Literatura

The Star Zoo Level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library

Gilbert, Harry

A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Written for Learners of English by Harry Gilbert In our world today a hummingbird is a small, brilliantly coloured bird that lives in the tall trees of tropical forests. In the far distant future, Hummingbird (Hummy for short) is a girl of sixteen who lives somewhere in the Galaxy, on a planet called Just Like Home. She has the name 'Hummingbird' in big letters on all her clothes, but she has never seen a real hummingbird. She has never seen any living animal or bird at all. The Book of Remembering says that there were once many animals on a planet called Earth, but that was before the Burning, a long, long time ago . . .

The Star-Chamber

William Harrison Ainsworth

It is a good gothic thriller. Sir Giles Mompesson is a gloomy and all-powerful villain who sows destruction and suffering with the help of the Star Chamber court, it seems, just like that.

The Stark Munro Letters

Arthur Conan Doyle

This is the story of a young doctor in Victorian Britain. In this collection of letters written to an American friend, Stark Munro tells of the trials and tribulations that face him as he tries to build his practice. Each letter contains two elements: one part is the narrative of events in the life of a young medical graduate in his efforts to set up a practice, as his own man, with a very little assistance from anyone else; the other part of each letter is didactic, presented as his friendly arguments with his close friend Swanborough. The hyper-rational side of his personality that Arthur Conan Doyle aired in his Sherlock Holmes series of detective tales was only one piece of the puzzle. Conan Doyle also had a mystical side, and he was fascinated by the supernatural and the occult. In the epistolary stories collected in The Stark Munro Letters, he masterfully combines both of his passions, exploring supernatural themes from the perspective of a master detective.

The Stars in Their Courses

Mary Cholmondeley

Gertrude was a great astrologer and spoke in astrological terms. She told the protagonist (after the wedding) that when she discovered that Jimmys moon in the house of marriage was in a semi-sextile with her Venus, she knew from the very beginning that their union was inevitable. The stars are rarely wrong.

The Step on the Stair

Anna Katharine Green

I had turned the corner at Thirty-fifth Street and was halfway down the block in my search for a number I had just taken from the telephone book when my attention was suddenly diverted by the quick movements and peculiar aspect of a man whom I saw plunging from the doorway of a large office-building some fifty feet or so ahead of me.

The Steppe

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The story of a boy Egor, who goes from his home to a gymnasium located in another city. This trip is the last event before the start of a new life away from mother and familiar places. Nothing unexpected happens on the way, but at the same time, there is a constant change of landscapes and moons of Egor, meetings with new people, both ordinary and of noble origin. The boy is a witness to the life of people whose path also lies through the steppe.

The Steward

Edgar Wallace

This early work by Edgar Wallace was originally published in 1932. Wallace was an extremely prolific writer who wrote over 175 novels, plus numerous plays, essays and journalistic articles. During the peak of his success during the 1920s, it was said that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him. In England, in the 1920s, Wallace was said to be the second biggest seller after the Bible. Many of his novels were made into films and TV dramas. The Steward is a collection of short stories that include The left Pass, The Little Baroness, Solo and the Lady, and many more. The stories are fast-paced with some surprising twists, well written and great to read and definitely a product of their time and place.

The Stingaree

Max Brand

Renowned Western writer Max Brand does it again in the eminently enjoyable story "The Stingaree". When Alabama Joe drifted into Fort Anxious, he seemed to be a shiftless, easygoing tramp. But he didnt fool Stanley Parker. Hed gunned down the notorious Bob Dillman. Hed known that one day Dillmans outlaw partner would appear to avenge death. The Stingaree was fast on the draw and deadly as a snake. Parker knew hed have to draw first, or die! Here is a fast-moving story of a man of many names and many skills who found that his ordeal had just begun when he met his enemy. Ahead of him lay the perils of hired guns and wilderness traps and a bitter conflict with his own code of honor.