Great Literature

Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity. Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career. That’s when Penney makes a bold decision. He stops trading on his power-lawyer identity and creates a new one: lawyer lifeguard.

It is December 1878, and war looms on the horizon in South Africa. British high commissioner Sir Henry Bartle-Frere seeks to dismantle the powerful neighboring kingdom of the Zulus and uses an incursion along the disputed border as his justification for war. He issues an impossible ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, demanding he disband his armies and pay massive reparations. With a heavy heart, the king prepares his nation for war against their former allies.

In this special presentation, William J. Bennett presents a selection from his best-selling anthology of stories that has inspired and instructed audiences of all ages from coast to coast. From the Bible to fables to Greek myths, from ancient philosophy to American history to unforgettable words of our nation's leaders, here are the timeless works that will help children understand and develop character - and help adults teach them.

Darius Kellner is having a bit of a year. Since his trip to Iran this past spring, a lot has changed. He's getting along with his dad, and his best friend Sohrab is only a Skype call away. Between his first boyfriend, Landon, his varsity soccer practices, and his internship at his favorite tea shop, Darius is feeling pretty okay. Like he finally knows what it means to be Darius Kellner. Then, of course, everything changes.

Three complete stories in one collection! Includes The Great Bicycle Race Mystery, The Mystery of the Wild Ponies, and The Mystery in the Computer Game.

Dickens the Enchanter takes us deep into an imagination whose power and originality struck some contemporaries as godlike while others thought it demonic. If you already love Dickens, it will renew your understanding of him; if you have yet to experience him, it will lure you into his astonishing, alarming, enchanted world.

When twenty-year-old college dropout Moriah Shaker runs into an empty chapel to escape an unexpected storm, she’s catapulted into another world Wizard of Oz style. Unfortunately, she winds up in the treacherous realm of Hakeldama, a fantastical but brutal land where justice is twisted and innocents pay for crimes committed by the elites—and she’s now marked for death.

Jay Gatsby is still in love with Daisy, whom he met during the war when he was penniless. Having made himself wealthy through illegal means, he now lives in a mansion across the bay from the home of Daisy Buchanan, who has since married for money. Holding on to his illusion of Daisy as perfect, he seeks to impress her with his wealth, and uses his new neighbor, Nick Carraway, (our narrator), to reach her.

Cal, a scout in the Avion Guard, struggles to meet the expectations of his father, who happens to be his commanding officer. Assigned to protect the wise and respected emerging cicadas of The Great Southern Brood, they encounter a crisis of great magnitude that sends father and son on an unexpected journey. Along the way, their eyes are opened by new friends to unsettling knowledge that prompts them to risk their lives in an effort to save an entire species.

When the young orphan called Pip encounters the escaped convict Magwitch, the child's life is altered forever - in ways he cannot even imagine. In the course of his story, Pip encounters such memorable characters as the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella - and a mysterious benefactor. This recording includes both of the endings Dickens wrote for this classic novel.

It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one.

It's the last week of summer. Rebekah, Mouse, RJ and the gang are excited to spend their last days of school vacation hanging out together in Curtis Bay. They have lots of fun pool days planned until suddenly everything is ruined. This bad news brings with it a mystery followed by the best prank of the summer.

Socrates is an enigmatic figure, known chiefly through the accounts of others like Plato and Aristophanes. He was one of the most brilliant intellects ever, and devised what would later be called the Socratic method, which is a way of leading one's interlocutor to see his errors and contradictions through clever questioning before leading him to the truth. In ancient Athens, Socrates was widely known as a "gadfly", that is, an annoying insect buzzing at people's ears, because he kept questioning prejudices and contradictions; he was eventually tried and executed for "corrupting the minds of the youth".

Here are eight tales of the Greatcoats, legendary sword-fighting magistrates brought together by an idealistic young king and disbanded after his execution as a tyrant. Follow along through their swashbuckling adventures, their triumphs and defeats, their darkest hours and their moments of shining redemption as they struggle to bring justice to a corrupt kingdom.

Rosie Jones has been dumped by every boyfriend she’s ever had - most recently by Dinosaur Dave, live on TV, during the ‘phone-a-friend’ segment of a quiz show. After the footage goes viral Rosie receives a bunch of flowers with a message: I love you, I should have never let you go, I want you back x But who sent them?

Known throughout for his prowess in the bedroom, Morgan Lyons, the eighth Earl of Westcliffe, cannot forgive an unpardonable affront to his honor. Discovering his young bride in the arms of his brother was a staggering blow?so he banished the beautiful deceiver to the country and devoted himself to the pursuit of carnal pleasure.

It is 1929. The world is about to change. Finn Evans is a successful Boston banker harboring a secret that threatens to unravel his carefully constructed idyllic life. Isabelle Lazar, a young Ukrainian farmer, endures unspeakable hardships in her homeland as she fights to save her family from the Soviet Union's iron grip. Barely escaping the Terror-Famine, she washes up alone on America's distant shores. Fate throws Finn and Isabelle together just as the stock market crash causes a devastating collapse of his world.

The Ultimate Modern Classics Collection: Volume One is the first instalment in our classics collection focusing on the most important and iconic novels, stories, and poems of the 20th century. Featuring 22 essential modern classics from Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Hesse, Agatha Christie, Virigna Woolf, and many more, and read by a cast of incredible narrators including David Rintoul, Robert G. Slade, Karen Cass, Nathan Osgood, amongst others, this is an essential addition to your library.

Drawing on myth, folklore and history, the stories of the Mabinogion passed from generations of story tellers before they were written down in the 13th century in the form we know. Set in dual realms of the forests and valleys of Wales and the shadowy otherworld, the tales are permeated by a dreamlike atmosphere. In 'Math Son of Mathonwy', two brothers plot to carry off the virginal Goewin, while in 'Manawydan Son of Llŷr', a chieftain roams throughout Britain after a spell is cast over his land.

From its humble beginnings as a discount shop on Seventh Avenue, Barneys grew into an international phenomenon, setting the tone for fashion not only in New York, but across the country and worldwide. Told with razor-sharp wit and inimitable style, They All Came to Barneys takes us on an insider’s journey as rakish, would-be rocker Gene Pressman and the global fashion industry grew up and came into their own, side by side.