Half way up the side of a tall tree there was a round hole in the trunk. The hole was lined with soft, dried leaves, and bits of white, fluffy cotton, from the milkweed plant. And, if you looked very carefully at the hole, you might see, peering from it, a little head, like that of a very small kitten, and a pair of very bright eyes.??But it was not a kitten that looked from the little hole in the trunk of the tree. Kitties can climb trees, but they do not like to live in them. They would rather have a warm place behind the stove, with a nice saucer of milk.??Now if I tell you that the little creatures who lived in this hole-nest had big, fluffy tails, and that they could sit up on their hind legs, and eat nuts, I am sure you can guess what they were.??Squirrels! That’s it! In the nest, half way up the big tree in the woods, lived a family of gray squirrels, and I am going to tell you about them, or, rather, more particularly, about one of the little girl squirrels whose name was Slicko.

Charles Dickens was born on 1812, in Portsea, England. His parents were middle-class, but they suffered financially as a result of living beyond their means. When Dickens was twelve years old, his family's dire straits forced him to quit school and work in a blacking factory, a place where shoe polish is made. Within weeks, his father was put in debtor's prison, where Dickens's mother and siblings eventually joined him. At this point, Dickens lived on his own and continued to work at the factory for several months. The horrific conditions in the factory haunted him for the rest of his life, as did the experience of temporary orphanhood. Apparently, Dickens never forgot the day when a more senior boy in the warehouse took it upon himself to instruct Dickens in how to do his work more efficiently. For Dickens, that instruction may have represented the first step toward his full integration into the misery and tedium of working-class life. The more senior boy's name was Bob Fagin. Dickens's residual resentment of him reached a fevered pitch in the characterization of the villain Fagin in Oliver Twist.??After inheriting some money, Dickens's father got out of prison and Charles returned to school. As a young adult, he worked as a law clerk and later as a journalist. His experience as a journalist kept him in close contact with the darker social conditions of the Industrial Revolution, and he grew disillusioned with the attempts of lawmakers to alleviate those conditions. A collection of semi-fictional sketches entitled Sketches by Boz earned him recognition as a writer. Dickens became famous and began to make money from his writing when he published his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which was serialized in 1836 and published in book form the following year.??In 1837, the first installment of Oliver Twist appeared in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany, which Dickens was then editing. It was accompanied by illustrations by George Cruikshank, which still accompany many editions of the novel today. Even at this early date, some critics accused Dickens of writing too quickly and too prolifically, since he was paid by the word for his serialized novels. Yet the passion behind Oliver Twist, animated in part by Dickens’s own childhood experiences and in part by his outrage at the living conditions of the poor that he had witnessed as a journalist, touched his contemporary readers. Greatly successful, the novel was a thinly veiled protest against the Poor Law of 1834.??In 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, but after twenty years of marriage and ten children, he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress many years his junior. Soon after, Dickens and his wife separated, ending a long series of marital difficulties. Dickens remained a prolific writer to the end of his life, and his novels—among them Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Bleak House—continued to earn critical and popular acclaim. He died of a stroke in 1870, at the age of 58, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished.??The Poor Laws: Oliver Twist’s Social Commentary?Oliver Twist opens with a bitter invective directed at the nineteenth-century English Poor Laws. These laws were a distorted manifestation of the Victorian middle class’s emphasis on the virtues of hard work. England in the 1830s was rapidly undergoing a transformation from an agricultural, rural economy to an urban, industrial nation. The growing middle class had achieved an economic influence equal to, if not greater than, that of the British aristocracy.??In the 1830s, the middle class clamored for a share of political power with the landed gentry, bringing about a restructuring of the voting system. Parliament passed the Reform Act, which granted the right to vote to previously disenfranchised middle-class citizens. This desire gave rise to the Evangelical religious movement and inspired sweeping economic and political change.

