Title: The Life of Charlotte Bronte Author: Elizabeth Gaskell File Type: Mobi Subject:classics Description:
Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of her close friend Charlotte Bronte was published in 1857 to immediate popular acclaim, and remains the most significant study of the enigmatic author who gave Jane Eyre the subtitle An Autobiography. It recounts Charlotte Bronte's life from her isolated childhood, through her years as a writer who had 'foreseen the single life' for herself, to her marriage at thirty-eight and death less than a year later. The resulting work - the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist - explored the nature of Charlotte's genius and almost single-handedly created the Bronte myth.
Title: Cate of the Lost Colony
Author: Lisa Klein
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Historical
Description:From School Library JournalGrade 7 Up—Cate, 14, is a maid for Queen Elizabeth until her emotions get the best of her. When a romance develops between Cate and Sir Walter Ralegh, the jealous queen declares, He. Is. Mine and sends her to the Tower.However, the smooth-talking Ralegh is able to convince the queen that the young woman should be sent to America, thinking that he will eventually join her. Clearly this forbidden relationship doesn't evolve, and Cate's life becomes consumed with surviving in Roanoke with hostile Natives threatening to attack. She enlists the help of Manteo to learn their language and, predictably, a romance grows from that. Chapters containing Ralegh's writings and memorandums alternate with those about Cate and Manteo, who is educated in English and charged with negotiations with the Natives. While the writing is smooth and easy to follow, only true American-history enthusiasts will find this novel interesting enough to read in its entirety. The author's note is helpful in clarifying fact from fiction. Celia Rees's Witch Child (Candlewick, 2001) is a more interesting story about this period in history.—_Jessica Lorentz Smith, Bend Senior High School, OR_ (c) 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. FromLady Catherine incurs the queen’s jealousy when the young noblewoman catches the wandering eye of Sir Walter Ralegh. Banished to the Virginia Roanoke colony as a result, Cate first looks forward to adventure and a new start. Nothing can prepare her or her shipmates for the hardship of the ordeal. Expected supplies do not arrive, and the settlement is tossed into survival mode complete with political wrangling, disease, and clashes with the native people. As Cate comes of age, she compares her feelings for the handsome, clever Manteo of Roanoke with the dashing, opportunistic Ralegh. Klein deftly balances the romantic appeal with the grueling reality of survival, the lives of original inhabitants, and factual background of English colonization. In a departure from historic detail, Ralegh, who never visited the colony, sails to Roanoke near the end of the story to try to reclaim his lady. Readers will eagerly await her decision. Grades 7-10. --Anne O'Malley
Title: The System of the World
Author: Neal Stephenson
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Historical
Description:
Tis done.
The world is a most confused and unsteady place -- especially London, center of finance, innovation, and conspiracy -- in the year 1714, when Daniel Waterhouse makes his less-than-triumphant return to Englands shores. Aging Puritan and Natural Philosopher, confidant of the high and mighty and contemporary of the most brilliant minds of the age, he has braved the merciless sea and an assault by the infamous pirate Blackbeard to help mend the rift between two adversarial geniuses at a princesss behest. But while much has changed outwardly, the duplicity and danger that once drove Daniel to the American Colonies is still coin of the British realm.
No sooner has Daniel set foot on his homeland when he is embroiled in a dark conflict that has been raging in the shadows for decades. It is a secret war between the brilliant, enigmatic Master of the Mint and closet alchemist Isaac Newton and his archnemesis, the insidious counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a. Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Hostilities are suddenly moving to a new and more volatile level, as Half-Cocked Jack plots a daring assault on the Tower itself, aiming for nothing less than the total corruption of Britains newborn monetary system.
Unbeknownst to all, it is love that set the Coiner on his traitorous course; the desperate need to protect the woman of his heart -- the remarkable Eliza, Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm -- from those who would destroy her should he fail. Meanwhile, Daniel Waterhouse and his Clubb of unlikely cronies comb city and country for clues to the identity of the blackguard who is attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with Infernal Devices -- as political factions jockey for position while awaiting the impending death of the ailing queen; as the holy grail of alchemy, the key to life eternal, tantalizes and continues to elude Isaac Newton, yet is closer than he ever imagined; as the greatest technological innovation in history slowly takes shape in Waterhouses manufactory.
Everything that was will be changed forever ... The System of the World is the concluding volume in Neal Stephensons Baroque Cycle, begun with Quicksilver and continued in The Confusion.
