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Far from the Madding Crowd远离尘嚣(英文原版)
托马斯·哈代 试读
美丽、高傲的芭丝谢芭来到威瑟伯里继承她叔叔的农场。忠诚能干的盖伯瑞尔.奥克对她一见钟情,但遭到了拒绝。家境殷实的农场主伯德伍德因为一次误会不断地向芭思希芭求爱。而芭思希芭却与英俊的中上特洛伊结了婚。然而,浪漫的爱情到结婚后便告终结。几番风波之后,伯德伍德开枪打死了特洛伊,自己则向警方自首。失去了丈夫的芭丝谢芭同时又面临着失去农场的可能。这时盖伯瑞尔.奥克来到她的身边,给故事一个皆大欢喜的结局。
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Omerta
Mario Puzo 试读
To Don Raymonde Aprile’s children, he was a loyal family member, their father’s adopted “nephew.” To the FBI he was a man who would rather ride his horses than do Mob business. No one knew why Aprile, the last great American don, had adopted Astorre Viola many years before in Sicily; no one suspected how he had carefully trained him . . . and how, while the don’s children claimed respectable careers in America, Astorre Viola waited for his time to come.
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Meditations
Marcus Aurelius 试读
In Gregory Hays’s new translation—the first in thirty-five years—Marcus’s thoughts speak with a new immediacy. In fresh and unencumbered English, Hays vividly conveys the spareness and compression of the original Greek text. Never before have Marcus’s insights been so directly and powerfully presented.
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I Like Stars
Margaret Wise Brown 试读
I like stars. Blue stars. Far stars. Shooting stars. I like stars!
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WATER VILLAGE(漫水--英文版)
王跃文 试读
The book is a collection of six novellas by Wang Yuewen which revolves around the theme of rural life. Water Village creates a utopia—the kind of classic village scene that was often evoked in Classical Chinese pastoral poetry. In this utopia live two lifelong friends—the wise and beautiful Grandma Hui, as generous as she is kind; and her close friend, the fair and tough Grandpa Yu, upstanding pillar of local society.
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The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus 试读
One of the most influential works of this century,The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence.
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英国金融时报原文阅读精选集(套1+套2+套3 共30册)
英国《金融时报》 试读
编者按:本套系所选的全部文章,均来自英国《金融时报》的原文,是一套针对英语考试阅读部分进行提高训练的书。众所周知,英国《金融时报》的文章,经常出现在各类英语考试的阅读类题目中,题材多为西方国家广泛关注的话题。本套系文章涵盖经济、环境、社会生活、文化教育、科技等话题,帮助读者全面提升阅读能力、阅读速读、语感。本套系的2大特点:1. 每篇原文后,有4道单选题,并提供答案解析,帮助您提升阅读理解水平;2. 每篇文章都提供,阅读速读对比表,读者可根据自己的阅读时间,了解自己的阅读速读水平。
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“活在当下”指南
萨姆·哈里斯 试读
在《“活在当下”指南》中,国际当红学者萨姆·哈里斯一针见血地指出,趋乐避苦是人类的本能,而快乐本质上稍纵即逝,所以人们天生受困于循环往复的追求,不少人甚至终其一生都在这无形的牢笼中度过。要打破与生俱来的困境,成为自己人生的主人,就一定要升级心智模式,摆脱原始状态。如何做到这一点?身为哲学神经学双料博士的哈里斯独辟蹊径。书中,他将经典的哲学理论、前沿的科学发现、丰富的切身体验巧妙结合,理性睿智、亦庄亦谐地引导读者探寻关乎个体存在之根本的三大问题——意识是什么,自我究竟为何物,以及人生应该以什么为重要追求,从而一步步瓦解顽固的“常识性”认知,实现心智的提升,收获自在的高层级人生。
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A Crystal Age
William Henry Hudson 试读
I do not quite know how it happened, my recollection of the whole matter ebbing in a somewhat clouded condition. I fancy I had gone somewhere on a botanizing expedition, but whether at home or abroad I don't know. At all events, I remember that I had take ...
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Charles Rex
Ethel May Dell 试读
I shall go to sea to-morrow, said Saltash, with sudden decision. "I'm tired of this place, Larpent, - fed up on repletion." "Then by all means let us go, my lord " said Larpent, with the faint glimmer of a smile behind his beard, which was the only expression of humour he ever permitted himself. "Believe you're fed up too," said Saltash, flashing a critical look upon him. Captain Larpent said nothing, deeming speech unnecessary. All time spent ashore was wasted in his opinion. Saltash turned and surveyed the sky-line over the yacht's rail with obvious discontent on his ugly face. His eyes were odd, one black, one grey, giving a curiously unstable appearance to a countenance which otherwise might have claimed to possess some strength. His brows were black and deeply marked. He had a trick of moving them in conjunction with his thoughts so that his face was seldom in absolute repose. It was said that there was a strain of royal blood in Saltash, and in the days before he had succeeded to the title when he had been merely Charles Burchester, he had borne the nickname of "the merry monarch."
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The Eyes of the World
Harold Bell Wright 试读
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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The Midnight Library
Matt Haig 试读
From Matt Haig's Twitter: 'It is about a library between life and death where a woman gets to try all her other lives she could have lived. It will be out next September if I actually finish it. Nora feels swamped by all the bad choices she has made in life and attempts to take her own life. Then, when given the chance to see all the ways her life could have been different, she must finally work out the answer to the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?.'
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Emotional First Aid
Guy Winch, Ph.D. 试读
We all sustain emotional wounds. Failure, guilt, rejection, and loss are as much a part of life as the occasional scraped elbow. But while we typically bandage a cut or ice a sprained ankle, our first aid kit for emotional injuries is not just understocked it's nonexistent. Fortunately, there is such a thing as mental first aid for battered emotions. Drawing on the latest scientific research and using real-life examples, practicing psychologist Guy Winch, Ph.D. offers specific step-by-step treat
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A New Earth
Eckhart Tolle 试读
In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.
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The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain
Mark Twain 试读
For deft plotting, riotous inventiveness, unforgettable characters, and language that brilliantly captures the lively rhythms of American speech, no American writer comes close to Mark Twain.
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One of Us Is Lying
Karen M. McManus 试读
The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars, One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.
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The Surrender Experiment
Michael A. Singer 试读
A thriving spiritual community on over six hundred acres of pristine forest and meadows in Florida, a cutting-edge software package that transformed the medical practice management industry, a billion-dollar public company whose achievements are archived in the Smithsonian Institution, a book that became a New York Times bestseller and an Oprah favorite, and a massive raid by the FBI that would lead to unfounded accusations by the U.S. government.
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Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe 试读
This single volume brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and illuminates the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential figures in American literary history.
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Feeling Good Together
David D. Burns 试读
We all have someone we can’t get along with—whether it’s a friend or colleague who complains constantly; a relentlessly critical boss; an obnoxious neighbor; a teenager who pouts and slams doors, all the while insisting she’s not upset; or a loving, but irritating spouse. In Feeling Good Together, Dr. David Burns presents Cognitive Interpersonal Therapy, a radical new approach that will help you transform troubled, conflicted relationships into successful, happy ones.
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How To:Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
Randall Munroe 试读
The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer. For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
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The Music Lesson
Victor L. Wooten 试读
The Music Lesson is the story of a struggling young musician who wanted music to be his life, and who wanted his life to be great. Then, from nowhere it seemed, a teacher arrived. Part musical genius, part philosopher, part eccentric wise man, the teacher would guide the young musician on a spiritual journey, and teach him that the gifts we get from music mirror those from life, and every movement, phrase, and chord has its own meaning...All you have to do is find the song inside.
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The Help
Kathryn Stockett 试读
Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who’s always taken orders quietly, but lately she’s unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She’s full of ambition, but without a husband, she’s considered a failure.
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The Courtship of Princess Leia: Star Wars Legends
Dave Wolverton 试读
Seeking rich, powerful allies to bring into the Rebel Alliance and a new home planet for the refugees from her native Alderaan, Princess Leia considers a proposal that could tip the balance of power against the evil Empire. The Hapes Consortium of 63 worlds is ruled by the Queen Mother, who wants Leia to marry her son, the dashing and wealthy Prince Isolder.
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百年哈佛经典第5卷:爱默生文集(英文原版)
CHARLES W.ELIOT 试读
百年哈佛经典(全套50册)(英文原版)登陆中国,哈佛大学第二任校长查尔斯·爱略特倾心主编。全套50卷,共精选400多位人类史上优秀思想家的136本专著,是国内首套权威的人类文明传世之作。 哈佛大学第二任校长查尔斯·爱略特(CHARLES W. ELIOT)任主编,哈佛大学及其他名校100多位享誉全球的教授任分册编辑,历时数年完成。自1901年问世至今,畅销100多年,成为西方家庭的必备藏书,西方学生接受古代和近代文明教育的读物。引领中国思想家胡适先生进入西方文明殿堂的一块敲门砖。 万卷出版公司与北京神鸟文化发展有限公司倾心5年时间精心打造。
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安德鲁·朗世界童话经典 1(英文朗读版)
Andrew Lang 试读
《安德鲁·朗世界童话经典》,为英文版电子书,赠送配套的英文朗读音频收听,全套书收录了英国作家安德鲁·朗的12本彩色童话,近200个童话故事。安德鲁整理了世界各地的民间传说和童话故事,加以编写,其中包括安徒生、格林兄弟、豪夫、贝洛、多诺夫人等人的童话故事,同时也收罗了《一千零一夜》、挪威、英格兰、苏格兰以及亚洲、非洲、美洲各地的民间童话。经过安德鲁的改编,比原作更加优美可读,风格凸显。安德鲁童话在对孩子们进行道德和人生教育的同时,也给他们带来了美好的梦想和无穷的欢乐,从而成为经久不衰的畅销童话书。 发明家爱因斯坦说道:“想让孩子变得聪明,那就给他们多读童话;想让孩子变得更聪明,那就读更多的童话。”在孩子成长和阅读的早期阶段,童话故事,带给他们丰富的想象力、欢快与悲伤的真实情感,以及对于真假、善恶的辨别力。
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安德鲁·朗世界童话经典 3(英文朗读版)
Andrew Lang 试读
《安德鲁·朗世界童话经典》,为英文版电子书,赠送配套的英文朗读音频收听,全套书收录了英国作家安德鲁·朗的12本彩色童话,近200个童话故事。安德鲁整理了世界各地的民间传说和童话故事,加以编写,其中包括安徒生、格林兄弟、豪夫、贝洛、多诺夫人等人的童话故事,同时也收罗了《一千零一夜》、挪威、英格兰、苏格兰以及亚洲、非洲、美洲各地的民间童话。经过安德鲁的改编,比原作更加优美可读,风格凸显。安德鲁童话在对孩子们进行道德和人生教育的同时,也给他们带来了美好的梦想和无穷的欢乐,从而成为经久不衰的畅销童话书。 发明家爱因斯坦说道:“想让孩子变得聪明,那就给他们多读童话;想让孩子变得更聪明,那就读更多的童话。”在孩子成长和阅读的早期阶段,童话故事,带给他们丰富的想象力、欢快与悲伤的真实情感,以及对于真假、善恶的辨别力。
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Project Hail Mary
安迪·威尔 试读
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling.
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Brideshead Revisited 欲望庄园(英文版)
伊夫林·沃 试读
《欲望庄园》是一本有关主角查尔斯‧莱德回望人生前半段的忏情录。描述了一战后的英国贵族、天主教、牛津大学校园、异性/同性情爱等议题,出版后旋即成为作者最畅销代表作。
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The Stranger
Albert Camus 试读
Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.
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The Servant
James C. Hunter 试读
In this absorbing tale, you watch the timeless principles of servant leadership unfold through the story of John Daily, a businessman whose outwardly successful life is spiraling out of control. He is failing miserably in each of his leadership roles as boss, husband, father, and coach. To get his life back on track, he reluctantly attends a weeklong leadership retreat at a remote Benedictine monastery.
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Digital Minimalism
Cal Newport 试读
In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.
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Still Me
Jojo Moyes 试读
Louisa Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam alive across several thousand miles. She steps into the world of the superrich, working for Leonard Gopnik and his much younger second wife, Agnes. Lou is determined to get the most out of the experience and throws herself into her new job and New York life.
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Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison 试读
He describes growing up in a Black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood," before retreating amid violence and confusion.
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迪士尼英文原版·小美人鱼 The Little Mermaid
青橙英语 试读
本书为2023年迪士尼真人电影《小美人鱼 The Little Mermaid》同名英文小说,故事主人公爱丽儿是一条坚强有主见的小美人鱼,她对海洋以外的世界充满了好奇。当她遇见陆地上的英俊王子后,内心充满了激动。在红蟹赛巴斯丁、比目鱼小胖这些朋友的帮助之下,爱丽儿勇敢冲出海底世界,战胜魔咒,终于追寻到自己想拥有的感情。
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The Snow Globe
Judith Kinghorn 试读
Christmas 1926 holds bright promise for nineteen-year-old Daisy Forbes, with celebrations under way at Eden Hall, her family's country estate in Surrey, England. But when Daisy, the youngest of three daughters, discovers that her adored father, Howard, has been leading a double life, her illusions of perfection are shattered.
