Michael Morpurgo’s classic tale, capturing the power of the human spirit. First published back in 1982, ‘War Horse’ has taken the world by storm. The book was adapted to the stage and was performed at the National Theatre and on Broadway. This full and unabridged edition is beautifully performed here by the National Theatre’s first Albert, OIivier-award-winner Luke Treadaway. At the outbreak of World War 1, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France.

A lyrical and moving tale of a young boy growing up in Africa, and his lifelong friendship with a white lion. Bertie rescues an orphaned lion cub from the African veld. They are inseparable until Bertie is sent to boarding school far away in England and the lion is sold to a circus. Bertie swears that one day they will see one another again, but it is the butterfly lion which ensures that their friendship will never be forgotten.

Told in the voice of a young soldier, the story follows 24 hours in his life at the front during World War I, and captures his memories as he looks back over his life. Full of stunningly researched detail and engrossing atmosphere, the book leads to a dramatic and moving conclusion.

It’s 1944. Elizabeth's father is fighting with the German army on the eastern front. Her mother works at Dresden zoo, where her favourite animal is a young elephant named Marlene. When the zoo director tells her the dangerous animals must be shot to prevent them running amok when the town is bombed, Elizabeth's mother moves Marlene into the back garden to save her… and then the bombs start to fall.

In 1985 southern Sudan is ravaged by war. Rebels and government forces battle for control, with ordinary people…people like the boy, Salva Dut…caught in the middle. When Salva's village is attacked, he must embark on a harrowing journey that will propel him through horror and heartbreak, across a harsh desert, and into a strange new life. Years later, in contemporary South Sudan, a girl named Nya must walk eight hours a day to fetch water. The walk is grueling, but there is unexpected hope.

This powerful novel transports listeners to the breathtaking world of Out of Africa—1920s Kenya—and reveals the extraordinary adventures of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time. Brought to Kenya from England by pioneering parents dreaming of a new life on an African farm, Beryl is raised unconventionally, developing a fierce will and a love of all things wild.

Matt is a clone of El Patrón, a powerful drug lord of the land of Opium, which is located between the United States and Mexico. For six years, he has lived in a tiny cottage in the poppy fields with Celia, a kind and deeply religious servant woman who is charged with his care and safety. He knows little about his existence until he is discovered by a group of children playing in the fields and wonders why he isn't like them.

As Tony follows his own path toward adulthood, he relies on the wisdom of Ultima, a magical healer, to forge his unique identity. With hundreds of thousands of copies in print, Bless Me, Ultima has been called the most widely read Mexican-American novel in the English language. Richly evocative, it has earned its place among the classics of modern literature, even drawing favorable comparisons to Herman Melville's legendary Moby Dick.

West with the Night is the story of a remarkable woman molded and shaped by many things: the African jungle, a certain dog, horses, airplanes, friendships with white men and black. There is no life, no story quite like it.

It was a miracle of science that permitted human beings to live, if not forever then for a long, long time. Some people, anyway. The rich, the powerful, they lived their lives at the rate of one year every 10. Some created two societies: that of people who lived out their normal span and died, and those who slept away the decades, skipping over the intervening years and events. It allowed great plans to be put into motion. It allowed interstellar empires to be built.

Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.

Fifteen-year-old Adam Cooper is anxcious to join the excitement and action of the Revolutionary War. On the morning of April 19, 1775, he stands beside his Massachusetts farmer father to face the redcoats marching out of Boston. But suddenly, his father falls on the village green, and Adam’s hands are shaking as he shoots at columns of marching men. With realistic drama and riveting suspense, Howard Fast brings the glory and the agony of the colonial battlefield vividly to life.

The Memory of an Elephant is an epic saga told by an aging African elephant as he makes a last, perilous journey to find the humans who rescued him as an orphan some fifty years ago. Interwoven with his narrative are the tumultuous lives of the family who raised and then lost him.

The Unreal and the Real is a major event not to be missed. In this two-volume selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories--as selected by the National Book Award winning author herself--the reader will be delighted, provoked, amused, and faced with the sharp, satirical voice of one of the best short story writers of the present day. Where on Earth explores Le Guin's earthbound stories which range around the world, from small town Oregon to middle Europe in the middle of revolution to summer camp.

In 4386 BC, a young priestess named Sabalah conceives a magical child with a mysterious stranger named Arash. Sabalah names the child Marrah. This child will save the Goddess-worshiping people of Europe from nomad invaders called Beastmen, but only if her mother can keep her alive long enough to grow up. Warned in a vision of the coming invasion, Sabalah flees west with Arash to save her baby daughter, only to discover that she is running into the arms of her worst enemies.

