Juliet Stevenson
Author
Formats
Description
In this book the author returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker-a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in...
2) Sweet tooth
Author
Formats
Description
Recruited into MI5 against a backdrop of the Cold War in 1972, Cambridge student Serena Frome, a compulsive reader, is assigned to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer whose politics align with those of the government, a situation that is compromised when she falls in love with him.
Author
Appears on these lists
Formats
Description
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
Author
Description
On a dark midwinter's night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, a wounded stranger carries in the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later the girl stirs, and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Magic? As the days pass the child remains mute and unable to answer questions. Three families are keen to claim her: the wealthy mother of a kidnapped daughter missing for two years; a farming family sure it is their son's secret daughter; a parson's housekeeper,...
Author
Formats
Description
Austen tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen's fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into scrapes while vacationing at Bath and during her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey, Catherine eventually triumphs, blossoming into a discerning woman who learns truths about love, life, and the heady power of literature.
Author
Description
Read the first-person narrative of Jane Eyre that revolutionized the art of fiction. Jane Eyre explores the thems of classicism, sexism, religion and proto-feminism and follows the experiences of Jane Eyre as she grows to adulthood and falls in love with Mr. Rochester. This digital edition from Xist Classics features a beautifully formatted and professionally proofed version of the original text.
Author
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore 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: Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiance was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish...
Author
Description
From the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm Toibin comes a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra: spectacularly audacious, violent, vengeful, lustful, and instantly compelling, and her children ... In House of Names, Colm Toibin brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, and gives this extraordinary character new life, so that we not only believe Clytemnestra's thirst for revenge, but applaud it. He brilliantly...
11) Persuasion
Author
Appears on these lists
Book Chat August 3: Balloons & Beer & Tea
Book Chat October 19: Department Stores and Navy Birthday
Romance
Book Chat October 19: Department Stores and Navy Birthday
Romance
Formats
Description
Anne Elliot lives at Kellynch Hall with her family, but when financial struggles set in they decide to move. Then her life is forever changed as she is reunited with Wentworth, a past fiancé who she never married. Through her journey, Anne may find that what she has been looking for was right in front of her the whole time.
Author
Appears on these lists
Description
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the...
13) The March
Description
A charismatic, Gandhi-like leader emerges from the refugee camps to lead a million starving Africans on an epic march from Sudan into Europe, under the banner "Watch Us Die". When they reach their destination, the authorities' reaction is both predictable and violent.
14) Madame Bovary
Author
Appears on list
Formats
Description
The slow but inevitable moral degeneration of a weak woman. Describes the patient rendering of the squalor and narrowness of provincial life and of its effect on the woman's mind.
15) Departure
Description
In Director Andrew Steggall’s debut film, Beatrice (Juliette Stevenson, Mona Lisa Smile) and her teenage son Elliot (Alex Lawther, The Imitation Game) are preparing for the sale of their vacation home in the south of France. Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother. Beatrice in turn is upset over the sale of the house and her crumbling marriage.When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, enters their...
Description
Capture the spirit of Christmas with this delightful animated classic! "Bah humbug,"says Ebenezer Scrooge, the grumpy miser who would rather count his money than celebrate Christmas. But as Yuletide cheer spreads through all of London and two friendly mice try to change Scrooge's ill-tempered ways, Scrooge receives three unexpected visitors: the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future who take him on a wild and wonderful journey and help him...
Author
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and--despite her prosthetic leg--helped to light...
18) The odd women
Author
Description
The Odd Women (1893) is a novel by George Gissing. Inspired by a report of over one million more women living in Britain than men, Gissing sought to explore the societal and personal implications of unmarried life while exploring the demands of the growing feminist movement. The Odd Women is a story of romance, independence, and the pressures of society that poses important questions about convention in Victorian England while proving surprisingly...
Author
Description
"The Nine follows the true story of the author's great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of WWII from Germany back to Paris. The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked...
Author
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson--a sensible schoolmarm and lonely spinster--is just trying to get through life. But one day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and her tidy, circumscribed life, to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of an insect that may or may not exist: the golden beetle of New Caledonia, Margery's childhood obsession ever since her father gave...