Literary Society

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.... As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.

Tahari and Thug Kenneth have spent years building their empire and raising a family. During these years they’ve acquired wealth, power, success, and enemies. Street beef is what they stay ready for. This time they’re blindsided by ghosts and enemies of the past. This new threat to the family comes at the worst time for Ta’Baby. She’s in the midst of building an all female cartel. Which consists of women who are married to some of the biggest Kingpins the Urban Fiction streets have ever seen. Thug Inc. is hit in a way that requires them to fall back. Which is what Tahari needs in ...

As passionate as it is profound, Atlas Shrugged is one of the most influential novels of our time. In it, Rand dramatizes the main tenets of objectivism, her philosophy of rational selfishness. She explores the ramifications of her radical thinking in a world that penalizes human intelligence and integrity.

The CliffsNotes study guide on Shaffer and Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries, and a comprehensive index, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work. CliffsNotes Review tests your comprehension of the original text and reinforces learning with questions, answers, and more.

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book - she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books - and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

To give them hope she must tell their story. It's 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer's block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a secondhand book - she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

In 1962, Jackie Hart moved to Naples, Florida, from Boston with her husband and children. Wanting something personally fulfilling to do with her time, she starts a reading club and anonymously hosts a radio show, calling herself Miss Dreamsville. The racially segregated town falls in love with Miss Dreamsville, but doesn't know what to make of Jackie, who welcomes everyone into her book club, including a woman who did prison time for allegedly killing her husband....

One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now, it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy. These people - a laborer, a young widow, the local doctor, and a movie star, among others - could not be more different and yet they are united in their love for the works and words of Austen.

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history - performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life. So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher - the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him.

Amina Cain's extraordinary fiction has been said to take place in "a strangely ageless world somewhere between Emily Dickinson and David Lynch" (Blake Butler), and this, her debut novel, is no exception. Indelicacy introduces us to a cleaning woman at an art museum who nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind.

Who owns the Eustace Diamonds? Lizzie Eustace claims that Sir Florian Eustace, her late husband, gave them to her. But Mr Camperdown, the family solicitor, insists that they are an heirloom, to be passed down from generation to generation. Lizzie is both beautiful and clever, yet Mr Camperdown believes her to be a scheming liar. And Mr Camperdown is right! The battle for the diamonds rages until a robbery intervenes and they disappear. Or do they...?

Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans.

Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centers on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new stepsister enters Molly's quiet life, the loveable, but worldly and troubling, Cynthia. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood within the gossiping and watchful society of Hollingford.

In the fourth of the ‘Palliser’ stories, Trollope follows Phineas Finn’s return to the dangerous world of Westminster politics. When his political rival is murdered, Phineas is thrown under suspicion and eventually finds himself standing trial at the Old Bailey. The situation is complicated by the presence of two women in his life: his old flame Lady Laura, whose estranged husband is determined to destroy Phineas’s reputation, and the wealthy and enigmatic widow, Madame Max.

In Phineas Finn, the second of the Palliser series, Trollope balances the rival demands of public and private life. Phineas Finn, an irresistible but penniless young Irish barrister enters Parliament and comes to London leaving behind him an Irish sweetheart, Mary Flood-Jones. In London, Phineas wins friends on all sides and is admitted into high society. However, he also falls more-or-less in love, first with politically-minded Lady Laura Standish, then with Violet Effingham, and finally with wealthy widow Madame Max Goesler.

The orphaned heroine Ruth, apprenticed to a dressmaker, is seduced by wealthy Henry Bellingham who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. Their affair causes her to lose her home and job to which he offers her shelter, only to cruelly abandon her soon after. She is offered a chance of a new life though shamed in the eyes of society by her illegitimate son. When Henry reappears offering marriage she must choose between social acceptance and her own pride.

In her electrifying debut, Julia Armfield explores women’s experiences in contemporary society, mapped through their bodies. As urban dwellers’ sleeps become disassociated from them, like Peter Pan’s shadow, a city turns insomniac. A teenager entering puberty finds her body transforming in ways very different than her classmates’. As a popular band gathers momentum, the fangirls following their tour turn into something monstrous. After their parents remarry, two step-sisters, one a girl and one a wolf, develop a dangerously close bond.

After Jane Austen's earliest known writings, she began a more serious work, Lady Susan, in 1793 or 1794. It is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction.