Reading Essentials: 322 books

Monsieur le Vicomte is a remarkable man - not least because, for all concerned, he had been guillotined along with numerous French aristocrats. Yet by some twist of fate he managed to escape and seek refuge in Turin, out of the jurisdiction of the French authorities. But by an even more perverse twist...

Last Tales is a collection of twelve of the last tales that Isak Dinesen wrote before her death in 1962. They include seven tales from Albondocani, a projected novel that was never completed; "The Caryatids," an unfinished Gothic tale of a couple bedeviled by an old letter and a gypsy's...

First published in 1931, The Robert Collier Letter Book is by far the top book on writing sales letters. But it goes beyond that. As every great copywriter knows, these techniques are directly transferable to the Internet, whether through web copy or email or whatever. This book earned Robert Collier...

John Maynard Keynes, in "The Great Slump of 1930", wrote about the period of deflation which was the great depression at a time when it had really just started and there were more questions than answers about what was happening. At the time of his writing, Keynes could not have known...

This is the classical epic, glorifying the heroism of Charlemagne in the 778 battle between the Franks and the Moors. Penned by an anonymous poet, it describes in detail the betrayal and slaughter of Charlemagne's army under Roland at Renceavaux and Charlemagne's bitter revenge. Nowhere in literature...

Set in England in the 1920's, this story is about a father's love, devotion and sacrifice for his beloved son. Captain Sorrell returns from the war to find his wife has left him with sole responsibility for their son Kit. Despite many deprivations, Sorrell strives to ensure his son will have the education...

A sequel to Time Traders, the Cold War race through time remains Norton's background. Both search for abandonded wrecks of a race that had interstellar travel in Man's infancy. Travis Fox, Apache, joins Ross Murdock and Dr. Gordon Ashe, time agents, in an attempt to transfer an intact alien ship through 20,000 years to the present... mayhem ensues.

J. S. Fletcher's The Charing Cross Mystery starts dramatically. Hetherwick, a young barrister, witnesses the sudden death of one of two fellow passengers on the London Underground between St. James's Park and Charing Cross. The dead man’s companion disappears without trace and foul play is suspected.

Dolittle sets up a world-wide mail service for animals, but when a mail robbery occurs, he must solve the crime.

The Wizard of Venus is a novella by Edgar Rice Burroughs. "The Wizard of Venus" is the final story in Burroughs's Venus series (sometimes called the "Carson Napier of Venus series"). Written in 1941, the piece remained unpublished until 1964, fourteen years after the author's death....

In spare, vivid, hauntingly poetic prose, this long-out-of-print classic tells the tale of a young prince who dares to brave the deep and mysterious forest to find the land of Faerie - and from that magical realm bring back the Elf-Princess as his bride.

Prince Anthony d'Egmont preserves the ideals of chivalry in this historical novel set in the time of Louis XI. An incredible historical adventure, written by one of the masters of the genre, Rafael Sabatini, and a much-needed addition to the library of historical fiction enthusiasts!

PITCAIRN'S ISLAND unfolds a tale of drunkeness, betrayal, murder, and vengeance as it chronicles the fate of Christian, the mutineers, and a handful of Tahitians, who together take refuge on the loneliest island in the Pacific.

The plan was for the  Bismarck to break out into the Atlantic — the very phrase indicates one of the problems faced by German sea power, getting past the British Isles — and operate beyond land-based air power, running amok amongst allied convoys.