Edward Waverly enjoyed a privileged upbringing, despite his family's drama. Coming of age during a political uprising, Edward's time is split between his father and his uncle, who each have opposing political views, which causes a rift in the family. His uncle is a traditional British subject that wishes to overthrow the government so that Charles Edward Stuart is restored to power, commonly known as a Jacobite. However, Edward's father is a Hanoverian,...

We wonder that so great a man as Abraham Lincoln should spring from humble people - but who knows what his more distant ancestry might have been? In a series of dramatic chapters, Mr. Buchan tells what he imagines to have been the ancestry of Lincoln. The worthy son of a northern chieftain who had come down with his people into Normandy; a Norman knight who fought under Duke William and settled in England; a French knight, emissary of Saint Louis...

"In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with...

First published in 1899, this graphic depiction of urban American life centers around its title character, McTeague, a dentist practicing in San Francisco at the turn of the century. While at first content with his life and friendship with an ambitious man named Marcus, McTeague eventually courts and marries Trina, a frugal young woman who wins a large sum of money in a lottery. The greed of the majority of the characters in the novel creates a chain...

The Fortune of the Rougons (1871) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. The first of twenty volumes of Zola's monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series is an epic story of family, politics, class, and history that traces the disparate paths of several French citizens raised by the same mother. Spanning the entirety of the French Second Empire, Zola provides a sweeping portrait of change that refuses to shy away from controversy and truth as it gets...

"What inspires you? That's the simple, but profound question more than forty renowned authors answer in LIGHT THE DARK. Each author picks a favorite passage--from a novel, a song, a poem--to reveal what gets them started and keeps them going doing the creative work they love. From there, incredible stories of life changing encounters with art emerge, like how sneaking a volume of Stephen King stories into his job as a night security guard helped Khaled...

A writer travels to a fishing village to complete her book and becomes close friends with many residents including her popular housemate, Mrs. Almira Todd. Throughout her stay, the writer is, inundated with personal stories from her colorful neighbors. In The Country of the Pointed Firs, a Boston native travels to a small Maine town called Dunnet Landing. She finds room and board with an older woman named Almira Todd, a widow and local herbalist....

Pamela Andrews is a fifteen-year-old maidservant at an estate in Bedfordshire. When Lady B, her employer, dies, her son Mr. B takes an interest in the innocent young girl, quickly turning from generosity to outright attempts at seducing her. As Pamela rejects his advances, she considers returning home to live in poverty with her parents. When he catches wind of her plan, however, Mr. B accuses Pamela of having an affair, notifying her parents and...

In the last of his World War I adventures, Richard Hannay undertakes his most dangerous assignment yet When England calls, Richard Hannay answers. Not yet forty and already a brigadier general, he has led the charge into some of the fiercest fighting of World War I: Loos, the Somme, Arras. There is no telling how far up the ranks he might climb if only the Foreign Office would stop taking him off the front lines for cloak and dagger work. Adding insult...

The charms of the poems in A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896, continue to resonate today. Housman's first collection and his signature work, the poems here mix the styles of traditional English ballads and classical verse, and evoke the idyllic English countryside, explore the nature of friendship, bravery, and the passing of youth, among other themes.