Featured Ebooks
Welcome
Grab a warm blanket and your favorite holiday drink because this season's Ebooks feature all books that have been turned into movies. Take some time this season to read the books and watch the movies and you be the judge, is the book better than the movie or is the movie better than the book?
Contemporary Poetry Books
Emma
Emma stands a little apart from Jane Austen's other novels. It is perhaps the most self-aware, socially critical, and ironic of all her works. Her protagonist, Emma Woodhouse, is a beautiful, rich girl who is also spoiled, proud, and blinded by her own situation in life. She begins to understand herself and life a little better when her romantic schemes - charitable good works to those around her - become entangled in tensions of class and of the heart. Austen wrote of Emma, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Stories
Ebenezer Scrooge is a lonely, miserly old man who hates Christmas, which he dismisses as "humbug". One Christmas Eve, however, he is visited by a series of ghosts who reveal to him the innocence he has lost, the wretchedness of his future, and the poverty of the present, which he has so far ignored. This experience teaches Scrooge the true meaning of the holiday and leaves him a transformed man. With its memorable cast of characters such as Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is the most heart-warming of seasonal tales, a timeless classic that continues to enchant readers around the world and a lesson in charity and hopefulness that is as powerful today as when it was first written in 1843.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
In a secluded Dutch settlement in New York, two men vie for the hand of a wealthy farmer's daughter. Ichabod Crane, the superstitious schoolmaster is one of those men. One night, when walking home from the farmer's house, Ichabod is chased by the Headless Horseman, who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of the earliest examples of American literature still read today.
Around the World in 80 Days
An all-time classic, this version of Jules Verne's Around The World in 80 Days has been specially formatted for today's e-readers. Follow Phileas Fogg and Passepartout as Fogg takes a wager to travel around the world in what was - at the time - an unthinkably short amount of time!
The War of the Worlds
When an army of invading Martians lands in England, panic and terror seize the population. As the aliens traverse the country in huge three-legged machines, incinerating all in their path with a heat ray and spreading noxious toxic gases, the people of the Earth must come to terms with the prospect of the end of human civilization and the beginning of Martian rule. Inspiring films, radio dramas, comic-book adaptations, television series, and sequels, The War of the Worlds is a prototypical work of science fiction that has influenced every alien story that has come since, and is unsurpassed in its ability to thrill, well over a century since it was first published.
The Island of Doctor Moreau
From the great science fiction writer H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau tackles the thorny issues thrown up when humankind plays God and explores notions of society and identity, bringing the mythical chimera - part human, part animal - into the age of science.
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later is the final book in Dumas' d'Artagnon Romances trilogy. The book is in four parts, of which this is the fourth. D'Artagnan remains in the service of the corrupt King Louis XIV after the Three Musketeers have retired and gone their separate ways. Unbeknownst to D'Artagnan, Aramis and Porthos plot to remove the inept king and place the king's twin brother on the throne of France. Meanwhile, a twenty-three-year-old prisoner known only as "Philippe" wastes away deep inside the Bastille.
Apollo 13
"Houston, we've had a problem." On April 13, 1970, the three astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft were headed to the moon when a sudden explosion rocked the ship. Oxygen levels began depleting rapidly. Electrical power began to fail. Astronauts James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise were about to be stranded in the inky void of outer space. The mission to the moon was scrapped. Now, Apollo 13's only goal was to bring the crew home. With the damaged spacecraft hurtling towards the moon at roughly six thousand miles per hour, there was little hope of success. But the astronauts and mission control were fully prepared to do whatever it took to return the crew to Earth. This space disaster occurred at the peak of the United States' Space Race against the Soviet Union. But for four days in 1970, the two nations put aside their differences, and the entire world watched the skies, hoping and praying the astronauts would return safely. As missions to Mars and commercial space flight become a reality, the time is now to be reminded of our common humanity, of how rivals can work together and support each other towards a shared goal. Because no matter what happens or where we travel, we all call Earth home.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Immerse yourself in one of the classic masterpieces of Western literature. Victor Hugo's sweeping epic The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a timeless tale of unrequited love that also touches on themes of jealousy, passion, purity, social justice, and moral goodness.
The Time Machine
H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, from 1895, popularized the idea of a vehicle that allows its user to travel intentionally and selectively across time, and indeed Wells is credited with coining the very term "time machine." The Time Traveler of this novella tests his time machine with a leap forward to the year 802,701 A.D., to find that evolution has produced two very different post-human races - the peaceful and childlike fruit-eating Eloi and the Morlocks - pale, darkness-dwelling creatures who operate the underground machinery that makes this seeming paradise possible.
