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Tom Swift Jr. and his associates at Swift Enterprises wait breathlessly for what may well be the most important scientific event in history—the arrival of the visitor from Planet X—a visitor in the form of energy. But there are factions at work determined to snatch the energy, which Tom has named Exman, from the young scientist-inventor's grasp. First, a series of unexplainable, devastating earthquakes threaten to destroy a good portion of the earth, and Tom suspects the Brungarian rebels who obviously would like to capture Exman and use the space visitor to further their own evil purposes. With the security of Enterprises and Exman at stake, Tom creates two of his greatest inventions—a Quakelizor to counteract the simulated earth tremors, and a container or body to house the energy from outer space. If the earthquakes cannot be stopped, the entire world will be threatened by destruction, and the Brungarian forces will conquer the earth. How Tom utilizes all his scientific knowledge to produce swift-action results and outwit the Brungarians makes one of the most exciting Tom Swift adventures to date. (original book jacket from Guten...

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Children, Adventure, Teen/Young adult, Science fiction

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Glinda of Oz is the fourteenth Land of Oz book written by children's author L. Frank Baum, published on July 10, 1920. Like most of the Oz books, the plot features a journey through some of the remoter regions of Oz; though in this case the pattern is doubled: Dorothy and Ozma travel to stop a war between the Flatheads and Skeezers; then Glinda and a cohort of Dorothy's friends set out to rescue them. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Children, Adventure, Fantasy

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The thirty-five year-old (hence utterly over-the-hill) Miss Margaret Mackenzie, having devoted her life to others, suddenly finds herself with no one to care for, and in possession of a moderate fortune. Having money, she is now much sought-after and no longer universally deemed too old to marry. Partly because she has spent her life taking care of the brother whose money she has now inherited, she has no experience of wealth or popularity. Miss Mackenzie is the definition of “other-oriented. (Indeed, Trollope originally considered naming the novel, and his heroine, “Griselda”, presumably to invoke the folkloric character’s qualities of stolid obedience and endless patience.) These circumstances are the perfect set-up for classic Trollopian swipes and snipes at various fortune-hunters and other obsequies, and more broadly at society’s sexism, classism, and Mammonism. She comes into her own and begins to try to enjoy life, at first juggling, but ultimately rejecting, three serious suitors. As the story unfolds, the particulars of her deceased brother’s life and death reveal themselves, Miss Mackenzie becomes increasingly able to know...

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Historical Fiction, Humor, Romance

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All mythology and/or Hawthorne lovers unite! Here is a delightful collection of charming stories from Greek Mythology. This collection features some very popular characters like our beloved Jason, Ulysses, King Pluto and Theseus (and of course, our favorite, Mr. Minotaur, too). Written in Hawthorne's interesting and beautiful style, these stories will be a great delight to read AND listen to. (Summary by Neeru Iyer)...

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Myths/Legends, Children

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Also known as The Children's Homer, this is Irish writer Padraic Colum's retelling of the events of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for young people. Colum's rich, evocative prose narrates the travails of Odysseus, King of Ithaca: his experiences fighting the Trojan War, and his ten years' journey home to his faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. ( Summary by Elizabeth Klett )...

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Adventure, Children, Classics (antiquity), Fiction, Literature, Myths/Legends

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Introduction: Queen Elizabeth herself, and London as it was in her time, with sketches of Elizabethan England, and of its great men in the way of social dignity, are here brought home to us by Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton....

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War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Voyna i mir; in original orthography: Война и миръ, Voyna i mir) is an epic novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russki Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy's two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world's greatest novels. War and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, age and marriage. While today it is considered a novel, it broke so many novelistic conventions of its day that many critics of Tolstoy's time did not consider it as such. Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense....

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War stories, Romance

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Excerpt: ACT I. (SCENE.--DR. STOCKMANN?S sitting-room. It is evening. The room is plainly but neatly appointed and furnished. In the right-hand wall are two doors; the farther leads out to the hall, the nearer to the doctor?s study. In the lefthand wall, opposite the door leading to the hall, is a door leading to the other rooms occupied by the family. In the middle of the same wall stands the stove, and, further forward, a couch with a looking-glass hanging over it and an oval table in front of it. On the table, a lighted lamp, with a lampshade. At the back of the room, an open door leads to the dining-room. BILLING is seen sitting at the dining table, on which a lamp is burning. He has a napkin tucked under his chin, and MRS. STOCKMANN is standing by the table handing him a large plate-full of roast beef. The other places at the table are empty, and the table somewhat in disorder, evidently a meal having recently been finished.)...

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First published in 1812, The Swiss Family Robinson may sometimes seem old-fashioned to modern readers, especially the family’s attitude toward wildlife (if it moves, shoot it). However, it’s a truly exciting adventure and a timeless story of warm and loving family life.As the narrator says: “It was written... for the instruction and amusement of my children... Children are, on the whole, very much alike everywhere, and you four lads fairly represent multitudes... It will make me happy to think that my simple narrative may lead some of these to observe how blessed are the results of patient continuance in well-doing, what benefits arise from the thoughtful application of knowledge and science, and how good and pleasant a thing it is when brethren dwell together in unity, under the eye of parental love.”Written by Swiss pastor Johann David Wyss and edited by his son Johann Rudolf Wyss (this edition lists J.R. as the author), the novel was intended to teach his four sons about family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world, and self-reliance. It’s fun to think of the long-ago author reading his own books of natural histor...

