Simon Vance

This beautiful tale follows a raindrop's journey on Earth, from the time of the dinosaurs to the creation of the earliest cities and beyond. It explains how Earth has depended on the same water supply throughout its existence by flowing and falling all around us, fueling and forming much of what we have seen and used for millions of years.Featuring beautiful narration and educational back matter including an explanation of the water cycle, the importance...

"Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George. When a police detective is taken off life support after falling into a coma, only an autopsy reveals the murderous act that precipitated her death. She'd been working on a special task force within North London's Nigerian community, and Acting Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley is...

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen, the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria, took up residence on Dragonstone. Their tale begins with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. Originally serialized in L'Illustration from September to November 1907, The Mystery of the Yellow Room marked the first appearance of popular character Joseph Rouletabille, a reporter and part-time sleuth who features in several of Leroux's novels. Originally a journalist, Leroux turned to fiction after reading the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Often...

First published serially between January and December of 1878 in the sensationalistic monthly London magazine "Belgravia", Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" is the author's sixth published novel. Set in Egdon Heath, an area of Thomas Hardy's fictionalized Wessex known for the thorny evergreen shrubs, called furze or gorse, which are cut there by its residents for fuel. When the story begins, on Guy Fawkes Night, we find Diggory Venn, a merchant...

Based around a series of sermons by Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender extols the need for 'absolute surrender' to God. Murray provides concrete steps for bringing about such surrender in one's life. He also describes both the fruit of surrendering, e.g. true experience of the Holy Spirit in one's life, and the different 'stages' one goes through on the 'path to Christian liberty'. Thus, anyone not fully experiencing Christian liberty can profit from...

With an Introduction by Anthony Briggs Translated by Louise Maude This powerful novel, Tolstoy's third major masterpiece, after War and Peace and Anna Karenina, begins with a courtroom drama (the finest in Russian literature) all the more stunning for being based on a real-life event. Dmitri Nekhlyudov, called to jury service, is astonished to see in the dock, charged with murder, a young woman whom he once seduced, propelling her into prostitution....

"God shapes the world by prayer."As The Sunday School Times aptly describes, Edward McKendree Bounds "was a specialist in prayer, and his books are for the quiet hour, for careful meditation, and for all who wish to seek and find the treasures of God."Bounds beckons readers into the heart of communion with the Divine, unveiling the essential role of prayer in the life of every believer. With meticulous insight, Bounds invites readers into the inner...

The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he appears to drown and is transformed into a "water-baby", as he is told by a caddisfly-an insect that sheds its skin-and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly,...

A lost generation searches for meaning in chaotic post-WWI London in this satirical novel by the acclaimed author of Brave New World. First published in 1923, Aldous Huxley's Antic Hay was banned in Australia and burned in Cairo for its frank depiction of bohemian life in the grim and listless aftermath of the Great War. Set in London, the comic novel follows a large cast of artists and intellectuals through their nihilistic yet determined pursuits....