This fourth novel of Boothby's Dr. Nikola series reveals that Nikola has discovered all of the facts necessary to extend a human being's life. He has studied science and magic secrets of Tibetan monks. He explains: ?"It has been a long and tedious search, but such labour only makes success the sweeter. The machinery is now prepared; all that remains is to fit the various parts together. In six months' time, if all goes well, I will have a man walking upon this earth who, under certain conditions, shall live a thousand years."??To assist him, he hires a destitute young physician, who explains his predicament: ?"As ill luck would have it, however, I had got into the wrong set, and before I had been two years in the hospital was over head and ears in such a quagmire of debt and difficulties that it looked as if nothing but an absolute miracle co-uld serve to extricate me." ?That miracle seems to have come to him in the person of Dr. Nikola.??The nefarious and wealthy Nikola has purchased a remote castle in the north of England, where the seclusion will allow him and his new assistant and Nikola's deaf-mute malformed Chinese servant to conduct his grand experiment on a human subject. ? AUTHOR: Guy Newell Boothby was an Australian novelist and writer, born in Adelaide, son of Thomas Wilde Boothby, who for a time was a member of the South Australian Legislative Assembly. Guy Boothby's grandfather was Benjamin Boothby (1803-1868), judge of the supreme court of South Australia from 1853 to 1867. When Boothby was six, he traveled to England with his mother. Around 1890, he took the position of private secretary to the mayor of Adelaide, Australia, but was not content with the work due to little opportunity for advancement. He turned to his writing talents, writing librettos for 2 comic operas and stories about Australian life. Boothby moved back to the United Kingdom in 1894. He wrote over 50 books in the course of a decade, before dying of pneumonia in Bournemouth. Some of Boothby's earlier works were non-fiction, but later he turned to writing novels. He was once well known for his series of five novels about Doctor Nikola, an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination.

“That’s awfully strange!” exclaimed Coppertop.??“If a Book of Travels can’t move about a bit, who can?”?“Not a bit,” replied the Book without turning round. “I must improve my circulation somehow! And if a book of travels can’t move about a bit, who can, I should like to know?”??“Come along,” cried Tibbs.?While Coppertop was wondering what reply to make, the Book reached out its hand and pulled the blind, which went up with such force that it twirled round and round the roller at the top.?“What a day for the first of December!” exclaimed the Book. “I’m going to look for something better,” and so saying, it sat on the floor and rapidly turned over its own pages, saying as it did so:??“North, South, East, West,?Weather’s never at its best.?India, Egypt, or Japan,?Give us better, if you can.”?Coppertop blinked at the book of travels, and then at the window, unable to believe her eyes.??It was daybreak, and RAINING HARD.?“Oh dear, oh dear, how dreadfully botherating!” she exclaimed, almost in tears.??“I simply must get a fine December day somehow. It will never do for ‘them’ to arrive on a soaking wet day like this. It’s all the fault of that stupid old clerk of the weather, he does get things so mixed up! Why, this is more like a horrid July day!”?“That’s what it is,” muttered the Book of Travels.

An ancient English Cathedral Tower? How can the ancient English Cathedral tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its old Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect. What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? ?Maybe it is set up by the Sultan’s orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one. It is so, for cymbals clash, and the Sultan goes by to his palace in long procession. Ten thousand scimitars flash in the sunlight, and thrice ten thousand dancing-girls strew flowers. Then, follow white elephants caparisoned in countless gorgeous colours, and infinite in number and attendants. Still the Cathedral Tower rises in the background, where it cannot be, and still no writhing figure is on the grim spike. Stay! ??Is the spike so low a thing as the rusty spike on the top of a post of an old bedstead that has tumbled all awry? Some vague period of drowsy laughter must be devoted to the consideration of this possibility.??Shaking from head to foot, the man whose scattered consciousness has thus fantastically pieced itself together, at length rises, supports his trembling frame upon his arms, and looks around. He is in the meanest and closest of small rooms. Through the ragged window-curtain, the light of early day steals in from a miserable court. He lies, dressed, across a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead that has indeed given way under the weight upon it. Lying, also dressed and also across the bed, not longwise, are a Chinaman, a Lascar, and a haggard woman. ??The two first are in a sleep or stupor; the last is blowing at a kind of pipe, to kindle it. And as she blows, and shading it with her lean hand, concentrates its red spark of light, it serves in the dim morning as a lamp to show him what he sees of her.??‘Another?’ says this woman, in a querulous, rattling whisper. ??‘Have another?’