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The Bellmaker
Brian Jacques 试读
It has been four seasons since Mariel, the warrior-mouse daughter of Joseph the Bellmaker, and her companion, Dandin, set off from Redwall to fight evil in Mossflower. Nothing has been heard of them since. Then one night, in a dream, the legendary Martin the Warrior comes to the Bellmaker with a mysterious message.
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Instructions for Dancing
Nicola Yoon 试读
Evie Thomas doesn't believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance Studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X.
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The Fourteenth Goldfish
Jennifer L. Holm 试读
Galileo. Newton. Salk. Oppenheimer.Science can change the world . . . but can it go too far?Eleven-year-old Ellie has never liked change. She misses fifth grade. She misses her old best friend. She even misses her dearly departed goldfish. Then one day a strange boy shows up. He’s bossy. He’s cranky. And weirdly enough . . . he looks a lot like Ellie’s grandfather, a scientist who’s always been slightly obsessed with immortality.
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Loving What Is, Revised Edition
Byron Katie 试读
Loving What Is shows you step by step, through clear and vivid examples, exactly how to use this revolutionary process for yourself. In this revised edition, readers will enjoy seven new dialogues, or real examples of Katie doing The Work with people to discover the root cause of their suffering. You will observe people work their way through a broad range of human problems.
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Absolutely Almost
Lisa Graff 试读
Albie has never been the smartest kid in his class. He has never been the tallest. Or the best at gym. Or the greatest artist. Or the most musical. In fact, Albie has a long list of the things he's not very good at.;But then Albie gets a new babysitter, Calista, who helps him figure out all of the things he good at and how he can take pride in himself.
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The Good Sister
Gillian McAllister 试读
Nine months later, Becky is on trial and maintains her innocence--and so does Martha. Unable to shake the feeling that her sister couldn't possibly be guilty, Martha sets out to uncover exactly what happened that night, and how things could have gone so wrong. As the trial progresses, fault lines between the sisters begin to show--revealing cracks deep in their relationship and threatening the family each has worked so hard to build.
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What Was the Titanic?
Stephanie Sabol 试读
For more than 100 years, people have been captivated by the disastrous sinking of the Titanic that claimed over 1,500 lives. Now young readers can find out why the great ship went down and how it was discovered seventy-five years later.
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Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman 试读
2017 Reprint of 1855 First Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. “Leaves of Grass” was highly controversial during its time for its explicit sexual imagery, and Whitman was subject to derision by many contemporary critics. Over time, the collection has infiltrated popular culture and been recognized as one of the central works of American poetry.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens 试读
The French Revolution comes to vivid life in Charles Dickens's famous novel about the best of times and the worst of times...The storming of the Basti llethe death carts with their doomed human cargo the swift drop of the guillotine blade this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in his famous work A Tale of Two Cities.
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An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith 试读
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and conveniencies for which it has occasion. This is a public domain book converted by anonymous volunteers and you may find it for free on the web.This work is respectfully inscribed by the author.
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Yollop
George Barr McCutcheon 试读
Instead of obeying Cassius beckoned to him. Then followed a long, whispered conference between lawyer and client, at the end of which the former, visibly annoyed, declared that the defendant had decided not to testify. The Court indicated that it was optional with the prisoner and asked if the counsel desired to introduce any further testimony. Counsel for the defense announced that his client's decision had altered his plans and that he was forced to rest his case. The Assistant District Attorney stated that he had two witnesses to examine in rebuttal.
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Little Dorrit
Charles Dickens 试读
A novel in which Dickens launches a ferocious onslaught against England and English society.He draws on the memory of his father in his depiction of the Marshalsea debtors prison and there is also the story of the love between an older man and a younger woman.
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A Woman of Thirty
Honoré de Balzac 试读
By the French author,who,along with Flaubert,is generally regarded as a founding—father of realism in European fiction.His large output of works,collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine),consists of 95 finished works (stories,novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works.His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois France.They are placed in a variety of settings,with characters reappearing in multiple stories.
