Recommended English-language Books lists

Little Wolf has been behaving too courteously, so he has been kicked out of the family lair in order to be made bad at his uncle's Cunning College where badges are awarded for wicked ways and dirty deeds.

The play concerns a trusted general who secretly lusts for power. Encouraged by the prophecies of three witches and urged on by his ambitious wife Macbeth commits regicide. Left fearful and superstitious by this desperate act he is driven to a spiralling course of murder and outrage, almost inevitably culminating in his own death. Macbeth is ostensibly based on the Scottish king although the story represented in the play bears no relation to historical fact as the true King Macbeth was well respected by his contemporaries.

 

 

 

 

The novel is set in Widnes, England, in the near future, just as the euro is about to replace the pound sterling. Damian and Anthony are two brothers who have recently suffered the loss of their mother. Because of this tragedy, Damian becomes obsessed with saints and eventually hallucinates about them. When brothers Damian and Anthony unwittingly come into possession of the proceeds of a train robbery, they find themselves with millions of pounds to spend in the next 17 days before the currency change. Damian believes the money comes from God and should be spent to do good, but Anthony has different ideas. Meanwhile, the robbers are looking for their money...

Little Croc and his big brother, Boris, used to be best friends. But lately Boris has turned into a grumpy teenage croc all he does is eat, sleep and listen to loud music. Worst of all, he doesnt spend time with Little Croc anymore... Whats a little brother to do? On his birthday, Boris gets a snout ring. His parents are horrified; there is a huge fight and Boris.

Contains: The Admirable Crichton; Peter Pan; When Wendy Grew Up; What Every Woman Knows; Mary Rose

For some 20 years at the beginning of the century J M Barrie enjoyed enormous commercial success with a wide variety of plays, but he is best known for Peter Pan. It retains its popularity today, both in the original and in adaptations. As well as being the author of the greatest of all children's plays Barrie also wrote sophisticated social comedy and political satire, much of it now newly topical. The Admirable Crichton and What Every Woman Knows are shrewd and entertaining contributions to the politics of class and gender, while Mary Rose is one of the best ghost stories written for the stage. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner, of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are supplemented with a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation. Peter Hollindale is Senior Lecturer in English and Educational Studies at the University of York. He edited Peter Pan is Kensington Gardens and Peter and Wendy in World's Classics. This is the novel rather than the play of Peter Pan

One of Shaw's best works, Pygmalion is a perceptive comedy of wit and wisdom about the unique relationship between a spunky cockney flower-girl and her irascible speech professor. The flower girl Eliza Doolittle teaches the egotistical phonetics professor Henry Higgins that to be a lady means more than just learning to speak like one.

 

 

Collection of short stories.

 

 

 

 

The Importance of Being Earnest is an important play by Oscar Wilde, and is a comedy of manners that discusses the serious of society. Set in late Victorian England, the story is about the main charachter, John Worthing's, ficticious brother Ernest, which is the main source of the comedy in this work.