Frederick Davidson
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Colin Dexter's Chief Inspector Morse-the cranky, heavy-drinking, and exasperatingly brilliant sleuth of the Thames Valley Police-has become one of the most beloved detectives in fiction. Now, with this collection of eleven short stories, we can savor choice examples of his dry wit, devious cunning, and psychological insight at its best.Colin Dexter tantalizes us with six Inspector Morse adventures, ranging from bite-size morsels of intrigue to longer...
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Robert Browning was a deeply religious man who wrestled to obtain and keep his Christian faith. His conviction was that life in this world is so riddled with evil and sorrow that only a future life can make sense out of it. He viewed life as a training ground which God provided in His divine love and sovereign will. Given Browning's intensely romantic love affair with Elizabeth Barrett, it is characteristic that he should view love as life's animating...
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From one of the truly preeminent historians of our time, this is a landmark book chronicling the French Revolution. Simon Schama deftly refutes the contemporary notion that the French Revolution represented an uprising of the oppressed poor against a decadent aristocracy and corrupt court. He argues instead that the revolution was born of a rift among the elite over the speed of progress toward modernity and science, social and economic change. Schama's...
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The epitome of the romantic literary hero, Lord Byron was as well known in his time for the revolutionary panache with which he lived as for his extremely popular verse. “As a myth,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “his importance, especially on the continent, was enormous.” His many tempestuous relationships were the subject of scandal which only added to his celebrity. His name has even entered into our language to describe a man of deep passion...
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This unique murder mystery is both a penetrating analysis of a decaying social class and a deeply moving personal story of two men: Peter Proctor, recently retired as a senior British cabinet minister, and Timothy Wycliffe, a young aristocrat who was bludgeoned to death more than thirty years ago. Once close friends, their relationship had gradually faded; even Wycliffe's shocking murder caused relatively little impact on his friends and the national...
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Only one man stands between Napoleon's army and a British defeat-Major Richard Sharpe. A band of renegades led by Sharpe's vicious mortal enemy, Obadiah Hakeswill, holds a group of British and French women hostage in a strategic mountain pass. Newly promoted, Major Sharpe is given the task of rescuing them. On the other side of the pass, Napoleon's Grande Armée seeks to smash through and crush the British army in Portugal. Sharpe has only the support...
87) The Dogs of War
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"Knocking off a bank or an armored truck is merely crude. Knocking off an entire republic has, I feel, a certain style." So says mining magnate Sir James Manson, a shadowy titan of London's financial district, who is scheming a coup d'état in the small West African dictatorship of Zangaro, where a secret source of platinum lies waiting to be exploited. The man selected to plan and carry out the sack of Zangaro is Cat Shannon, a thirty-three-year-old...
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William Wordsworth (1770 -1850) is one of the most popular and enduring of the English poets. His poetry is beloved for its deep feeling, its use of ordinary speech, and its celebration of nature and of the beauty and poetry in the commonplace. Together with his friend, the poet and political activist Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth helped launch the romantic age in English literature. These poems demonstrate the astonishing range and beauty of...
89) The Korean War
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It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. In this extensive history, preeminent military historian Max Hastings takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of June 1950. Using personal accounts from interviews with more than two hundred vets-including the Chinese-Hastings follows real officers and soldiers through...
90) Rudyard Kipling
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This gripping biography mixes intimate detail with a thorough understanding of the social, intellectual, artistic and political climate of the time to unravel the intricate story of the misunderstood genius who wrote Kim, The Jungle Books, and the poem “If”. Growing up in both England and India, this descendant of a high-achieving family crossed India's established divide between ruler and subject as he explored the urban underworld and dabbled...
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It is a perfect plot for Napoleon: stop Wellington's forces in Spain and destroy Major Richard Sharpe. Major Richard Sharpe awaits the opening shots of the army's new campaign with grim expectancy. Victory depends on the increasingly fragile alliance between Britain and Spain-an alliance that must be maintained at any cost. Unfortunately, things are about to get complicated for the Sharpe. An unfinished duel, a midnight murder, and the treachery of...
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Everyone has come to love the impeccable Jeeves and the inimitable Bertie. But what of their creator, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, whose ninety-three years produced a volume of work "unsurpassed in the history of literature"? Was he really a traitor to his country who broadcast dangerous propaganda from Germany during the war? And how can this be squared with the immensely lovable figure of "Plum," upon whom the Queen bestowed a knighthood in 1975?...
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Only a year after its stunning victory at Talavera in July of 1809, Wellington's Peninsular army—vastly outnumbered, its coffers empty—is on the brink of collapse. The Spanish government has fallen, and the last Spanish armies have been crushed by the French. But Wellington has one hope left: in the dangerous Portuguese hills lies a fortune in gold, enough gold perhaps to turn the Peninsular War around. And he knows of one fighting man capable...
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The definitive work on Stalin's purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. While the original volume had relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work. Under the light of fresh evidence, it is remarkable how many of Conquest's most disturbing conclusions...
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Horace Rumpole—who never prosecutes, whose fame rests on an infinite knowledge of blood and typewriters, whose court scenes are proverbial, whose home is ruled by Mrs. Rumpole (“She Who Must Be Obeyed”)—is back on the defense, as irreverent, as iconoclastic, as claret-swilling, poetry-spouting, impudent, witty, and cynical as ever. This time the judge-debunking barrister-at-law is embroiled with a minister accused of shoplifting, an actress...
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Although the poet John Donne lived so long ago, some phrases from his writing still linger with us today, such as “no man is an island,” “death, be no proud,” and “for whom the bell tolls,” the last of which provided the title for one of Ernest Hemingway's novels. Donne used poems as a means of metaphysical inquiry and meditation, as well as for very sensual expression. His daringly original use of imagery and conceits to lead the mind...
97) The Light of Day
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Alfred Hitchcock said, "Mr. Ambler is a phenomenon," and Graham Greene referred to him as "our greatest thriller writer." This is an ideal title for introducing listeners to this master. Ambler brilliantly paints realistic portraits of his characters and the foreign landscape, mixing suspense with a subtle twist for added color. When Arthur Abdel Simpson first spots Harper in the Athens airport, he recognizes him as a tourist unfamiliar with the city...
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In this installment of the best selling historical fiction series featuring Major Richard Sharpe, a corrupt political enemy is determined to disband the South Essex Regiment and destroy Sharpe's life. Sharpe returns to England to discover an illegal recruiting ring that sells soldiers like cattle to other divisions. The ringleaders know Sharpe is on their trail, and they try to kill him at every turn. But Sharpe is fighting for his command, and as...
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Of all the despots of our time, Joseph Stalin lasted the longest and wielded the greatest power, and his secrets have been the most jealously guarded—even after his death. In this book, the first to draw from recently released archives, Robert Conquest gives us Stalin as a child and student; as a revolutionary and communist theoretician; as a political animal skilled in amassing power and absolutely ruthless in maintaining it. He presents the landmarks...
100) The Belly of Paris
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Although it is little known in this country, The Belly of Paris is considered one of Émile Zola's best novels. Set in the newly built food markets of Paris, it is a story of wealth and poverty set against a sumptuous banquet of food and commerce.
Having just escaped from prison after being wrongfully accused, young Florent arrives at Paris' food market, Les Halles, half starved, surrounded by all he can't have, and indignant at his world, which he...