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Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis 试读
Prosperous and socially prominent, George Babbitt appears to have everything. But when a personal crisis forces the middle-aged real estate agent to re examine his life, Babbitt mounts a rebellion that jeopardizes everything he values. Widely considered Sinclair Lewis' greatest novel, this satire remains an ever-relevant tale of an individual caught in the machinery of modern life.
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Daisy Miller
Henry James 试读
Famous novella chronicles a young American girl’s willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences. Throughout, James contrasts American customs and values with European manners and morals in a narrative rich in psychological and social insight.
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Letters on England
Voltaire 试读
Franois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Christian Church dogma and the French institutions of his day. Many of his works and ideas would influence important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions, an honour that he would share with other political theorists such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. In general criticism and miscellaneous writing, Voltaire's writing was comparable to his other works. Almost all of his more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are models of his caustic yet conversational tone. He wrote Letters on England (1733), Zadig; or, The Book of Fate (1747), Candide (1759) and Philosophical Dictionary (1764).
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Roughing It
Mark Twain 试读
A classic tour of the wild west.In 1861, young Mark Twain found himself adrift as a tenderfoot in the Wild West—and Roughing It is his hilarious record of his travels come to life with his inimitable mixture of reporting, social satire, and rollicking tall tales.
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Tess of the dUrbervilles
Thomas Hardy 试读
Violated by one man, forsaken by another, Tess Durbeyfield is the magnificent and spirited heroine of Thomas Hardy's immortal work. Of all the great English novelists, no one writes more eloquently of tragic destiny than Hardy. With the innocent and powerless victim Tess, he creates profound sympathy for human frailty while passionately indicting the injustices of Victorian society. Scorned by outraged readers upon its publication in 1891, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is today one of the enduring classics of nineteenth-century literature.
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The Book of Nonsense
Edward Lear 试读
Edward Lear, the 20th child of a London stockbroker, entered the household of Lord Stanley as little more than a servant, but his sense of humour soon made him welcome above stairs and he began to amuse the children with comic drawings and rhymes. This book was first published in 1846.
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The Golden Bough
James George Frazer 试读
A monumental study of comparative folklore and religion, THE GOLDEN BOUGH was originally published in two volumes in 1890, grew to 12 volumes for the third edition in 1915, then abridged by the author into this one-volume edition in 1922. Drawing on the beliefs and customs of ancient European civilizations and primitive cultures throughout the world, James Frazer's work continues to be an important reference.
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The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle 试读
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories.
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Two on a Tower
Thomas Hardy 试读
The Penguin English Library Edition of Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy.'Then they proceeded to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from single stars to double stars, from double to coloured stars...'Hardy's atmospheric, moving story of star-crossed lovers shows human beings at the mercy of forces far beyond their control, setting a tragic drama of human passion and conflict against a background of vast stellar space and scientific discovery. Two on a Tower tells the story of Lady Constantine, who breaks all the rules of decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful youth Swithin St Cleeve, her social inferior and ten years her junior. Together, in an ancient monument converted into an astronomical observation tower, they create their own private universe - until the pressures of the outside world threaten to destroy it.
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1492
Mary Johnston 试读
1492: The Year Our World Began by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto traces modernity to its roots in the year 1492. It focuses on specific events of 1492 (including the Renaissance and voyages of Columbus) which Fernandez-Armesto views as crucial to the development of modern ways of thinking and the physical state of the world today. Exploring how the creation of the earliest surviving globe showed a world shrinking with advances in cartography as a result of exploration, Fernandez-Armesto shows how people, separated by millions of years of geographical change and evolution in terms culture and ecology, began to set out to chart the places they visited, shifting the balance of global power west and establishing a global trade which prefigured that of today, while China marked time. While civilizations were rediscovering one another, however, further divisions emerged as Granada, the last Muslim-ruled state in Western Europe, fell to Spanish Christians confining Islam to the southern shore of the Mediterranean and the Sahara. Meanwhile, Jews expelled from Spain were making their way to destinations around the Mediterranean and Russia was expanding North. With confessional, sovereign states on the rise and challenging the pluralistic empires of the past, ideological differences were more than ever becoming a pretext for war. Power and economic concerns were at the forefront in Florence and Rome, and science and secular clashed with the supernatural. 1492: The Year Our World Began explores a crucial, yet largely neglected point in history and demonstrates how events during this year and the surrounding period began the globalisation and hegemony of the West and the shaping of power relations which we see today.