"Die Wege der Menschen deuten ein bestimmtes Ende voraus, auf das sie hinfuhren, wenn man auf ihnen beharrt. Aber wenn man von den Wegen abweicht, andert sich auch das Ende."??In der Erzahlung "Der Weihnachtsabend" begegnet uns eine Wandlung der besonderen Art: der geizige und mitleidslose, nur auf sein Geld fixierte Geschaftsmann Ebenezar Scrooge wird am Heilig Abend mit seinem Schicksal konfrontiert. Bevor dies geschieht, fuhrt ihn uns Dickens jedoch in seiner ganzen seelischen Verhartung vor, beschreibt ihn uns und schildert uns seinen Charakter. Seinen armen Schreiber Cratchit laBt er trotz eisiger Kalte bei einem kaum noch selbst von der Fantasie erkennbaren Glimmen der Kohle in der Feuerstelle arbeiten, seinen Neffen, der ihm einen frohlichen WeihnachtsgruB geben will, wirft er mit dem Wort "Possen" hinaus und dem Sammler milder Gaben fur die Bedurftigen erwidert er nur: "Gibt es denn keine Gefangnisse mehr?"??.. Und so geschieht es. Dem angsterfullten Scrooge erscheinen zur jeweils angekundigten Stunde Geister: der der vergangenen, der gegenwartigen Weihnacht und als letzter der zukunftigen Weihnacht. Sie fuhren ihn zuruck in die Zeit seiner Kindheit, in der Scrooge ein normaler, aufgeweckter Knabe war, ein Schuler, ein Lehrling in einem Geschaft, er schaut auf seine erste Liebe zuruck, die sich von ihm dem das Geld immer wichtiger wurde, weinend trennt … Sie zeigen ihm das Leben seines armen Schreibers zu Hause, fuhren in an die Tafel seines Neffen, an der er so manche Wahrheit uber sich hort und vor allem zeigen sie ihm seine eigene Zukunft, in der er allein sein wird, ausgeraubt noch in der Sterbestunde von menschlichen Geiern, verscharrt in der Erde mit einem Grabstein, vor dem er weinend kniet und seinen Namen liest…??Am nachsten Morgen ist Ebenezar Scrooge gelautert. Frohlichen Herzens geht er durch die kalten, weihnachtlichen StraBen der Stadt, entbietet den Entgegenkommenden seinen GruB und besucht schlieBlich seinen Neffen, dessen Einladung er am Vorabend noch so unwirsch ablehnte. Naturlich ist er hier willkommen und der gewandelte Scrooge feiert voll Freude Weihnachten im Kreis seiner Angehorigen, mit der Aussicht, das er es in der Hand hat, sein Leben zu andern und damit auch sein Ende.??Das ist naturlich eine sentimentale Geschichte mit einer fast schon brachial dargebotenen Moral, aber sie passt, sie ist stimmig, voller Atmosphare und es ist die Meisterschaft Dickens, den Leser schnurstracks mitzunehmen, zuruckzufuhren in diese Zeit vor uber 150 Jahren, eine Zeit der Kalte, der Armut auch sowie des Reichtums, ungleich verteilt beide, kaum abgemildert durch die Gesellschaft, der eine moralische Verpflichtung den sozial Schwachen gegenuber noch fremd war. Einzelne kummern sich zwar, aber sie sind auf die Unterstutzung der Reichen angewiesen, Menschen wie dem "alten" Scrooge, die sich in der Borse mehr zu Hause fuhlen wie in ihrer Stube. Es ist die (immer noch sehr aktuelle) Frage, was mir das Geld nutzt, wenn um mich herum Kalte ist und Einsamkeit, wenn ich mir zwar dies und das kaufen konnte, es aber aus Geiz nicht mache…??Man, jeder hat sein Leben, sein Schicksal in der Hand, so die Moral dieser Erzahlung. Wenn man sein Ende bedenkt, sich vorstellt, wie man zukunftig leben will und vor allem auch sterben, so gibt einem dies die Richtschnur dafur sein Handeln. Eine durchaus "moderne" Lehre, die uns heutzutage in anderer Formulierung begegnet: Der Wunsch nach einem "guten" Tod fuhrt automatisch zu einem "guten" Leben, denn (sehr verkurzt gesagt) nur mit einem solchen lade ich keine/wenig Schuld auf mich, die mich im Sterben belasten konnte.??Aber unabhangig davon ist "Der Weihnachtsabend" eine schone, sentimentale Geschichte, die einfach passt in einen langen Winterabend, in eine warme Stube, wenn Wind und Wetter drauBen toben, wenn Schnee fallt und Eis klirrt, Gluhwein und Kakao die Hande warmen… Ein schones Buchlein auch zum Vorlesen, zum Zuhoren, zum Traumen.. und nicht zuletzt auch zum Verschenken!

Gabriel Quennec est avocat. Marié, trois enfants, sa vie s’écoule dans l’indifférence totale à tout ce qui l’entoure. Un matin, une voiture le percute violemment alors qu’il se rend à son travail et prend la fuite. Gabriel est tué sur le coup. Dès lors, il n’aura de cesse de retrouver son meurtrier afin de le pousser à se rendre à la justice. Comment se venger lorsque l’on est un fant?me?? Michel, son être de lumière, va l’aider dans cette quête et va lui faire découvrir les maux qui rongent notre société. Au fur et à mesure de son enquête, Gabriel sera confronté au pire comme au meilleur. Gabriel arrivera-t-il à sortir de son indifférence qui le caractérisait de son vivant?? Arrivera-t-il à trouver la paix intérieure?? De sa vie en tant qu'entité, Gabriel laissera à l'humanité un témoignage dans lequel il expliquera son choix. Car Gabriel a une grave décision à prendre. Un récit poignant qui nous pousse à ouvrir les yeux sur ce qu’il se passe autour de nous. Arriverons-nous à réagir avant qu’il ne soit trop tard??

Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen who had one daughter called Rainbow. When she was christened, the people of the city were gathered together outside the cathedral, and amongst them was an old gipsy woman. The gipsy wanted to go inside the cathedral, but the Beadle would not let her, because he said there was no room. When the ceremony was over, and the King and Queen walked out, followed by the Head Nurse who carried the baby, the gipsy called out to them:?"Your daughter will be very beautiful, and as happy as the day is long, until she sees the Spring!" And then she disappeared in the crowd.?The King and the Queen took counsel together and the King said: "That gipsy was evidently a fairy, and what she said bodes no good."?"Yes," said the Queen, "there is only one thing to be done: Rainbow must never see the Spring, nor even hear that there is such a thing."??So an order was issued to the whole city, that if any one should say the word "Spring" in the presence of Princess Rainbow he would have his head cut off. Moreover, it was settled that the Princess should never be allowed to go outside the palace, and during the springtime she should be kept entirely indoors.??The King and the Queen lived in a city which was on the top of a hill, and had a wall round it, and the King's palace was in the middle of it. In the springtime Rainbow was taken to a high tow-er which looked on to the little round city, and from her window you could see the spires of the churches, the ramparts, and the broad green plain beyond. But a curtain made of canvas was fas-tened outside Rainbow's window, so that she could see nothing, and she was not allowed to go outside her tower until the spring-time was over.??Rainbow grew up into a most beautiful Princess, with grey eyes and fair hair, and until she was sixteen all went well, and nothing happened to interfere with her happiness.

SHE WANTED TO HAVE HIS BABY As a nurse at the city's busiest birth center, Lara Mancini knew all about delivering babies. But what she really wanted was a child of her own, and her secret crush–handsome, charming Dr. Derek Cross–was ideal father material. Didn't he have an adorable five-year-old son to prove it? But her biological clock was nearing its final countdown. So Lara would have to light a fire under her reticent boss and do more than steal a passionate kiss in a trapped elevator. Because she didn't just want Derek's baby–she wanted everything that went with it, including a march down the aisle with this sexy single dad….

From New York Times best-selling author, Kim Harrison, comes the first book in her brilliant Hollows series; packed with the perfect balance of wry humour and thrilling action, which will delight fans of thrillers and fantasy alike. Rachel Morgan lives in a world where a bioengineered virus wiped out most of the world's human population – exposing the existence of supernatural communities that had long lived alongside humanity. It’s her job as a white witch working for Inderland Security to protect the humans from things that go bump in the night. For the last five years Rachel has been tracking down lawbreaking Inderlanders in modern-day Cincinnati, but now she wants to leave and start her own agency. Her only problem: no one quits the I.S. Marked for death, Rachel will have to fend off fairy assassins and homicidal werewolves armed to the teeth with deadly curses. Unless she can appease her former employers by exposing the city's most prominent citizen as a drug lord, she might just be a dead witch walking.

In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story. Chapters 8-27 of the outstanding debut novel, Solitaire. My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t. This incredible debut novel by outstanding young author Alice Oseman is perfect for fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell and all unflinchingly honest writers.

In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story. Chapters 28-44 of the heartbreaking debut novel, Solitaire. My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t. This incredible debut novel by outstanding young author Alice Oseman is perfect for fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell and all unflinchingly honest writers.

Rescued by a gorgeous stranger… A secluded cabin nestled in the Rocky Mountains is the perfect place for Melody Crawford to hide from the world. With her two faithful dogs, she fearlessly puts her life on the line to rescue missing people…but the rest of her life is a mystery. Ex-Army Ranger John North needs Melody’s help. She knows the unforgiving mountains better than anyone. He knows Melody sees him as an outsider, but this enigmatically beautiful woman calls to the man inside him. She needs to trust him, and come what may he’ll break down her barriers – kiss by snowy kiss… Heart to Heart Where laughter, tears – and happy endings – are guaranteed!