Title: Chords of Strength_ A Memoir of Soul, So
Author: David Archuleta
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Autobiography
Description:
**Singing sensation and *American Idol* favorite David Archuleta tells his inspiring personal story. Includes full-color photos! **
A runner-up on American Idol and successful music artist, David Archuleta was named one of the breakout stars of 2008 by *Forbes* magazine and landed the number two spot on the Billboard charts.
In *Chords of Strength* David shares his unexpected and inspiring journey, including how he overcame vocal cord paralysis to achieve his dream of being a singer. He reveals insecurities he felt about his voice-before he realized that he loved the way singing made him feel more than he disliked the way he sounded. In this personal memoir, David opens up about the strength he draws from his unshakable faith and unyielding family. He pays tribute to those who continue to inspire him and through their example help him believe in himself, his talent, and his abilities.
Intimate and uplifting, *Chords of Strength* allows a unique glimpse of the man behind the music and offers hope to anyone with a passion and a dream.
Title: Star Wars_ Jedi Quest 06_ The Shadow Trap
Author: Jude Watson
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction:Star Wars
Description:Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker.
Master and apprentice.
Chosen by fate. Destined for conflict.
The planet of Mawan has been decimated by war and the resulting chaos. The population has taken refuge underground, while three greedy crimelords battle over food and fuel on the planet's surface. Only one group has a chance at securing peace—the Jedi.
But what if there's something even more sinister behind the chaos? What if the planet is really a trap, with many innocent lives held in the balance?
What if, in order to save Mawan, a Jedi must die?
Title: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side
Author: Agatha Christie
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Mystery
Description:
Agatha Christies audacious murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended? Marinas frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched for material evidence, Jane Marple conducted a very different investigation -- into human nature.
Title: The Last Page
Author: Anthony Huso
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fantasy
Description:
The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what’s living in the city’s sewers.
Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold’s reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold’s dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracyadept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in bloodand she has been sent to spy on the High King.
Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the *Cisrym Ta*, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph’s veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph.
Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the *Cisrym Ta* waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.
Title: The Sugar Queen
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Romance
Description:
In this irresistible novel, Sarah Addison Allen, author of the New York Times bestselling debut, Garden Spells, tells the tale of a young woman whose family secrets—and secret passions—are about to change her life forever.
Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night…. Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis—and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them—and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.
Brimming with warmth, wit, and a sprinkling of magic, here is a spellbinding tale of friendship, love—and the enchanting possibilities of every new day.
Title: Fight Club
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Contemporary
Description:From Publishers WeeklyFeaturing soap made from human fat, waiters at high-class restaurants who do unmentionable things to soup and an underground organization dedicated to inflicting a violent anarchy upon the land, Palahniuk's apocalyptic first novel is clearly not for the faint of heart. The unnamed (and extremely unreliable) narrator, who makes his living investigating accidents for a car company in order to assess their liability, is combating insomnia and a general sense of anomie by attending a steady series of support-group meetings for the grievously ill, at one of which (testicular cancer) he meets a young woman named Marla. She and the narrator get into a love triangle of sorts with Tyler Durden, a mysterious and gleefully destructive young man with whom the narrator starts a fight club, a secret society that offers young professionals the chance to beat one another to a bloody pulp. Mayhem ensues, beginning with the narrator's condo exploding and culminating with a terrorist attack on the world's tallest building. Writing in an ironic deadpan and including something to offend everyone, Palahniuk is a risky writer who takes chances galore, especially with a particularly bizarre plot twist he throws in late in the book. Caustic, outrageous, bleakly funny, violent and always unsettling, Palahniuk's utterly original creation will make even the most jaded reader sit up and take notice. Movie rights to Fox 2000. 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. FromIn the world of Fight Club, healthy young people go to meetings of cancer support groups because only there can they find human warmth and compassion. It's a world where young men gather in the basements of bars to fight strangers just as long as they have to. And it's a world where nobody cared if he lived or died, and the feeling was fucking mutual. Messianic nihilist Tyler Durden is the inventor of Fight Club. Soon thousands of young men across the country are reporting to their work cubes with flattened noses, blackened eyes, and shattered teeth, looking forward to their next bare-knuckle maiming. The oracular, increasingly mysterious Durden then begins to harness the despair, alienation, and violence he sees so clearly into complete anarchy. Every generation frightens and unnerves its parents, and Palahniuk's first novel is gen X's most articulate assault yet on baby-boomer sensibilities. This is a dark and disturbing book that dials directly into youthful angst and will likely horrify the parents of teens and twentysomethings. It's also a powerful, and possibly brilliant, first novel. Thomas Gaughan