Saturday, December 12, 2015
“The Invisible Man” by H. G. Wells
“The Invisible Man” is a thrilling dive into the life of the loner scientist Griffin. He manages to invent a way to become invisible, but soon realizes he cannot reverse the process. Desperate to stop it he is willing to anything he needs to, even be it stealing or resorting to violence. His new abusive power starts corrupting his mind and if he doesn’t succeed fast he might turn into a terrifying menace for everybody.
“The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells
“The Time Machine” with its imaginative and ever provocative theories grants Wells his rightful reputation as the founder of science fiction. The book tells about the English scientist and inventor simply called the Time Traveler. Based on his theory of time being the forth dimension, he manages to builds a time-travelling machine which takes him 800 000 years into the future. He is most astonished to find out that mankind has evolved into two distinctive races. On the surface lives the small and elegant race of the Eloi, while beneath the earth live the grotesque ape-like Marlocks. At first it seems they have achieved existence in harmony, but the Time Traveler will soon find out that they live in a horrifying symbiosis. But if he wants to ever tell about his unbelievable findings he will first have to retrieve his time-machine from the hands of the Marlocks.
Click here to download “The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells
“Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christie
Shortly after arriving in Istanbul, Hercule Poirot is urgently recalled to London. On the way back he takes a first-class class department on the Orient Express Train leaving the same night. In the train he is approached by the American Mr. Ratchett with a request for help, as he claims his life is in danger. Due to Poirot’s despise for Americans, he gives him the cold shoulder.
On the second night of the ride a cry coming from Ratchett’s compartment disturbes Poirot’s sleep. On the next morning an old friend of his and director of the company informs him that Ratchett has been infact killed, and he asks him to take the case. Piorot agrees and soon discovers that Ratchett is not who he claimed to be, and that his true identity is connected to a ruthless case of abduction and extortion back in the US. With this revelation the list of suspects gets bigger as all the passengers in Ratchett’s compartment are one way or another connected to the abduction and have their motives to seek his death.
Click here to download “Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christie
“The Jungle Book” by Rudy Kipling
“The Jungle Book” tells the adventurous life of the little human boy Mowgli. As a baby he almost fell pray to the evil, man eating tiger Shere Khan, who took him deep into the Indian jungle. After managing to save his life, Mowgli got adopted and raised by a pack of wolves. Together with his best friends – the sleepy bear Baloo and the black panther Bagheraa, he explores the jungle and learns the ways of the Mother Nature. The vicious Shere Khan however hasn’t forgotten him, and he seeks for the right moment to hunt the boy down. Therefor Mowgli runs away back to his own kind at a small village, where he starts learning the human language and manners. Despite he is surrounded by people, he is isn’t safe from the vengeful tiger, and Mowgli will have to face his greatest fear once and for all.
Click here to download “The Jungle Book” by Rudy Kipling
The Sea Wolf by Jack London ★★★(my favourite)
“The Sea Wolf” is an epic saga of man’s courage and unbreakable will to survive and to overwhelm the obstacles in life. Humphrey Van Weyden is a 35 years old scholar, with weak physical appearance but strong mind. His story begins abroad a ferryboat from San Francisco. Upon entering the Bay, thick fog falls down and due to the low visibility the ferry collides with another ship and sinks. Humphrey manages to survive and drifts away, helpless and left at the mercy of the ocean. He is found and saved from certain death by the cruel and vicious captain Wolf Larsen. Powerful and despotic both mentally and physically, Wolf is interested in Humphrey’s intellect and forces him to stay on the seal-hunting ship. Making him a cabin boy and treating him no better than the rest of the crew, Humphrey is forced to live the harsh and challenging life of the sailor man. In the crushing conditions of this spartan existence, his mind and body will be forged by the suffering and the struggle for survival.
The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
“The old man and the sea” tells the story of the epic struggle for survival between the elderly fisherman Santiago and the biggest catch of his life. For months the Cuban fisherman has been setting out to the open sea alongside with his trusty apprentice and a close friend – the young Manolin. The sea however hasn’t been generous to them and for 84 days they keep on returning empty handed. This forces the parents of the boy to separate him from Santiago, wanting him to work on a more successful fishing boat. This doesn’t put an end to their friendship, as the boy keeps on returning to the old fisherman to help him with his gear, feed him or to simply have some nice baseball chats. Thanks to the support of his friend Santiago keeps faith that his cursed fishing days will soon be over. So on 85th day, he decides to go further out into the Gulf Stream. He throws his lines and not long after a big marlin fish takes the bait. And so the epic struggle of survival between hunter and pray begins. Lasting days and causing much suffering for both, the end of this fight would only mean the end for one of them.
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The story of “The Great Gatsby” is told through the eyes of the young Nick Carraway, who indirectly gets involved in the events of the book. He is a recent Yale graduate, who is renting a house on the fictional island of West Egg, while headed to New York. There he ends up living next door to the eccentric millionaire Jay Gatsby.
Despite that Mr. Gatsby throws a glamorous party every single Sunday, where all rich, fashionable and famous people go, there are only rumors and assumptions about his persona and how he made his fortune. At one of his parties however, Nick is fortuned to meet him personally, only to find out that he isn’t really enjoying a happy life of constant celebrations as it seems.
Nick finds out that Gatsby mourns about a long lost love with a girl named Daisy, that is now married to Tom Buchanan. Later on in the book Gatsby asks Nick to help him meet her again, and so he does. Being around his beloved Daisy, Gatsby slowly realizes that he has built up a life around the rotten values of money and power. She seems to be his only salvation, but could she be the end of him?
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
“The Sun Also Rises” unveils the tragic faith of the so called Lost Generation – the children of WWI. The book follows the love story of the two emigrants – Jake Barnes – a veteran who the war made impotent, and the twice-divorced Englishwoman Lady Brett Ashley. Together with a motley group of expatriates they take on a journey from the vivid nightlife in Paris to the bullfighting arenas in Spain, only to find themselves lost in this world of false dreams, spiritual bankruptcy and disillusionment.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.
Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.
Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them—in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul—they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman’s love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.
A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love." - GoodReads.com
CClick here to download A Thousand Splendid Suns
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