It’s 1944. Elizabeth's father is fighting with the German army on the eastern front. Her mother works at Dresden zoo, where her favourite animal is a young elephant named Marlene. When the zoo director tells her the dangerous animals must be shot to prevent them running amok when the town is bombed, Elizabeth's mother moves Marlene into the back garden to save her… and then the bombs start to fall.

A goddess in the making... or a demon reborn? In the remote mountain village where she was born, Mariarta dil Alicg lives the untroubled life of a peasant girl...until, soon after a mysterious stranger's arrival, she starts to hear voices in the wind. The voices whisper strange secrets in Mariarta's ears -- promising her the power to command the stormwind, hinting at an unknown, magical heritage, and prophesying a fate marvelous past all Mariarta's imaginings. Then a curse falls on Mariarta's village, shattering the lives of her family and friends.

Set in familiar Steinbeck territory, To a God Unknown is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.

Fifteen-year-old Adam Cooper is anxcious to join the excitement and action of the Revolutionary War. On the morning of April 19, 1775, he stands beside his Massachusetts farmer father to face the redcoats marching out of Boston. But suddenly, his father falls on the village green, and Adam’s hands are shaking as he shoots at columns of marching men. With realistic drama and riveting suspense, Howard Fast brings the glory and the agony of the colonial battlefield vividly to life.

The Unreal and the Real is a major event not to be missed. In this two-volume selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories--as selected by the National Book Award winning author herself--the reader will be delighted, provoked, amused, and faced with the sharp, satirical voice of one of the best short story writers of the present day. Where on Earth explores Le Guin's earthbound stories which range around the world, from small town Oregon to middle Europe in the middle of revolution to summer camp.

In the story, a land owner named Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov takes along one of his peasants, Nikita, for a short journey to the house of the owner of a forest. He is impatient and wishes to get to the town more quickly to purchase the forest before other contenders can get there. They find themselves in the middle of a blizzard, but the master in his avarice wishes to press on. They eventually get lost off the road and they try to camp. The master's peasant soon finds himself suffering from hypothermia.

The story of The Tripods was the basis of a popular BBC television series in the 1980s, where humanity has been conquered and enslaved by "the tripods", unseen alien entities that travel about in gigantic three-legged walking machines.

The most acclaimed Scottish novel of all time, Sunset Song is a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil, seen through the life and struggles of its heroine, Chris Guthrie. In the years up to and beyond the First World War, Chris' resilience, like the land itself, endures despite everything and is portrayed with a lyrical intensity that echoes through the years and still resonates today.

Artist Laura Matthews finds her new home in the Welsh mountains to be a place so charged with tales and legends that she is able to reach through the gossamer-fine veil that separates her own world from that of myth and fable. She and her husband, Dan, have given up their city life and moved to Blaencwm, an ancient longhouse high in the hills. Here, she hopes that the wild beauty will inspire her to produce her best art and will give her the baby they have longed for.

As Tony follows his own path toward adulthood, he relies on the wisdom of Ultima, a magical healer, to forge his unique identity. With hundreds of thousands of copies in print, Bless Me, Ultima has been called the most widely read Mexican-American novel in the English language. Richly evocative, it has earned its place among the classics of modern literature, even drawing favorable comparisons to Herman Melville's legendary Moby Dick.

In 1913, before there is a rumor of war in Europe, Matthias Wrenn and Con Hatchel, lifelong friends from Ballyrannel in the Irish midlands, decide to see the world at the expense of the king of England and join the British army. A year later, while en route to India, their troop ship is recalled and they soon find themselves in the European slaughterhouse that was World War I.

All the creatures of the forest and field and riverbank knew the infant was special. She was the princess, spirited away from the evil fairy, Pernicia, on her name-day. But the curse was cast: Rosie was fated to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a poisoned sleep - a slumber from which no one would be able to rouse her....

A moving love story set in the Canadian wilderness, Mrs. Mike is a classic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide. It brings the fierce, stunning landscape of Canada to life and tenderly evokes the love that blossoms between Sergeant Mike Flannigan and beautiful young Katherine Mary O'Fallon.

My father had an expression for a thing that turned out bad. He'd say it had gone west. But going west always sounded pretty good to me. After all, westwards is the path of the sun. And through as much history as I know of, people have moved west to settle and find freedom. But our world had gone north, truly gone north, and just how far north I was beginning to learn.

Aminah lives an idyllic life until she is brutally separated from her home and forced on a journey that turns her from a daydreamer into a resilient woman. Wurche, the willful daughter of a chief, is desperate to play an important role in her father's court. These two women's lives converge as infighting among Wurche's people threatens the region, during the height of the slave trade at the end of the nineteenth century. The Hundred Wells of Salaga offers a remarkable view of slavery and how the scramble for Africa affected the lives of everyday people.