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Adventure, Children, Fiction, Nature, Teen/Young adult

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Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs . The story as presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's college mate in Daddy-Long-Legs . Among the recipients of the letters are the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new director can be installed, his wife (Judy Abbott of Daddy-Long-Legs ), and the orphanage's doctor (to whom Sallie addresses her letters: Dear Enemy). (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Children, Teen/Young adult, Epistolary fiction

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Also known simply as 1601, this is a humorously risque work by Mark Twain, first published anonymously in 1880, and finally acknowledged by the author in 1906. (Summary by John Greenman & Wikipedia)...

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Comedy, Erotica, Historical Fiction, Literature, Humor, Politics, Satire

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Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) was the first widely-read English novel in the genre “Erotica.” It was written by John Cleland as he was serving hard time at a debtor’s prison in London. Over the centuries, the novel has been repeatedly banned by authorities, assuring its preeminent role in the history of the ongoing struggle against censorship of free expression. Until Fanny Hill , previous heroines had conducted their amorous liaisons “off-stage.” Any erotic misadventures were described euphemistically. As women who had gone astray, they always repented, which made even their most outrageous dalliances somehow suitable for a moralistic readership. The protagonist of Fanny Hill , however, never repented a single moment of her sexual exploits … quite the contrary! And with Fanny, the devil is in the details, realistically described. (Summary by Denny Mike)...

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Romance, Erotica

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Volume I of a series containing anecdotes and stories, some well-known, others less so, of particular countries. This first volume comprises the discovery, colonization, founding, and early years of the United States of America, describing history for children and young adults in an exiting and novel manner. (Summary by Kalynda)...

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Children, History

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Plucky eight year old Anne Nelson, living in Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod, is determined to bring the Revolutionary War to an end so that she can be reunited with her soldier father. Will she succeed in carrying an important message from Boston to Newburyport, warning the American troops to be prepared, or will she be caught by the English ships patrolling the harbor? (summary by wildemoose)...

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Historical Fiction, Children

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Preface: Thirteen men were banded together in Paris under the Empire, all imbued with one and the same sentiment, all gifted with sufficient energy to be faithful to the same thought, with sufficient honor among themselves never to betray one another even if their interests clashed; and sufficiently wily and politic to conceal the sacred ties that united them, sufficiently strong to maintain themselves above the law, bold enough to undertake all things, and fortunate enough to succeed, nearly always, in their undertakings; having run the greatest dangers, but keeping silence if defeated; inaccessible to fear; trembling neither before princes, nor executioners, not even before innocence; accepting each other for such as they were, without social prejudices,--criminals, no doubt, but certainly remarkable through certain of the qualities that make great men, and recruiting their number only among men of mark....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys? house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was so sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys....

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Ihr erstes Kinderbuch Heimathlos enthielt die Erzählungen Am Silser- und am Gardasee und Wie Wiseli’s Weg gefunden wird und erschien 1878 bei F. A. Perthes in Gotha. Als Autorin war nicht Johanna Spyri angegeben, sondern „Von der Verfasserin von Ein Blatt auf Vrony’s Grab“. Erstmals fand sich auf dem Umschlag die Anmerkung Eine Geschichte für Kinder und auch für Solche, welche die Kinder lieb haben», welche auf fast allen Ausgaben Spyris zu finden ist.... (Zusammenfassung von Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Teen/Young adult, Fiction

Description Details
War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Voyna i mir; in original orthography: Война и миръ, Voyna i mir) is an epic novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russki Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy's two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world's greatest novels. War and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, age and marriage. While today it is considered a novel, it broke so many novelistic conventions of its day that many critics of Tolstoy's time did not consider it as such. Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense....

Excerpt Details
War stories, Romance

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The Fifth Queen trilogy is a series of connected historical novels by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It consists of three novels, The Fifth Queen; And How She Came to Court (1906), Privy Seal (1907) and The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908), which present a highly fictionalized account of Katharine Howard's marriage to King Henry VIII....

Excerpt Details
Historical Fiction, Literature

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In his novel Indian Summer, William Dean Howells presents a mellow but realistic story that has the complete feel of that delightful time of the year, although the plot actually spans several seasons. The Indian summer aspect applies to a sophisticated gentleman, Theodore Colville, who has just entered his middle years as he returns to a scene, Florence, Italy, that played an important part in his early manhood. It was here twenty years earlier that he first fell in love, seemingly successfully until a sudden and harsh rejection. Now, after a once profitable career as a newspaper editor has ended, he is barely ensconced in the Italian city when he meets a lady from his past, a close friend of his lost love. Lina Bowen, now a widow with a young daughter, is an attractive and charming socialite among the American and English residents of Florence. Also living with her at this time as a temporary ward is a beautiful young girl just blossoming into womanhood, Imogene Graham. Colville, although he still hides a shy nature, has become an exceedingly witty and entertaining conversationalist. He quickly becomes a favorite with young Effie B...

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Adventure, Historical Fiction, Nature, Romance, Satire