David Horovitch
Author
Language
English
Description
The Romans have long since departed and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But, at least, the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. Axl and Beatrice, a couple of elderly Britons, decide that now is the time, finally, for them to set off across this troubled land of mist and rain to find the son they have not seen for years, the son they can scarcely remember. They know they will face many hazards -- some strange and otherworldly --...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Nicholas Nickleby" combines comedy and tragedy in a tale of triumph over adversity, where Nickleby succeeds despite poverty, the indifference of his wealthy uncle, the tyranny of wicked schoolmaster Wackford Squeers and the social injustice that he encounters throughout the institutional system, meeting such eccentric characters as the Crummles, the Kenwigs, Newman Noggs and businessmen, the Cheeryble brothers along the way. Here, Dickens uses his...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Dutiful Newland Archer, an eligible young man from New York high society, is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a suitable match from a good family, when May's cousin, the beautiful and exotic Countess Ellen Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of perceived scandal, having left her husband and claimed her independence. Her worldliness, disregard for society's...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions." In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style - she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations...
6) Summerland
Publisher
IFC Films
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
Alice is a reclusive writer, resigned to a solitary life on the seaside cliffs of Southern England while World War II rages across the channel. When she opens her front door one day to find she's to adopt a young London evacuee named Frank, she's resistant. It's not long, however, before the two realize they have more in common in their pasts than Alice had assumed. Gemma Arterton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Tom Courtenay star in this intensely emotional...
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"Commemorating the 150th anniversary of one of the most beloved classics of children's literature, this illustrated edition presents Alice like you've never seen her before. In 1865, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician and Anglican deacon, published a story about a little girl who tumbles down a rabbit hole. Thus was the world first introduced to Alice and her pseudonymous creator, Lewis Carroll. This beautiful new edition of Alice's...
8) Victory
Author
Language
English
Description
Raised by a single Swedish philosopher, Axel Heyst inherits his father's pessimistic view of society. As a child, he is taught about all the dark inclinations of humankind, warping his mind. Axel struggles with these beliefs and the atmosphere of the environment in which he grew up. Because of this, he has a mix of complicated feelings when his father passes away. He decides to leave London and travel the world, which lead him to both adventures and...
Language
English
Description
Michael Kitchen stars as Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Foyle in this original PBS Masterpiece Theatre mystery series. Set in the beautiful southern English countryside amid the disorder and danger of World War II, Foyle's War takes place far from the glory of the front. His is an ordinary struggle, against everyday evil, in extraordinarily dangerous times.
Publisher
Opus Arte
Pub. Date
[2015]
Language
English
Description
"Love's Labour's Lost: Summer 1914. In order to dedicate themselves to a life of study, the King and his friends take an oath to avoid the company of women for three years. No sooner have they made their idealistic pledge than the Princess of France and her ladies-in-waiting arrive, presenting the men with a severe test of their high-minded resolve.' -- http://www.rsc.org.uk/
"Love's Labour's Won, also known as Much Ado About Nothing: Autumn 1918....
Author
Language
English
Description
The Good Soldier Švejk, written shortly after the First World War, is one of the great antiwar satires - and one of the funniest books of the 20th (or any) century. In creating his eponymous hero, Jaroslav Hašek produced an unforgettable character who charms and infuriates and bamboozles his way through the conflagration that tore through the heart of Europe, upending empires and changing social history.
It is the closing period of the Austro-Hungarian...
Author
Language
English
Description
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of...
13) The shadow-line
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
A new captain must lead his crew to safety and face his own internal struggles as he works to overcome disrespect, insanity, and coming-of-age all while sailing on an unforgiving sea.
There is an invisible line that divides life into a before and after-adolescence and adulthood. The unnamed narrator of The Shadow Line is painfully aware of this, but is unsure where the line lies in his life. He recalls a number of rash decisions he has made, some...
14) John Donne poems
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Sophisticated wit and intense emotion, religious fervour and erotic sensuality, delight in life's pleasures and fascination with death, are all to be found in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. One of the foremost metaphysical poets, Donne's ingenious metaphors and inspired use of language, has earned him affection and reverence in near equal measure to Shakespeare.
16) The secret agent
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
In The Secret Agent, a Soho shopkeeper is a member of a terrorist cell, supported by a foreign power, plotting to undermine the English state by means of a bomb plot. Published in 1907, it is considered to be among Conrad's finest novels, written at a time when he was moving away from the seafaring themes which he was known for. Prescient in its depictions of terrorism and political instability, it has become mandatory reading for anyone wishing to...
Publisher
WGBH Boston Video
Pub. Date
[2004], c2002
Language
English
Description
Arthur Chipping is the new Latin master at an English boy's boarding school. The eccentric schoolmaster lives a full, rich life within the cloistered school, defined by his role as the intellectual shepherd of generations of young students. Then while traveling through the countryside on summer holiday, he unexpected falls in love. His new wife ignites his passion and brings him out of his shell. Spans over 50 years in the life of Mr. Chipping.
Author
Language
English
Description
"The first female translator of the epic into English in over sixty years, Stephanie McCarter addresses accuracy in translation and its representation of women, gendered dynamics of power, and sexual violence in Ovid's classic. Ovid's Metamorphoses is an epic poem, but one that upturns almost every convention. There is no main hero, no central conflict, and no sustained objective. What it is about (power, defiance, art, love, abuse, grief, rape, war,...
19) Heat of the sun
Publisher
WGBH Boston Video
Pub. Date
[2004]
Language
English
Description
A tangled web of blackmail, murder and passion awaits former Scotland Yard detective Albert Tyburn when he arrives in Nairobi. In three mysteries-Private Lives, Hide in Plain Sight and Sport of Kings-Tyburn battles arson, murder, drug-dealers and more.
20) Max
Publisher
Distributed by Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Pub. Date
[2003], c2002
Language
English
Description
Max was a promising young artist who lost his arm in the Great War and with it his ability to paint. Upon his return he opens an acclaimed art gallery that caters to modernism. There he meets another war veteran and struggling artist named Adolf Hitler. Max encourages Adolf to develop his talent. But since Adolf is penniless and is without family or friends, the lure of politics soon wins Adolf's interest over art, setting into motion the most cataclysmic...