Simon Vance

Left penniless by the death of his improvident father, young Nicholas Nickleby assumes responsibility for his mother and sister and seeks help from his Scrooge-like Uncle Ralph. Instantly disliking Nicholas, Ralph sends him to teach in a school run by the stupidly sadistic Wackford Squeers. Nicholas decides to escape, taking with him the orphan Smike, one of Squeers’s most abused young charges, and the two embark on a series of adventurous encounters

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"This brief book attempts to provide a 21st-century version of Seneca's classic essay, On the Shortness of Life. Like Seneca, Rickles seeks to motivate readers to meditate on how they use their time and offer some reasons why they mismanage this preciousresource. Drawing on new developments in the understanding of time, the self, and human agency, in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and physics, Rickles's basic aim is to highlight the essential...

"Clive Irving's stunning new narrative biography The Last Queen probes the question of the British monarchy's longevity. In 2021, the Queen Elizabeth II finally appears to be at ease in the modern world, helped by the new generation of Windsors. But through Irving's unique insight there emerges a more fragile institution, whose extraordinarily dutiful matriarch has managed to persevere with dignity, yet in doing so made a Faustian pact with the media"--...

Benvenuto Cellini started getting onto trouble at a young age. By age sixteen, he had already been exiled from his hometown for six months due to a public assault of another citizen. As a man with endless talents- sculpting, drafting, writing, music, Cellini enjoyed dabbling in many different art forms, a career that enabled him to travel to various major cities. After apprenticing for a goldsmith, Cellini moved to Rome at age nineteen. There, Pope...

The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862-1863 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. The book was extremely popular during its day, and was a mainstay of children's literature through the 1920s.
The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie

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Of this work as published by the Author, the following was the title: 'Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor, showing the nature of the Pastoral work, especially in Private Instruction and Catechizing, with an open CONFESSION of our too open SINS: Prepared for a Day of Humiliation kept at Worcester, December 4, 1655, by the Ministers of that County, who subscribed the Agreement for Catechizing and Personal Instruction at their entrance upon that work,...

"Huxley's final word about the human condition and the possibility of the good society. . . . Island is a welcome and in many ways unique addition to the select company of books—from Plato to now—that have presented, in imaginary terms, a coherent view of what society is not but might be." — New York Times Book Review

The final novel from Aldous Huxley, Island is a provocative counterpoint to his

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Simon Toyne's breathtaking international bestseller, Sanctus, had critics everywhere cheering, calling the author the new Dan Brown (TheDa Vinci Code) or Steve Berry (The Jefferson Key), while praising Toyne's debut thriller as "remarkable," "thrilling," "provocative," "haunting," and  "spectacular." The adventure continues with The Key, returning readers to the dark world of a sinister religious order older than Christianity and their Vatican-like...

Old Testament history is, filled with accounts of praying saints. The leaders of Israel in those early days were, noted for their praying habits. Prayer is the one thing, which stands out prominently in their lives. In this book, E. M. Bounds chronicles the prayer lives of famous biblical men.

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Stocking, a German-born Jew, hides in 1940 London, hoping someday to reunite with her family while pretending to be a British citizen. American Lieutenant Wesley Bowers arrives in England the same day as the beginning of the Blitz, which is also the day a bomb penetrate's Audrey's apartment--and doesn't explode. When they meet Audrey must decide whether or not to reveal her true identity and past.