A middle-aged British diplomat reminisces about his life from his college days at Cambridge through his early fifties. The protagonist, Charles Anderson, leads us through World War I, first love, and the progression of his diplomatic career. Tragedy during World War II almost ends his career. A continuous thread... read more »
The follow-up to the much-beloved Tom Brown's Schooldays, Thomas Hughes' novel follows the rowdy but good-hearted protagonist as he leaves his school-boy days behind him and begins his academic career at university. Although the main character has matured, he still has the same proclivity for hijinks and finds... read more »
Tom's second year starts at a private school, but due to an epidemic of fever in the area, all the school's boys are sent home, and Tom is transferred mid-term to Rugby School. On his arrival, the eleven-year-old Tom Brown is looked after by a more experienced classmate, Harry 'Scud' East. Tom's nemesis at Rugby is... read more »
Set in the summer home of an English family, the novel unfolds through shifting perspectives of each character's stream of consciousness, recalling childhood emotions and highlights of adult relationships. Shifts occur even mid-sentence, and in some sense they resemble the rotating beam of the lighthouse. A landmark... read more »
More stories of Mr. Chips, the world’s most beloved schoolmaster, as he helps shape young lives through the first half of a tumultuous centuryWhen author James Hilton penned his beloved short novel, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, he drew on his own formative experiences at a boarding school in Cambridge. As World War I... read more »
Keith Stewart is an ordinary man. However, one day he is called upon to undertake an extraordinary task. When his sister's boat is wrecked in the Pacific, he becomes trustee for his little niece. In order to save her from destitution he has to embark on a 2,000 mile voyage in a small yacht in inhospitable waters... read more »
Edith Wharton's superb satirical novel of the Jazz Age, a critically praised best-seller when it was first published. Sex, drugs, work, money, infatuation with the occult and spiritual healing -- these are the remarkably modern themes that animate Twilight Sleep. The extended family of Mrs. Manford is determined to... read more »
The setting of the story is San Francisco in the 1890s. Vandover, fresh out of college and the son of a wealthy owner of slum properties, has dreams of being an artist but lacks the discipline to fulfill them. His seduction of a young woman results in her suicide and the death of his own father. Cheated by false... read more »
The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling... read more »
Three generations of the Weagle family grow up in and work for boarding houses, inns and hotels. Focus is on two brothers, Myron and Ora, of the second generation. Poetic, ethereal Ora could not wait to escape hotel drudgery, though never too proud to ask plodding Myron for money. read more »
The story of a young, recently widowed ex-Army major and architect, Hayden Chart. He strives mightily to find personal meaning in Florence. Beautiful fellow American Dr Olivia Lomond is a budding scholar who tempts him to make his mind grow in appreciation of art and history. But earthy, honest Roxanna Eldritch,home... read more »