Under Western Eyes

Joseph Conrad

This novel is considered to be one of Conrads major works and in subject matter is close to The Secret Agent. It is also full of conflict about the historical failures of revolutionary movements and ideals. Razumov is a career-motivated young man, unwillingly trapped in a political situation. As he travel to Geneva (from St. Petersburg), brings hope that he is going to go back to his normal life, while he is getting more involved in politic, by felling in love with the sister of his own victim...Never having experienced any kind of warmth or affection, Razumov reveals the truth to Natalie and suffers the consequences for his betrayal. Writing before the Russian revolution, Conrad tries to elucidate Russia for the western reader. As such, you get some revolutionaries and bureaucrats, and a protagonist caught in between.The strength of the book is what Conrads strength often is, his ability to see into the hearts and minds of characters. In this case he is aiming to see into the psychology of Russia as a country, and hits a few bulls eyes.

Dodos Daughter. A Sequel to Dodo

E.F. Benson

Dodo is the main and favorite character of Benson. In this part of the novel, the main character experiences emotional experiences. She is trying to calm down and build her family. Readers will always be part of the novel. You can look at the whole story from the inside and empathize the main character.

The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories

Edith Wharton

Seven short stories from the prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Edith Wharton. With a wide variety of protagonists a cloistered monk to a struggling artist to a Governor to a New England lawyers wife she is flexing her writing muscles and trying on personas. Includes The Last Asset, In Trust, The Pretext, The Verdict, The Pot-Boiler, and The Best Man. In the title story, the reader learns that the hermit, as a young boy, witnessed the killing of his parents and sister during an attack on his town. As a result of his trauma, he has retreated into isolation until he meets a wild woman who comes to live nearby. Highly recommended when you want something short but stimulating between longer reads!

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

The storys heroine is Catherine Morland, an innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austens Gothic parody.

Nowele i opowiadania pozytywistyczne. Wybór

Praca zbiorowa

Najsłynniejsi pisarze polskiego pozytywizmu Maria Konopnicka, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Bolesław Prus i Henryk Sienkiewicz mają w swoim dorobku oprócz licznych powieści także setki nowel i opowiadań. Utwory te poruszały aktualne problemy, opisywały życie środowisk zacofanych, nawoływały do poprawy warunków na wsiach. Te zwięzłe, jednowątkowe utwory wypowiadały protesty pisarzy, którzy starali się w ten sposób walczyć z niesprawiedliwością i krzywdą ludzką. Pozytywiści podejmowali próby pracy u podstaw, pragnęli działać na rzecz klas najuboższych. Głoszono również hasła emancypacji kobiet i asymilacji Żydów. Odzwierciedlenie haseł epoki pozytywizmu można było przede wszystkim odnaleźć właśnie w nowelistyce. Utwory typu: Gloria victis, Antek, Sachem, Janko Muzykant czy Nasza szkapa, zebrane w tomie Nowele i opowiadania pozytywistyczne, nie tylko tworzą kanon literatury, lecz także pozwalają zobaczyć, jak bardzo świat zmienił się od drugiej połowy XIX stulecia.

Żmija

Juliusz Słowacki

Turecki żołnierz w trakcie jednej z wojen przechodzi na stronę kozaków, aby następnie zostać hetmanem na Siczy Zaporoskiej. Kieruje nim żądza zemsty za śmierć ojca i odebranie kochanki. Nie wszystko jednak idzie po jego myśli.

The Time Machine

Herbert George Wells

Decades ahead of his time, H.G. Wells leaps beyond the bounds of conventional imagination to tell the story of the Time Traveler. A seminal and hugely imaginative work of early science fiction, H.G. Wellss The Time Machine is the first and greatest modern portrayal of time-travel and definitely a spiritual ancestor of every time travel story since. The book introduces a scientist who uses a Time Machine to be transferred into the age of a slowly dying earth. Humans have been separated by time, genetics, wars and change of their habitats into two different races, the Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks. After narrowly escaping from the Morlocks, the Time Traveller undertakes another journey even further into the future where he finds the earth growing bitterly cold as the heat and energy of the sun wane. Horrified, he returns to the present, but soon departs again on his final journey. The Time Machine examines the age-old questions of humankinds ultimate destiny and the role we play in shaping it.

The Luck of the Spindrift

Max Brand

A Novel of Adventure. A quest for a fabulous treasure. The ordeal of Sam Culver. He gets mugged and shanghaied aboard the ship Spindrift. A race for exquisite pearls belonging to a man who is about to die. Prolific in many genres Max Brand wrote historical novels, detective mysteries, pulp fiction stories and many more. "The Luck of the Spindrift" is not the usual Max Brand Western - its a South Seas treasure hunt adventure. The plot is well constructed with well drawn subsidiary characters and provides a number of interesting twists.