An adventurous Irishman sets out to find his fortune among proper English society in this classic novel from Anthony Trollope. Sent to London to become a lawyer, young Phineas Finn proves himself to be a disappointing student but truly gifted in the ways of charm, culture, and fine appearance. It is the discovery of these talents that ultimately leads him to what he believes is his true calling: English Parliament. Through sheer luck and pluck, dashing,...

Childhood (1852) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy. Published at the beginning of his career as a leading Russian author of his generation, Childhood is the first in a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels tracing Nikolenka's journey from innocence to experience. As a record of the past, a nostalgic reminder of a lost world, Childhood is one of Tolstoy's most personal works, and yet his prose shows signs of the universal religious and philosophical themes...

Sandra Martini thought she had it all, a storybook marriage, two loving children, a meaningful career in healthcare, and lots of corporate expense account goodies. But, all hell broke loose when husband Victor met Franklin Ryman, a wealthy, "tarnished" member of Wall Street's dark-side dealmakers, known as "the lunatic fringe." The morally bankrupt Ryman guaranteed Victor no experience was necessary to become a Wall Street zillionaire, other than...

Youth (1857) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy. Published at the beginning of his career as a leading Russian author of his generation, Youth is the third in a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels tracing Nikolenka's journey from innocence to experience. As a record of the past, a nostalgic reminder of a lost world, Youth is one of Tolstoy's most personal works, and yet his prose shows signs of the universal religious and philosophical themes that would...

Alone on a bridge staring into the dark water... He was not born Noah Waters, but constant rejection often has a way of encouraging one to walk away from everything they have known while giving birth to the person they are meant to be. This is Noah's story... I was a sixteen-year-old runaway when I worked my way to the edge of the Jackson River Bridge and peered at the moonlit water swirling below. To be fair, I wasn't an ordinary sixteen-year-old....

Extrait : "Gertrude m'installa sur mes oreillers ; ma table couverte de livres d'images, de papier blanc, de crayons de couleurs, de fins ciseaux à découper fut agrafée par ses soins à ma chaise longue ; elle ouvrit toute grande la fenêtre, de façon à ce qu'un rayon de soleil tombât sur mes pauvres petites jambes, que l'air frais de la mer vînt ranimer mon visage." À PROPOS DES ÉDITIONS LIGARAN : Les éditions LIGARAN proposent des versions...

Linda Seidel's lightly fictionalized memoir lets readers feel what it's like for a naturally skeptical, yet persistently naïve, older woman to watch her parents age out of life, to think about the epiphanies they enable her to have, and to reflect on the lives of "elders" she didn't appreciate until she'd worn through some years herself. The elders, whose stories Seidel reconstructs were quintessentially American-meaning complex, subtle and challenging-whether...

Is an artist born, or rather, created by experience? From the moment in childhood when he is forced to take drastic action to defend his adoptive mother from a violent assault – the only maternal figure that he has ever known – it is evident that the life of Joseph Sully-Jacques is to be no ordinary life, and one marked by sorrow and adversity. Unable to cope with or even recognize the residual effects of his trauma in adolescence, Joseph retreats...

Drawn from real life, Shattered Dreams at Rainbow's End is the story of a World War II hero, Donald, a foot soldier, who returns from combat, meets the Depression-born Mary, and marries her. They have two children, baby boomers Danny and Deborah, and then a third child, Charles, part of Gen X. Patriarch Donald's dream of having the family all sitting around the fire at Christmas time in the Rainbow's End farmhouse reflected "family values." He died...

The mothers of some of the most illustrious Jewish men in recent history-Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, Woody Allen, the Marx Brothers-are chatting in heaven. The subject: their respective sons-and their undying love for their mothers. Each one, as before in life, engages in one-upmanship toward the others when speaking about her own renowned offspring, and no opportunity to boast can ever be missed. "He loves me so much that for...