Nurse Nadia Smith is devoted to the fragile lives in the neonatal intensive care unit. The loss of her own baby has made her care that much more for her tiny patients. Her heart becomes particularly attached to a special set of twins...and their daddy. Single dad Dr. Gideon West refuses to leave the sides of his premature newborn twins for even a second. They are the most precious things in the world. Nadia is taken with the gorgeous doctor, and it is clear to Gideon she has already fallen head over heels in love with his beautiful babies. It's not long before he begins to realize what a wonderful wife and mother Nadia would make--if only she would open her heart to him.

Day one in Paramatta’s ER, and surgical director Jennifer Thorngate’s head is in a spin – she’s just met gorgeous surgeon Jasper Edwards! Simply being near him makes her sizzle. But Jennifer is determined not to allow her personal and professional worlds to collide… Her resolve is tested to the limit when she meets Jasper’s little girls! Watching the loving single dad with his twins puts the smile back on Jennifer’s face…a smile that brings Jasper’s heart back to life. Jasper is left with only one option：he must convince Jennifer that together they can all have the most wonderful life.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook. A woman leaves a fancy dress ball early and is later found to have died from a drugs overdose. Hercule Poirot investigates in this, the first story written about him.

A mini-series of four titles aimed at 6 – 8 year old girls on the theme of bridesmaids – a role that every little girl longs to play! THE SUNNY BRIDESMAID Molly’s brother James is marrying Chloe, an Australian girl, on a tropical beach. A laid back bride, Chloe has told Molly she can choose her own dress. Molly’s choice of dress is not ideal for a hot climate, however she makes such fuss, her Mum lets her have it. However when she gets to Australia – shock, horror, her luggage has been mislaid so she and Chloe have to buy her a new outfit – a sarong and skimpy top, perfect for a hot beach wedding. James is football mad and after the wedding he celebrates by a game of footie on the beach. Unfortunately he gets sun-stroke leaving his bride dancing the night away with her favourite sunny bridesmaid!

A Christmas Wedding Christmas has arrived in the small town of Ballarat – along with paediatrician Summer Hoyts and her young son! Summer left the city for a fresh start, so she’s not about to act on her unexpected attraction to her handsome new colleague Jason Daniels… Jason’s ex-wife never wanted children, so he gave up on his hopes for a family. But Summer and little Tommy have stolen his heart. He soon finds himself wanting a very special gift this year – and vows to make this single mum his bride by Christmas!

CAN LOVE CONQUER ALL? Devastated by the discovery of a terrible family secret, Patrick Devaney put a No Trespassing sign on his battered heart and shut out the world. Then Alice Newberry, who had her own wounds to heal, burst into his life and coaxed him out of hiding with her red-hot kisses. Alice's soft brown eyes saw right through Patrick's defenses to the sorrow he'd tried to bury. The enchanting kindergarten teacher taught him a powerful lesson about love and forgiveness, and encouraged him to hope again. But before he could truly claim Alice as his own, Patrick had to face the greatest challenge of his life–his past.

The third book in the delightful series, set in Carrington’s Department Store. Alexandra Brown’s new novel, Ice Creams at Carrington’s, has been serialized into 4 parts – this is PART 3 OF 4 (Chapters 16 to 22 of 26). *The first three parts of Ice Creams at Carrington’s are being released every few days from 22nd May 2014, before the full novel is published. The final part will be released on 5th June 2014, when the full novel will also be available to buy in ebook and paperback* Georgie Hart and Carrington’s Department Store have got the world at their feet. Since a reality TV series put them both on the map, life has been amazing! Carrington’s profits are in the pink, Georgie has carved herself a place in the nation’s heart and even better, her romance with Tom, the store’s boss, has finally blossomed after a shaky start. Now summertime has come to Mulberry-on-Sea and Georgie is in great demand. The town is holding a big summer festival and she and her mates from Carrington’s are planning on making sure that Mulberry puts on the show of its life! But Georgie is about to get the offer of a lifetime – one that is just too good to turn down and something that will test her loyalties to their limits… Will Georgie be able to pull off it off once again, or has her luck finally run out?

A wise and witty 68-page short story that is full of Christmas cheer from the best-selling author and TV presenter, Fern Britton. This will be one Christmas they’ll never forget… Piran Ambrose is the epitome of brooding male. But Pendruggan’s Mr Rochester is in danger of becoming its Ebeneezer Scrooge when he is driven to distraction by the villager’s over-the-top Christmas celebrations. How could the cringeworthy amateur village production of Aladdin bring seasonal cheer to anyone, he wonders? And do the village children really have to arrive at his cottage door every single night in December with their terrible recorders and discordant singing? But when Piran’s bad temper risks spoiling Christmas for everyone, something drastic needs to be done. So, over one Christmas Eve, three very special people pay Piran a visit, determined to show him what Christmas is really all about…