charles dickens famous novel Audiobooks

The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt is a historical thriller from award-winning political journalist and Washington insider Burt Solomon, featuring Teddy Roosevelt's near death...accident or assassination attempt? Theodore Roosevelt had been president for less than a year when on a tour in New England his horse-drawn carriage was broadsided by an electric trolley. TR was thrown clear but his Secret Service bodyguard was killed instantly. The trolley’s motorman pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the matter was quietly put to rest. But was it an accident or an assassination attempt…and would there be another “accident” soon? The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt casts this event in a darker light. John Hay, the Secretary of State, finds himself in pursuit of a would-be assassin, investigating the motives of TR’s many enemies, including political rivals and the industrial trusts. He crosses paths with luminaries of the day, such as best-pal Henry Adams, Emma Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Mark Hanna, and (as an investigatory sidekick) the infamous Nellie Bly, who will help Hay protect the man who wants to transform a nation.

Wrangler’s Creek’s most eligible bad boy has just become its most eligible single dad Dylan Granger could always count on his rebellious-cowboy charm to get his way—until the day his wife, Jordan, left him and joined the military. The realization that during a wild night he got her cousin pregnant is shocking enough. But the news that Jordan has come home to Texas to help raise the baby is the last thing he expects. Raising a baby with Dylan in Wrangler’s Creek is a life Jordan might’ve had years ago, but she doesn’t want regrets. She wants what’s best for the child—and to find out if there’s something deeper between her and her ex than blazing-hot chemistry. Getting closer means letting down her guard to Dylan again, but will he be able to accept the emotional scars on her heart?

In a fusion of fact and fiction, nineteenth-century women institutionalized as hysterics reveal what history ignored “ City of Incurable Women is a brilliant exploration of the type of female bodily and psychic pain once commonly diagnosed as hysteria—and the curiously hysterical response to it commonly exhibited by medical men. It is a novel of powerful originality, riveting historical interest, and haunting lyrical beauty.” — Sigrid Nunez , author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through “Where are the hysterics, those magnificent women of former times?” wrote Jacques Lacan. Long history’s ghosts, marginalized and dispossessed due to their gender and class, they are reimagined by Maud Casey as complex, flesh-and-blood people with stories to tell. These linked, evocative prose portraits, accompanied by period photographs and medical documents both authentic and invented, poignantly restore the humanity to the nineteenth-century female psychiatric patients confined in Paris’s Salpêtrière hospital and reduced to specimens for study by the celebrated neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his male colleagues. Maud Casey is the author of five books of fiction, including The Man Who Walked Away , and a work of nonfiction, The Art of Mystery: The Search for Questions . A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the St. Francis College Literary Prize, she teaches at the University of Maryland.

“Papa explains the war like this: ‘When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful.’ The great beasts, as they circle one another, shaking the trees and trumpeting loudly, are the Amerikanos and the Japanese as they fight. And our Philippine Islands? We are the small chickens.” Once in a great while comes a storyteller who can illuminate worlds large and small, magical and true to life. When the Elephants Dance introduces us to the incandescent voice of Tess Uriza Holthe, who sets her remarkable first novel in the waning days of World War II, as the Japanese and the Americans engage in a fierce battle for possession of the Philippine Islands. The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine. Through the eyes of three narrators, thirteen-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, we see how ordinary people must learn to live in the midst of extraordinary uncertainty, how they must find hope for survival where none seems to exist. They find this hope in the dramatic history of the Philippine Islands and the passion and bravery of its people. Crowded together in the cellar, the Karangalans and their friends and neighbors tell magical stories to one another based on Filipino myth and legend to fuel their courage, pass the time, and teach important lessons.

ONE OF QUEER FORTY'S BEST PRIDE READS FOR SUMMER 2023! Three gay men in pre-Stonewall New York City find their fates thrown together in the police raid of a Village bar. Roger Moorhouse is a Wall Street banker and Westchester family man with a preciously guarded secret. As the shouting begins and flashlights blaze in his face, the life he’s carefully curated over the years―a fancy new office overlooking lower Broadway, a house in Beechmont Woods, his wife and children―is about to come crashing down around him. Columbia literature professor Julian Prince lives a comparatively uncloseted life when he finds his first committed relationship tested to its limits. How could he explain to Gus, a fearless young artist, that he couldn’t stay with him that weekend because the woman who was still technically Julian’s fiancée would be visiting? But when Gus is struck unconscious by a police baton, Julian comes out of hiding to protect him, even if exposure means losing everything. For Danny Duffy, an Irish kid from the Bronx with a sassy mouth and a diverse group of friends, the raid is a galvanizing, Spartacus moment. Danny doesn’t have too much left to lose; his family has just disowned him. But once his name appears in the newspaper, he’ll be fired from his job at Sloan’s Supermarket, where he’s risen to assistant manager of produce, and begin a journey that veers between political enlightenment and violent revenge. The three men find themselves in a police wagon together, their hidden lives threatened to be revealed to the world. Blackmail, a private investigator, Gus’s disappearance, and Danny’s quest for retribution propel Disorderly Men to its piercing conclusion, as each man meets the boundaries of his own fear, love, and shame. The stakes for each are different, but all of them confront a fundamental question: How much happiness is he allowed to have . . . and what share of it will he lay claim to?

