Reading Essentials: 322 books

Bob White is a busy bird with many friends, so why is he keeping his new nest a secret? Why did Mrs. Bob White choose such a dangerous location for their home? And when a hunter shows up, how will Farmer Brown's boy rescue the imperiled Whites?

Would you ever enter into a pact with the Devil to sell your soul and body in return for becoming a great musical genius like Beethoven? Aspiring musical composer Leverkühn's extraordinary intellect and creativity as a young man mark him as destined for success, but his ambition is for true...

First published in 1939, T.S. Eliot's collection of cat poems, written originally to amuse his godchildren and friends, has become a favorite of children's literature...

This is a most interesting biography of Mark Twain by Canada's own famous classic  "funny man" Stephen Leacock.  The sketch of Mark Twain is an amazing portrait, virile, graphic, loving, and of course humorous. The perfect combination of Leacock and Twain was a happy choice as both men were the geniuses of humor writing of their era...

The Magic Mountain is the story of an unassuming, undistinguished young engineer named Hans Castorp who sits on the balcony of a sanatorium, wrapped in his blanket, thermometer in his mouth, naively but earnestly pondering the meaning of life, time, and his love for the beautiful Frau Chauchat.  Among...

When her fiance Giles disappears in a shipwreck, Meade Underwood asks Miss Silver to take on the case.

In The Lion and the Unicorn George Orwell expressing his opinions on the situation in wartime Britain. It expressed his opinion that the outdated British class system was hampering the war effort, and that in order to defeat Nazi Germany, Britain needed a social patriotic revolution in contrast to...

The Road to Oxiana is the brilliant account of Robert Byron’s ten-month journey to Iran and Afghanistan in 1933–34. This classic travelogue is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing.

First published in 1933, this text is a fascinating account of Robert Byron's travels in the Russia, India and Tibet of the time. The narrative of travels and descriptions of environment are first-rate and beautifully written. One of the great early examples of the travel-writing genre! 

Touring Europe with his beautiful but spoiled wife Fran, millionaire Sam Dodsworth, known as the American Captain of Industry, witnesses the clash of American and English cultures at the same time his marriage falls apart. Searing, passionate and profound, DODSWORTH is the unforgettable novel of an American businessman in Europe. 

Winning invaluable treasures? Rescuing his crew from almost certain death? With much excitement and swashbuckling adventure, physician and country gentleman Peter Blood is forced to turn from medicine to piracy in this swashbuckling classic brimming with stolen treasure, adventure on the high seas, and romance.

With Saint Joan, Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc (canonized in 1920), but unhappy with "the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition," he presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, always brave - a rebel who challenged the conventions and values of her day.

Here again are stories with a suggestion of the "Gothic". Each of these five stories bears the hallmark of Isak Dinesen. The Diver is an ironical tale of a young theological student who thinks his fate belongs with the birds - and the angels. When human jokers trick him into betrayal, he...

John Buchan 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, had a remarkable life and here is his wonderfully written and fascinating memoir. A highly accomplished man and now known by many chiefly as an author, he was also an historian, politican and Governor General of Canada. Buchan served in the army during the Boer war....