Simon Vance
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English
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"It is September 1940-a year into the war-and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan-loyal, intelligent, beautiful-but none more so than Duchess. Hatched from...
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Silver Arrow volume 1
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English
Description
Kate and her younger brother Tom lead dull, uninteresting lives. And if their dull, uninteresting parents are anything to go by, they don't have much to look forward to. Why can't Kate have thrilling adventures and save the world the way people do in books? Even her 11th birthday is shaping up to be mundane -- that is, until her mysterious and highly irresponsible Uncle Herbert, whom she's never even met before, surprises her with the most unexpected,...
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The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared into the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities -- making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of the House Atreides. Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced house Corrino is plotting...
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St. Charles Public Library - Book Discussion Sets
St. Charles Public Library - Book Discussion Sets (Nonfiction)
St. Charles Public Library - Book Discussion Sets (Nonfiction)
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It had been nearly a century since elephants had lived in Southern Zululand, South Africa, where Lawrence Anthony founded his Thula Thula wildlife reserve. Yet one day a surprise phone call changed all that. A troubled, unpredictable herd needed a new home. In order to save their lives, Lawrence took them in, and in the years that followed found that they had a lot to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom. This is a heartwarming, exciting, funny,...
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In 1924 the wife of a Boston surgeon came to embody the raging national debate over Spiritualism, a movement devoted to communication with the dead. Reporters dubbed her the blonde Witch of Lime Street, but she was known to her followers simply as Margery. Her most vocal advocate was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed so thoroughly in Margery's powers that he urged her to enter a controversial contest, sponsored by Scientific American. Her supernatural...
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"Florence, Italy, 1944: The city is under heavy Nazi occupation, but for thirteen-year-old Paolo, war is a long and boring wait. Too young to fight for the resistance, yet desperate for action and adventure, he sneaks out each night to ride his bicycle along the darkened city streets. For Paolo, the risk is thrilling. But when he is accosted by Partisans--covert members of the anti-Nazi movement--thrilling quickly becomes dangerous as Paolo and his...
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Temeraire volume 1
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English
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"In the first novel of the New York Times bestselling Temeraire series, a rare bond is formed between a young man and a dragon, and together they must battle in the Napoleonic Wars. Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its...
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From the front lines of modern medicine, this is an insider portrait of a veterinarian, his furry patients, and the blend of old-fashioned instincts and cutting-edge technology that defines pet care in the 21st century. Dr. Trout, an Englishman who is a staff surgeon at Boston's Angell Animal Medical Center, takes the reader on a vicarious journey through 24 intimate, heartrending hours in his life; his wry, companionable voice offers enlightening...
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In this work, a Viennese psychiatrist tells his grim experiences in a German concentration camp which led him to logotherapy, an existential method of psychiatry. This work has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 the author, a psychiatrist labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished....
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"Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to make amends for his youthful misdeeds but his unchanged impulsiveness clouds his relationships in love as well as his fortunes in business. Although Henchard is...
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The adventuresome young man, Robin of Locksley, doesn't have a worry in the world until one day when a drunken man working for the King shoots an arrow at him. Robin's aim is better, to his lasting regret, and he becomes an outlaw subject to capture and hanging. Before long, however, Robin attracts a hearty band of other outcasts to Sherwood Forest. Their only wish is to lead a free, merry existence while doing any kindness they can for the downtrodden....
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A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print.
One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that
14) Dune
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This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence. The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the...
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Adult - Halloween Fun
Classic Horror Novels--Melrose Park Public Library
Classics - St. Charles Public Library
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Classic Horror Novels--Melrose Park Public Library
Classics - St. Charles Public Library
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Description
Miss Jessel is dead. A new governess arrives at a remote estate in Bly to care for Miles and Flora. Wild but angelic they charm their guardian with flowers, poetry and song. But as she grows to love her two wards, figures appear in the darkness outside and the corners of the house are haunted by those that have gone before. The Governess must confront her fear and protect the children from the alarming dangers that surround them.
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"Set in the magical Wessex landscape so familiar from Thomas Hardy's early work, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is unique among his great novels for the intense feeling that he lavished upon his heroine, Tess, a pure woman betrayed by love. Hardy poured all of his profound empathy for both humanity and the rhythms of natural life into this story of her beauty, goodness, and tragic fate. In so doing, he created a character who, like Emma Bovary and Anna...
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A master of deductive reasoning who can solve the most difficult crimes by spotting obscure clues overlooked by others, dilettante sleuth Sherlock Holmes was the hero of sixty stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle between 1887 and 1927. He even rose from the dead after Doyle tried to dispatch him in his twenty-fourth adventure, and readers protested. Here, in one volume, are all four full-length novels and fifty-six short stories about the colourful...
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From the Publisher: When David Copperfield's widowed mother remarries, David suffers from his stepfather's abuse. At age 8, David is sent away to a harsh school where the principal routinely beats the students. David's circumstances become even worse when he is removed from school and, at age 10, forced to labor from morning to night in a London warehouse. David then decides to take desperate action. He will run away to his great-aunt, who lives...
19) Paradise lost
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English
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"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Blind, broken by the death of his wife and bitterly disappointed by the Restoration, Milton dictated his sweeping biblical epic Paradise Lost to a series of helpers. While the struggle between God and Satan rages across the cosmos, the human tragedy of Adam and Eve the temptation and fall is movingly depicted in language unsurpassed in its musicality and beauty. A staggering and audacious undertaking...
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William Shakespeare's shortest-but one of his most popular, tragedies features a man, who will do anything to fulfill a prophecy that will lead him to become the King of Scotland. Fresh from battle, Macbeth and his companion Banquo come across three witches who tell of great power that is in store for Macbeth. Driven by their prophecy and aided by his wife, Macbeth sets out on a journey that is, wrought with deceit, murder, and suffering to acquire...