a place devoid of light, where rasping screams and whispered moans bubbled up from the darkness.<br /></p><p>Now Scott has woken next to a bloated corpse in a deserted rehabilitation center. Outside, the world is dust and ash. People are screaming, people are dying. <br /></p><p>And Scott Freeman’s nightmare has just begun. <br /></p><

Lauren Oliver

Delirium

Siempre me han dicho que el amor es una enfermedad, y que he de curarme para vivir feliz y en calma. Siempre los he creído. Hasta ahora. Ahora todo ha cambiado. Ahora prefiero estar enferma durante una fracción de segundo, que vivir cien años ahogada por una mentira.Una vida sin amor es una vida sin sufrimiento: segura, medida, predecible y feliz. Por eso cuando los habitantes de esta ciudad del siglo XXII cumplen los 18 años, se someten a la intervención, que consiste en la extracción de la parte del cerebro que controla las emociones. Lena espera ese momento con impaciencia, hasta que un día se enamora...<

C J Omololu

Dirty Little Secrets

Kevin Obrien

Disturbed

<div><p><b>Deceptive</b></p><p>The houses in Willow Tree Court are sleek and modern—the kind designed to harbor happy families and laughing children. No one would guess the secrets that lurk beyond the neat lawns and beautiful facades.</p><p><b>Depraved</b></p><p>Molly Dennehy is trying to fit in to her new surroundings, though her neighbors are clearly loyal to her husband's ex-wife. But that's the least of Molly's worries. Her stepson's school has been rocked by a brutal slaying, and a psychopath known as the Cul-de-Sac Killer is murdering families in Seattle homes. Homes just like Molly's.</p><p><b>Disturbed</b></p><p>With each passing day, Molly grows more convinced that someone is watching her family, someone consumed with rage and vengeance. On this quiet road, a nightmare has been unleashed, and the trail of terror will lead right to her door. . .</p><p><b>Praise for the Novels of Kevin O'Brien</b></p><p>"Deftly woven plot twists. . .the pace of the novel is strong and the story intriguing."...</p></div><

Carol Oates

Ember

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">When Candra <span class="il">Ember</span> wakes up in hospital after a dangerous encounter with a red-haired woman, she is shocked to discover that seeing a winged boy wasn’t her imagination. Candra is exposed to a world of rivalry and sacrifice she never knew existed, and the aftermath of a war to save humanity thousands of years ago. Soon she finds herself relentlessly stalked by Sebastian, a beautiful and arrogant Watcher Angel and romantically pursued by his darkly seductive rival, Draven. Ultimately, dubious about her own goodness, Candra’s very existence compromises a tentative peace in the city of Acheron. </span><

Michael Ondaatje

The English Patient

<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, <em>The English Patient</em> tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen. </p><p>A book that binds readers of great literature, <em>The English Patient</em> garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written <em>In the Skin of a Lion</em>, <em>Coming Through Slaughter</em> and <em>The Collected Works of Billy the Kid</em>; two collections of poems, <em>The Cinnamon Peeler</em> and <em>There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do</em>; and a memoir, <em>Running in the Family</em>. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Canadian author Ondaatje offers a poetic novel set in a desolate Italian villa in the final days of WWII--a one-week PW bestseller--and an evocative account of a visit with his family in Sri Lanka. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><

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