Showing results by author "Charles" in All Categories

After escaping from the dark and dismal workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and is unwittingly recruited into a scabrous gang of scheming urchins. In this band of petty thieves, Oliver encounters the extraordinary and vibrant characters who have captured audiences' imaginations for more than 150 years.

Join David as he encounters his eccentric Aunt Betsey, faithful Peggotty and the villainous Uriah Heep, and as he falls in love with Little Em'ly, Dora and Agnes. And then there is old school friend James Steerforth: dashing, daring and seductive. This dramatisation explores the complexities and intimacies of that relationship beyond anything possible in Dickens' day, in an adaptation giving fresh life and vividness to this beloved tale.

June 1920. In a house with a red door lies the body of a woman who has been bludgeoned to death. Rumor has it that two years earlier, she'd painted that door to welcome her husband back from the Front - only he never came home. Meanwhile, in London, a man suffering from a mysterious illness first goes missing and then just as suddenly reappears. He is unable to explain his recovery. Inspector Ian Rutledge must solve the cases.

The ancient Babylonians were the first people to discover the universal laws of prosperity. In The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason reveals their secrets for creating, growing, and retaining wealth. Through these entertaining tales of merchants, tradesmen, and herdsmen, you'll learn how to save more out what you earn, get out of debt, put your money to work, attract good luck, choose wise investments, and safeguard a lasting fortune.

Pip is an orphan, brought up in a village on the Essex marshes by his disagreeable sister and her husband Joe Gargery, the kind-hearted village blacksmith. Life is harsh and Pip has few prospects until he receives from an anonymous benefactor the chance of escaping the forge for a more promising life in London. But his expectations are fraught with difficulties as he is haunted by figures from his past such as the escaped convict Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham, and her proud, beautiful ward, Estella.

It's been more than 10 years since the war with the NeHaw ended in an uneasy truce. During that time, Jake Thomas has been relegated from battlefield commander and chief to the role of interstellar bureaucrat. To add to his frustrations, he is now father to a passel of teens and preteens, all with their father's propensity for getting into trouble. However, unexplained violations around the Human/NeHaw Neutral Zone and the mysterious disappearances of people in a remote backwater town in Arizona has everyone, Human and NeHaw alike, pointing fingers and threatening war.

With the invading aliens temporarily driven from Human-and-NeHaw-occupied space, all the races are using the pause to recover and rebuild, both friend and foe alike. For the NeHaw, that means pressuring the Earth to allow them to rebuild and rearm their fleet from the Wawobash shipyards, a risk that could easily backfire. For Jake, the lingering concerns of a lost crew with the un-activated Artificial Life installed in the captured saucer still dominate his thoughts.

Everyone loves a bedtime story. And here are eight of the best from BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, each with a Christmas theme, written by an array of literature's best-known names. They include Laurie Lee, Charles Dickens, and Hans Christian Andersen - just some of the storytellers included in this collection.

Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence.

"Kill. Kill them all." It's the first four words Lars usually wakes up to every morning, a voice telling him she's just giving him a "quest" that will help him "level". But even if he wanted to do it, he can't. They're cultivators: beings with ancestral bloodlines that have powers he could only dream of, while he is stuck as a puny human. Even if he could kill them, the people who bullied him, beat him, treated him like a punch-bag pariah for being a "tailless worthless human", he wouldn't. That is, until a vicious group of murderous psychopaths called a "sect" descend on his village.

Great Expectations follows Pip's life from a plucky but poor and put-upon child in the Kent marshes, to a young man with "great expectations" in London and the choices he must make as a result of his winding journey. On the way, we meet some of Dickens' most memorable and unique characters - the mysterious and brutal Magwtich; eternally heartbroken Miss Havisham; and her cold-hearted child Estella.

The heart is true to the demands placed on it. Surely no one would be foolish enough in natural things to argue with you when you turn the thermostat to 70 degrees, but they will when you set your goal on God's promises. Hope, like a thermostat, is simply a goal-setter with no substance. Faith, which comes from the heart, is the substance of what you desire.

In Carrying the Fire, Michael Collins conveys, in a very personal way, the drama, beauty, and humor of the adventure of reaching the moon. He also traces his development from his first flight experiences in the air force, through his days as a test pilot, to his Apollo 11 spacewalk, presenting an evocative description of the joys of flight as well as a new perspective on time, light, and movement from someone who has seen the fragile Earth from the other side of the moon.

**A never before released volume from the Prince of Preachers on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit** "In our day a biblical understanding of the Spirit’s work is sorely needed. Confusion about who He is and what He does abounds, and too often we proceed through life relying on our power rather than His. Many contemporary works about the Holy Spirit are focused solely on either promoting or refuting the excesses of the extreme charismatic movement, and so there is a need to examine what Scripture has to say on the subject from a different vantage point. Spurgeon’s sermons provide ...

One of the most famous and influential books of its (or any) time, The Origin of Species is, surprisingly, little read. True enough, most people know what it says, or think they do, at any rate. The first comprehensive statement of the theory of natural selection, it does, indeed, provide the basic argument and demonstration of what we think of as Darwinism.

Ricard has selected and translated some of the most profound and inspiring teachings from across these traditions. The selected teachings are taken from the sources of the traditions, including the Buddha himself, Nagarjuna, Guru Rinpoche, Atisha, Shantideva, and Asanga; from great masters of the past, including Thogme Zangpo, the Fifth Dalai Lama, Milarepa, Longchenpa, and Sakya Pandita; and from contemporary masters, including the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Mingyur Rinpoche.

Relive the tale of Sleeping Beauty, a beautiful princess hidden away, a witch's curse, her fairy godmothers, a handsome prince, and the magic of true love's kiss, in this collection of classic tales from Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.

No child should have to witness what twelve-year-old Cord Malone saw the day his parents were murdered and his home burned to the ground. Rescued from the blaze by his uncle Jesse, the terrible image still haunts him, as does the name of the man responsible: Levi Creed. Jesse tried to track the man down, only to lose Creed's trail. But Cord never gives up; he just waits out his young years before setting out on a trail long gone cold to satisfy the need for revenge that still burns inside him.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

In a comprehensive and beautifully crafted first person narrative, David Copperfield recalls key stages, memories, and incidents of his life from infancy to maturity. Scenes, adventures, and characters are summoned to the narrator's remembrance so vividly that they are rendered with the vitality of the present moment.