Mr. Standfast by John Buchan (1918)

<p>Published in 1919, <i><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standfast</i> is a thriller set in the latter half of the First World War, and the third of <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-buchan">John Buchan’s</a> books to feature Richard Hannay.</p> <p>Richard Hannay is called back from serving in France to take part in a secret mission: searching for a German agent. Hannay disguises himself as a pacifist and travels through England and Scotland to track down the spy at the center of a web of German agents who are leaking information about the war plans. He hopes to infiltrate and feed misinformation back to Germany. His journey takes him from Glasgow to Skye, onwards into the Swiss Alps, and on to the Western Front.</p> <p>During the course of his work he’s again reunited with Peter Pienaar and John Blenkiron, who both appear in <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-buchan/greenmantle"><i>Greenmantle</i></a>, as well as Sir Walter Bullivant, his Foreign Office contact from <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-buchan/the-thirty-nine-steps"><i>The Thirty Nine Steps</i></a>.</p> <p>The title of the novel comes from a character in <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-bunyan">John Bunyan’s</a> <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-bunyan/the-pilgrims-progress"><i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i></a> to which there are many references in the book, not least of all as a codebook which Hannay uses to decipher messages from his allies.</p> <p>The book finishes with a captivating description of some of the final battles of the First World War between Britain and Germany in Eastern France.</p>

The Phoenix and the Carpet by Edith Nesbit (1903)

Five British children discover in their new carpet an egg, which hatches into a phoenix that takes them on a series of fantastic adventures around the world.

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (1911)

The adventures of the three Darling children in Never-Never Land with Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up. ---------- ###German-language description: Peter Pan, das ist der Junge, der nie erwachsen wird und auf einer Insel lebt, auf der alles möglich st. Wendy und ihre Brüder können noch nicht ahnen, was sie erwartet, als sie auf der Insel landen: Zusammen mit anderen Kindern geraten sie in die Hände gefährlicher Piraten! Doch Rettung naht, denn auf Peter Pan können sich seine Freunde verlassen.

The Magic City by Edith Nesbit (1910)

An extremely unhappy ten-year-old magically escapes into a city he has built out of books, chessmen, candlesticks, and other household items.

Emily of New Moon by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1923)

The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey (1910)

The words stung John Hare's fainting spirit into life. He opened his eyes. The desert still stretched before him, the appalling thing that had overpowered him with its deceiving purple distance. Near by stood a sombre group of men.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1922)

"Zenith is the finest example of American life and prosperity to be found anywhere." Zenith is the Midwestern city where George F. Babbitt lives and works. A successful real estate agent, his business provides all the material trappings and comfort he thinks he ought to have. He is a member of all the right clubs, and unquestioningly shares the same aspirations and ideas as his friends and fellow Boosters. Yet even complacent, conformist Babbitt dreams of romance and escape, and when his best friend does something to throw his world upside down, he rebels, and tries to find fulfilment in romantic adventures and liberal thinking. Hilarious and poignant, Babbitt turns the spotlight on middle America and strips bare the hypocrisy of business practice, social mores, politics, and religious institutions. A brilliant satire, it evokes an era and at the same time exposes a universal social malaise. In his introduction and notes Gordon Hutner explores the novel's historical and literary contexts, and its rich cultural and social references. - Back cover. With his portrait of George F. Babbit, the conniving, prosperous real-estate man from Zenith, Sinclair Lewis created one of the ugliest, but most convincing, figures in American fiction -- the total conformist. Babbitt's demons are power in his community and the self-esteem he can only receive from others. In his attempts to reconcile these aspirations, he is loyal to whoever serves his need of the moment: time and again he proves an opportunist in business practice and in domestic affairs. Outwardly he conforms with "zip and zowie," is a "big booster" before the public eye; inwardly he converges day by day upon the utter emptiness of his soul -- too filled with rationalizations and sentimentality to sense his own corruption. Babbit gives consummate expression to the glibness and irresponsibility of the hardened, professional social climber. H. G. Wells said of this novel: "I wish I could have written Babbitt."

Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)

In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young nobleman at the beginning of the story-and a modern woman three centuries later.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1904)

A witty and surreal novel of the future. In a rather dull stuck-in-a-rut future, a prankster chosen randomly to be King of England revives the old ways and inadvertently arouses romantic patriotism and civil war between the boroughs of London.

Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1920)

The Sorceress and Wizard of Oz attempt to save Princess Ozma and Dorothy from the dangers which threaten them when they try to bring peace to two warring tribes.

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912)

I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; that some day I shall die the real death from which there is no resurrection. [Adventures of John Carter in Mars -- from the author of the Tarzan series.]

The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1918)

From the book:The Tin Woodman sat on his glittering tin throne in the handsome tin hall of his splendid tin castle in the Winkie Country of the Land of Oz. Beside him, in a chair of woven straw, sat his best friend, the Scarecrow of Oz. At times they spoke to one another of curious things they had seen and strange adventures they had known since first they two had met and become comrades. But at times they were silent, for these things had been talked over many times between them, and they found themselves contented in merely being together, speaking now and then a brief sentence to prove they were wide awake and attentive. But then, these two quaint persons never slept. Why should they sleep, when they never tired?

Ayesha by H. Rider Haggard (1900)

Guided by a vision, an Englishman and his companion search the mountains of Asia for the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian priestess.

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900)

Young Caroline Meeber leaves home for the first time and experiences work, love, and the pleasures and responsibilities of independence in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and New York.

Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (1915)

“The Voyage Out” by Virginia Woolf. This is a story about a young English woman, Rachel, on a sea voyage from London, to a South American coastal city of Santa Marina. As I read the story, the title of the story became a metaphor for Rachel's inner journey. The inner journey within this story is perhaps best summarized in the author's words: “The next few months passed away, as many years can pass away, without definite events, and yet, if suddenly disturbed, it would be seen that such months or years had a character unlike others.” Rachel's mother has passed away many years ago. The sea voyage and the subsequent months in Santa Marina show that Rachel is also on an inner journey, to understand herself better. She seeks advice from Helen, her aunt, and Helen and Rachel become close friends. “…................The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed into Rachel's mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought of living...................” Rachel falls in love with a young Englishman, Terence, in Santa Marina. But tragically, she falls ill and dies. Yet, in the brief time that Helen and Terence have known her, her journey has also made them reflect about their own lives.

The Wisdom of Father Brown by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1913)

"And the young woman of the house," asked Dr. Hood, with huge and silent amusement, "what does she want?" "Why, she wants to marry him," cried Father Brown, sitting up eagerly. "That is just the awful complication." "It is indeed a hideous enigma," said Dr. Hood. "This young James Todhunter," continued the cleric, "is a very decent man so far as I know; but then nobody knows very much. He is a bright, brownish little fellow, agile like a monkey, clean-shaven like an actor, and obliging like a born courtier. He seems to have quite a pocketful of money, but nobody knows what his trade is. Mrs. MacNab, therefore (being of a pessimistic turn), is quite sure it is something dreadful, and probably connected with dynamite.

L’étranger by Albert Camus (1942)

*L'Étranger* est le premier roman publié d’Albert Camus, paru en 1942. Il prend place dans la tétralogie que Camus nommera « cycle de l’absurde » qui décrit les fondements de la philosophie camusienne : l’absurde. Le roman a été traduit en soixante-huit langues.

The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō (1900)

Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism - Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

Virginia Woolf’s novel chronicles a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a politician’s wife in 1920s London, as she prepares to host a party that evening. The narrative follows Clarissa’s thoughts (and sometimes those of people she meets) as she goes about her errands, and events in the day remind her of her youth and friendships from the past. As the book progresses characters from the past emerge, igniting old feelings and making Clarissa question the life she has created for herself. *Mrs. Dalloway* became the inspiration for Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel *The Hours*.

The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit (1907)

E. Nesbit's classic story of how Gerald, Cathy and Jimmy find an enchanted garden and awake a princess from a hundred-year sleep, only to have her immediately made invisible by a magic ring. Her rescue is difficult, funny and sometimes frightening.