The Phantom of the Opera
Christine is brought up by her itinerant musician father, whose death she mourns endlessly. She achieves a singing position in the Paris Opera line, where a mysterious voice teaches her to unleash her musical potential. The voice belongs to Erik, a deformed musical genius who lives in the opera house. As Christine's singing career takes off, her childhood friend Raoul begins to court her, and he and Erik fight jealously for Christine's hand.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late fourteenth-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining the adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In this poem, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious green warrior. In a struggle to uphold his oath along this quest, Gawain demonstrates chivalry, loyalty, and honor. This new verse translation of the most popular and enduring fourteenth-century romance to survive to the present offers students an accessible way of approaching the literature of medieval England without losing the flavor of the original writing. The language of Sir Gawain presents considerable problems to present-day readers as it is written in the West Midlands dialect before English became standardized. With a foreword by David Donoghue, the close verse translation includes facing pages of the original fourteenth-century text and its modern translation. Medieval European Studies Series, Volume 13
Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a witty and insightful satirical novel that recounts the history of Lemuel Gulliver, "First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships". In his travels Gulliver visits the Land of Lilliput, where he towers over the local inhabitants, the land of Brobdingnag where he is much smaller than the citizens, the floating island of Laputa, infested with fanatical scientists who in their obsession with reason behave with no sense at all and finally to the land of the brutish Yahoos who look to all intents and purposes like humans and are derided by the intelligent horse people. John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that "it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery"
20,000 Leagues under the Sea
Jules Verne's classic science fiction story Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea tells the great tale of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus. In 1866 a strange and unknown sea monster is sighted by ships and an ocean liner is attacked. An expedition prepares in New York, to find and destroy the menacing creature. The 20,000 of the title refers to an overall distance traveled under the sea, rather than an impossible measure of descent.
Odyssey
Widely regarded as one of the finest works of literature in the Western canon, Homer's Odyssey is a masterpiece of classical epic poetry. The tale follows the travels of the Greek hero Odysseus as he strives to return to his homeland after waging battle in the Trojan War. Long presumed dead after a 20-year absence, Odysseus finally returns to his native Ithaca and is forced to fight to resume his long-lost life and save his family from ruin. The Odyssey is a can't-miss experience for cultured readers.
Captain Blood
Captain Blood is an adventure story set during the end of the seventeenth century. Dr. Peter Blood is an ex-soldier and sailor whose work as a physician on the battlefield sees him convicted for treason and sent as a slave to the Caribbean. Blood's talents are soon recognized, though he doesn't remain on the plantation for long. When the Spanish attack, Blood is among a group of formerly enslaved persons who capture their ship and become some of the most feared buccaneers of the Caribbean.
The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw is s ghostly Gothic tale by Henry James. A masterpiece in ambivalence and the uncanny, The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a young woman who is hired as governess to two seemingly innocent children in an isolated country house. As the tale progresses she begins to see the ghost of her dead predecessor. Or does she? The story is so ambivalent and eerie, such a psychological thriller, that few can agree on exactly what takes place. James masters "the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy" in this chilling Victorian classic.
The Lost World
Think Sherlock Holmes is Arthur Conan Doyle's sole literary creation? Think again! The Lost World is a fictional tale about swashbuckling explorer Professor Challenger, who travels to South America on a research expedition -- and encounters an array of thought-to-be-extinct prehistoric creatures along the way.
Treasure Island
This edition of Treasure Island has been specially formatted for today's e-readers. The original story grew out of a map that led to an imaginary treasure, devised during a holiday in Scotland by Stevenson and his nephew. The tale is told by an adventurous boy, Jim Hawkins, who gets hold of a treasure map and sets off with an adult crew in search of the buried treasure. Among the crew, however, is the treacherous Long John Silver who is determined to keep the treasure for himself. Stevenson's first full-length work of fiction brought him immediate fame and continues to captivate readers of all ages.
Scaramouche
Scaramouche is a swashbuckling romantic adventure set during the French Revolution. A young lawyer becomes enmeshed in political turmoil and goes into hiding as an actor with a traveling commedia dell'arte troupe. He plays the buffoon, Scaramouche. During his adventures he also becomes a master politician and swordsman, and though he is a revolutionary, circumstances force him to change sides several times. The tone of the book is set from the opening line: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."