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American friends begin to summer in a beautiful French country house when WWI breaks out. They decide not to evacuate as the war encroaches. Their interactions are interwoven by the stories that they take turns telling after dinner each night to stimulate their nightly conversation and distract their thoughts from the war. (Summary by A.L. Gramour)...

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Fiction

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The full title of the novel is Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress Or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, Afterwards Called the Countess de Wintselsheim . The novel concerns the story of an unnamed fallen woman, the second time Defoe created such a character (the first was a similar female character in Moll Flanders). In Roxana, a woman who takes on various pseudonyms, including Roxana, describes her fall from wealth thanks to abandonment by a fool of a husband and movement into prostitution upon his abandonment. Roxana moves up and down through the social spectrum several times....

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Fiction

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Cecelia Loring is alone in the world after the death of her mother and has come to the Kentucky mountains in search of work. Although very depressed from her loss she soon becomes caretaker of the garden at a school and not many days later finds herself quite busy as housemother to a group of energetic boys that keep running away from the school because of homesickness, especially Nucky, who seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, worrying about not being at home to help his brother Blant keep lookout for the Cheevers, who have been at war with the Marrses for years over a piece of land. Can she find a way to make the boys feel at home so they will stay and get an education? And can they begin to help her heal the broken places in her heart? Lucy Furman based several of her novels, including Mothering on Perilous, on her years as a teacher and housemother at the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky. Through her experiences at the school her writing vividly portrays the beauty, but also the harshness of mountain life. (summary by Laura Victoria)...

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Fiction

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In 1880’s Boston, Mass. the good life is lead according to all the Victorian era societal rules of the New World. Political ambitions and the business of making money go hand in hand. A Senate seat suddenly opens up due to the current junior senator’s unexpected death, and the political machinations to fill the seat begin. Senatorial candidate John Harrington is a young idealist who thinks that fighting for truth and justice, regardless of political affiliation, is the way. But he is told he can’t possibly win because he isn’t partisan enough. His opponents in the iron mine, railroad and shipping business sabotage his first bid for office, because he wants to do away with protectionism in trade to open up global competition. He eventually succeeds in winning a Senate seat. He gives a rousing speech to Congress as they gather to elect a President in a race which has ended in a three way tie. His message is that blindly following a party’s positions and principles is not being free and independent, and will not always lead to the best person being elected, or to the best decisions being made for the country as a whole. (Summary writte...

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Fiction

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A few years before the great Civil War, a young English woman and her father, having left the security of their wagon train, are lost in the unforgiving Californian desert, looking in vain for the landmark that marks the short-cut across those last western mountains which would lead them to the home of an old friend. George Castlewood gives all the water and rations he has to his daughter, Erema, and dies just a short distance from help. Rescued by kind Sampson “Uncle Sam” Gundry, the family friend they had been seeking, Erema lives for a time at his saw mill. One day, one Mr. Goad, a bounty-hunter from England, arrives at the mill, offering $10,000 for proof of Lord Castlewood’s death and custody of his young daughter. Lord Castlewood had been accused of the crime of patricide 15 years earlier, escaped from jail and been on the lam ever since. Erema, believing her father’s innocence and determined to clear his good name, returns to England to discover the long-lost secrets of her family and the cloudy circumstances of the murder of her grandfather. Told by Erema herself, this is a grand story of mystery and the coming of age of an ...

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Fiction

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(The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. It was the second novel in the Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil (1915) and The Midlander (1923, retitled National Avenue in 1927). In 1942 Orson Welles directed a film version, also titled The Magnificent Ambersons. The novel and trilogy traces the growth of the United States through the declining fortunes of three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family in a fictional Mid-Western town, between the end of the Civil War and the early part of the 20th century, a period of rapid industrialization and socio-economic change in America. The decline of the Ambersons is contrasted with the rising fortunes of industrial tycoons and other new-money families, which did not derive power from family names but by doing things. As George Amberson's friend (name unspecified) says, don't you think being things is 'rahthuh bettuh' than doing things? The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel, said Van Wyck Brooks. [It is] a typical story of an American family and town—the great family that locally ruled the roost and v...

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Fiction

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Amory Blaine grew up in a wealthy family and was given an Ivy League education. Without a need to learn a profession, he chiefly dabbled in literature and partying. His school chums were of similar background, and the ideas they reflected to each other grew in their minds to be of the greatest importance. Amory began to think of himself as somewhat of a character in a Rupert Brooke poem (from which the book's title is taken). World War I intervened in this happy fog and brought focus to some, doubt to others. In the rapidly changing technology of the war era, the financial underpinnings of the Blaine fortune began to fall apart. The deaths of Amory's parents left the finances without a rudder and as Amory's situation deteriorated he came to realize he had only his interest in literature to fall back upon. Meanwhile, a series of young women traipsed through his life, attracted to his handsome face and bright wit like moths to a candle. But Amory could never master the role of being a real person... and, one by one, they traipsed out. This Side of Paradise was F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel and was one of the nation's most popular ...

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Fiction

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Burmese Commisioner Nayland Smith and his faithful friend Dr Petrie continue their fight against the evil genius of Dr Fu-Manchu when they seek to save the good doctor's lost love and protect the British Empire from disaster when their malignant enemy returns to England. (Summary by Elaine Tweddle)...

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Fiction, Adventure, Mystery

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A romance and adventure novel, set in England during the reign of Queen Anne. The book is much unlike the author's later detective short stories. The actual book is difficult to locate and appears to have been forgotten. It is not even listed by Wiki as part of the author's work, nevermind have any information on the book itself. (Summary by JCarson)...