They say librarians are old-fashioned. I’m anything but. As a 23-year-old woman I have my whole life ahead of me, and I’m in no rush to settle down. But my favorite patron of the Golden Creek Library has a different opinion … and at 72, Charles McArthur is hard to argue with. He wants to set me up with his grandson and I don’t have the heart to say no. When my date comes to my door, I am oh-so-glad I said yes. Chuck McArthur is a tall, dark, and handsome man who happens to love books as much as I do. He calls me Cookie, just like his gramps, and I’m more than eager for him to have a taste. Luckily for me, he likes a woman with some curves, and lucky for him, his dirty talk is quickly becoming my favorite sound. Best part? Chuck and I want the exact same thing: a no strings attached relationship But when tragedy strikes, everything changes. I may like it when he talks wordy to me … but maybe I need more than talk. Maybe I need forever.

Sarah Gardner is rushing to get herself married. She doesn’t require her partner to be filthy rich or anything, just without any vices or bad habits. As long as he fits that bill, she’ll marry him. Charles Xander is being forced by his domineering mother to marry. Thus, he ends up hitched to a woman his mother picked out for her. In any case, neither of them have time to date anyway. Besides, they’ll need to get married at some point, so why does it matter who they marry at all? Things change, of course. And for Sarah and Charles, they inevitably do…Even if they never expected them to.

When "the scentless" Elena thought she would be laid off by her manager, she never expected her new billionaire boss to be her high school crush Charles....Manager: "Sir, I think there's been a mistake. How is she staying? And I'm not? This isn't right.""You're right," Charles said, leaning forward over the table. "I'm sorry Elena. I forgot to mention you aren't going to be working here either."Manager's face set into a smug smirk."You'll be joining my team."There was a simultaneous gasp around the room.

Evie Bell is the white sheep in a family of black ones. Bookish and quiet where her sisters are showy and brash, she doesn’t understand her darker needs that resulted in the catastrophic end to her last relationship. Frederic d’Estang, a stage performer with Byronic dark good looks, is famous for playing villains that women adore – the Phantom, Claude Frollo, Mr Hyde. Facing a distressing premature end to his career due to developing Reinke’s edema, a chronic voice disorder, he recalls how someone took a chance on him when he was just starting out which launched him into stardom, and desires to do the same before his power and influence wane. His agent wants him to write his memoirs, and when he meets Evie Bell, an autobiographical writer with a penchant for gothic anti-heroes, he sees his chance: she has talent, but lacks the confidence and experience to make something of herself. She also has interesting, unexplored tastes, which Frederic discovers when her sister gives him a link to her anonymous fan-fiction archive – much to Evie’s mortification.

She was Dumped. He needed a bride. Jessica was to be married to her high school sweetheart and heartthrob Burke They decided to only go to the courthouse and do something small. Jessica gets dumped on her wedding day as Burke confesses to cheating on her. She is devastated. On the other hand, Xavier is the only grandson of the famous billionaire grandmaster. His grandfather who had been raising him since his parents died while he was still at a tender age is now nearing death. The grandfather wants his grandson to be married before he transfers ownership of the company to him. He doesn't care who the grandson marries he just wants him to settle down. Xavier had contracted a wife to get married to him. The strange girl who he had never seen before doesn't show up on the day of the wedding. Coincidentally, Jessica and Xavier happen to be together in the same courthouse at the same time. While Jessica overhears the conversation with Xavier over the phone she goes to propose marriage to him and then gets married to him. She was usually careful and ooverthoughteverything. She decided to do something spontaneous for the first time and it landed her into a marriage. She was going to get married either way. What happens when two people begin to spend time together? Read on to find out the thrilling love story between Jessica and Xavier