Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber’s greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago. So Big is the unforgettable story of the indomitable Selina Peake DeJong and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity in the face of a challenging marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood.

As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything - beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses - but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets.

With all of the pluck and charm of its eponymous young hero, Rachel McAdams (The Notebook, Spotlight, Midnight in Paris) delivers a spectacular reading of Montgomery's beloved bildungsroman. In moments both funny and bittersweet, McAdams' voice is imbued with the spark that has made Anne a much-loved symbol of individualism and cheer for over a century.

Driven by a sense of duty and fear of monotony, Sara Lee leaves her comfortable life and fiance in Philadelphia to serve the Red Cross in Belgium during WWI. The spirited heroine finds a niche for herself helping the wounded soldiers. She meets a mysterious gentleman and falls into a haunting romance.

1917. American boys have joined the Great War in Europe. On the homefront, mysterious occurrences like ships catching fire and factories blowing up have people wondering: is this German sabotage? Hilda Lessing's family has been split apart due to the death of her father, and her uncle has found her a job doing housework on a friend's farm. Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz and their workers are German and a young train engineer whom she befriends on the way to the farm jokingly warns her to "Watch out for spies!"

Immediately after the death of the aunt who raised her, Joyce Radway's cousins treat her like a servant. They even attempt to block her from taking exams to qualify as a teacher and earn her own living. Angered by their constant demands, she impulsively grabs her hat and purse and runs to her aunt's grave to weep and rest. But she's not alone; thieves are using the cemetery to hide stolen goods, and she's heartsick to discover their leader is a man she once knew and admired.

Cornelia Copley's plans to finish college and get her degree in interior decoration are thwarted when she is unexpectedly called home due to her mother's illness. Heartbroken at the interruption and not understanding why her father can't see how important her education is, Cornelia soon finds there is plenty of trouble at home: Her mother has had a breakdown and is in a sanitarium; her father has lost his job and taken a lower position; and her brother Carey is going with a wild crowd.

Grace Livingston Hill’s three novels about nineteenth-century small-town America remain relevant a century after they were first published. The timeless themes include the powerful influence of gossip, the importance of faith, and the precious gift of true friendship.

When Pollyanna was published in 1913, it became an overnight success. It immediately sold over a million copies as young and old alike fell in love with the little freckled orphan girl and her spirited optimism. Many of Beldingsville’s citizens are ill, misguided, and even despairing. The sparkling, ingenuous 11-year-old who descends upon them with her "glad game" gives them renewed hope and changes their lives forever. Then unexpected tragedy strikes, and Pollyanna can no longer find the silver lining in any cloud.

The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.

At the age of eighteen, Lucy Gayheart heads for Chicago to study music. She is beautiful and impressionable and ardent, and these qualities attract the attention of Clement Sebastian, an aging but charismatic singer who exercises all the tragic, sinister fascination of a man who has renounced life only to turn back to seize it one last time. Out of their doomed love affair—and Lucy's fatal estrangement from her origins—Willa Cather creates a novel that is as achingly lovely as a Schubert sonata.

After the death of her last remaining relative and the sale of her Virginia home, Ariel Custer heads north to a promised job as a librarian's assistant. But when the job falls through, lovely Ariel's plea to God for help is realized when she meets Judson Grannis and her life takes a different turn.

On the surface, everything is all right with Babbitt’s world of the solid, successful businessman. But in reality, George F. Babbitt is a lonely, middle-aged man. He doesn’t understand his family, has an unsuccessful attempt at an affair, and is almost financially ruined when he dares to voice sympathy for some striking workers. Babbitt finds that his only safety lies deep in the fold of those who play it safe. He is a man who has added a new word to our language: a “Babbitt,” meaning someone who conforms unthinkingly, a sheep.

Soon-to-be heiress Betty Stanhope is a runaway bride, but not for the usual reasons - she didn't flee because of a change of heart. Reluctant about the wedding at the outset, the dutiful Betty reaches the altar to find that her groom is a different man altogether and someone she's dreaded most of her life! Before the wedding can proceed, she is taken to a room to recover from her fainting spell.

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.

Published in 1922, Fitzgerald's second novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete, and his beautiful wife, Gloria, as they await to inherit his grandfather's fortune. A devastating satire of the nouveaux rich and New York's nightlife, of reckless ambition and squandered talent, it is also a shattering portrait of a marriage fueled by alcohol and wasted by wealth. The Beautiful and Damned, Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda in 1930, "was all true."

A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.

Soon-to-be heiress Betty Stanhope is a runaway bride, but not for the usual reasons - she didn't flee because of a change of heart. Reluctant about the wedding at the outset, the dutiful Betty reaches the altar to find that her groom is a different man altogether and someone she's dreaded most of her life! Before the wedding can proceed, she is taken to a room to recover from her fainting spell.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber’s greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago. So Big is the unforgettable story of the indomitable Selina Peake DeJong and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity in the face of a challenging marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood.

Widely hailed as a milestone in American literature, Sinclair Lewis' Main Street vividly describes a country on the verge of massive change, with traditional values being threatened by progress. The novel's heroine, Carol Milford, is a highly educated, ambitious woman who plans to join a newly enlightened society. But after marrying a small-town doctor, she finds herself trapped in the role of a dutiful wife. Carol's desires for social change conflict with the security of her comfortable married life, as she struggles to understand the cost of conformity...and rebellion. As relevant today as it was upon its 1920 publication, Main Street is both a masterful piece of writing and a fascinating microcosm of America's social evolution.

Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the object of his hopeless desire, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.

Wharton's most erotic and lyrical novel, Summer explores a daring theme for 1917, a woman's awakening to her sexuality. Eighteen-year-old Charity Royall lives in the small town of North Dormer, ignorant of desire until the arrival of architect Lucius Harney. Like the succulent summer landscape in the Berkshires around them, Charity's romance is lush and picturesque, but its consequences are harsh and real.

Cornelia Copley's plans to finish college and get her degree in interior decoration are thwarted when she is unexpectedly called home due to her mother's illness. Heartbroken at the interruption and not understanding why her father can't see how important her education is, Cornelia soon finds there is plenty of trouble at home: Her mother has had a breakdown and is in a sanitarium; her father has lost his job and taken a lower position; and her brother Carey is going with a wild crowd.

The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.

The sudden death of the father of the family results in the drastic reduction of the Careys' income and they must leave their comfortable home in Boston. Nancy Carey, the eldest, recalls a vacation in Maine when they all picnicked in the garden of a big, vacant house that her father loved. She discovers that the house is available, the rent is cheap, and persuades her mother that life in The Yellow House in Beulah, Maine is the perfect place to begin their new life.

Perfect for fans of The Keeper of Lost Things and The Villa in Italy. Blue lives a charmed life. From her family's townhouse in Richmond, she lives a life of luxury and couldn't want for anything - well, on the surface at least. Then, on the night of her 21st birthday, her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter's hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas, and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny....

It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Guy de Maupassant is revered for his naturalistic fiction, which brilliantly captures flesh-and-blood characters as it evokes the most telling details of everyday life. Considered one of the finest French novels ever written, Bel Ami follows journalist Georges Duroy and his increasing stature among the Paris elite. With an immense thirst for power, Georges is not above an almost gleeful use of wealthy mistresses to achieve his ends.

In this lyrical and poignant story of a wounded man and the three concerned women who seek to heal him, Rebecca West explores the complexity of the mind and its subtle strategies for coping with life's painful realities. Only when Chris has the courage to face one pivotal moment of truth in his married life will he be able to awaken from his boyish fantasy and become, indeed, "every inch a soldier".