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Fiction, Adventure, Romance

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The Stolen White Elephant was written by Mark Twain and published in 1882. In it, an Indian elephant, en route from India to Britain as a gift to the Queen, disappears in New Jersey. The local police department goes into high gear to solve the mystery but it all comes to a tragic end. (PLUS more TBD) (Summary by Wikipedia & John Greenman)...

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Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Mystery

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Fiction, Historical Fiction

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Written just before Prohibition to entail the possible troubles that might happen en route. Both sides of the argument, or battle as the case may be, strike out with various over-top methods like legislating most fruits and vegetables as unsafe or intoxicating large groups with breathable alcohol. (Summary by Daryl Wor)...

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Cookery, Fiction, Humor, Satire

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Eine reiche Witwe heiratet einen Gentleman ohne Vermögen. Bald schon kommt es zum Streit zwischen den Eheleuten und der Mann verschwindet spurlos. Die Aussage der Kammerzofe ruft die Ermittlungsbehörden auf den Plan. Die Erzählung ist im Original unter dem Titel A Plot in Private Live in The Queen of Heart's erschienen. (Zusammenfassung von Hokuspokus)...

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Fiction, Literature

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Eric Marshall is all that a well brought-up young man should be. Handsome, steadfast, and full of ambition, he is expected to expand the Marshall & Company empire -- and to marry a woman suitable to replace his mother in Nova Scotia's finest circles. When a sick friend asks for a favour, becoming a substitute schoolmaster in the Prince Edward Island countryside seems the perfect post-graduation lark. But when Eric wanders into an old orchard at twilight, his life will be changed forever... (Summary by Sarah Jennings)...

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Fiction, Romance

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An ex-convict breaks parole and starts a new life as a righteous man, but is pursued by a police inspector. Along the way, the ex-convict joins a revolution, adopts a daughter, and beats people up. Hooray. (Summary by smileyman457)...

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Romance, Fiction

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The American Claimant is an 1892 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The story focuses on the class differences and expectations of monarchic, hierarchical Britain and the upstart, all men are created equal America. Twain wrote the novel with the help of phonographic dictation, the first author (according to Twain himself) to do so. This was also (according to Twain) an attempt to write a book without mention of the weather, the first of its kind in fictitious literature. Indeed, all the weather is contained in an appendix, at the back of the book, which the reader is encouraged to turn to from time to time. (Summary by Wikipedia and John Greenman)...

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Comedy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Humor

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Frau Jenny Treibel oder „Wo sich Herz zum Herzen find’t“ ist ein Roman Theodor Fontanes. Ende 1892 ausgeliefert, gewann der Roman sehr schnell die Gunst von Publikum und Kritik. Er hat sie bis heute ohne erkennbare Einschränkung bewahrt. Mit scheinbar nur halbem Ernst wird dem Leser eine Geschichte vorgeplaudert nach dem Muster einer Komödie. Im Zentrum des Romans stehen zwei Berliner Familien: Zum einen die großbürgerlichen Treibels – der Kommerzienrat, seine Frau Jenny sowie die Söhne Otto und Leopold, zum anderen Professor Wilibald Schmidt und seine Tochter Corinna. Es geht um Besitz und das mit ihm verbundene gesellschaftliche Ansehen, um Bildung versus Besitz, um Poesie, echte und falsche Gefühle. (Zusammenfassung von Wikipedia)...

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Fiction, Romance

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E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series, consists of six novels and three short stories. The novels are: Queen Lucia, Lucia in London, Miss Mapp (including the short story The Male Impersonator), Mapp and Lucia, Lucia's Progress (published as The Worshipful Lucia in the U.S.) and Trouble for Lucia. Most of these works are set in the fictional village of Tilling, which is based on the village of Rye, Sussex, England. Mallards, the house with the garden room inhabited by Miss Mapp, and later by Lucia, is based on Lamb House, Benson's own home in Rye. Earlier, the house was the Sussex home of writer Henry James. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline.)...

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Fiction, Humor, Satire

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Under the Andes was written by Rex Stout years before his creation of the immensely popular Nero Wolfe series of novels, and while perhaps his future writing style is still blossoming, certainly his knack for weaving a fantastic tale of mystery and adventure will have most readers anxious for the next phase of adventure at every turn. The story finds two brothers and a pretty female companion on a journey which eventually takes them to a series of underground caves under the Andes of South America, where they encounter a lost tribe of Incas who have apparently survived hundreds of years oblivious of the outside world. The apparent 'king' of the tribe has become infatuated with the fair-skinned female intruder of the group and, well, suffice it to say there's a lot of action, attempted escapes, heroism, and peculiar interactions between all, reminiscent of H. Rider Haggard with a touch of Edgar Rice Burroughs. (Summary by Roger Melin)...

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Mystery, Fiction

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The novel follows the lives of Rose and her widowed Aunt, Madame Francesca Bernard, along with young visitor and cousin Isabel, whose lives are changed by the return of an old friend and neighbour Colonel Kent, and his grown son, Allison. Other characters that help shape their lives in significant ways are the Crosby twins, unconventional and uninhibited youths that set society at naught, and an unconventional doctor who specializes in the impossible. Through the limited wide-scope descriptions the reader is not sure of the historical setting or even in which decade it's set, but it helps to understand the focus of the story; after all it's about their own little world, and how their own hearts and lives fit together in the tight confines of their town, their garden, their friendships and lives. (Summary by wikipedia.org)...

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Fiction, Historical Fiction