Sophie Kinsella - The Undomestic Goddess

The story of a girl who needs to slow down. To find herself. To fall in love. And to discover what an iron is for ...

Samantha is a high-powered lawyer in London. She works all hours, has no home life, and cares only about getting a partnership. She thrives on the pressure and adrenaline. Until one day ... she makes a mistake. A mistake so huge, it'll wreck her career.

She walks right out of the office, gets on the first train she sees, and finds herself in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she is mistaken for the interviewee housekeeper and finds herself being offered the job. They have no idea they've hired a Cambridge-educated lawyer with an IQ of 158 - Samantha has no idea how to work the oven.

Disaster ensues. It's chaos as Samantha battles with the washing machine ... the ironing board ... and attempts to cook a cordon bleu dinnner. But gradually, she falls in love with her new life in a wholly unexpected way.

Will her employers ever discover the truth? Will Samantha's old life ever catch up with her? And if it does ... will she want it back?

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - It had to be you

The Windy City isn't quite ready for Phoebe Somerville -- the outrageous, curvaceous New York knockout who has just inherited the Chicago Stars football team. And Phoebe is definitely not prepared for the Stars' head coach Dan Celebow, a sexist jock taskmaster with a one-track mind. Celebow is everything Phoebe abhors. And the sexy new boss is everything Dan despises -- a meddling bimbo who doesn't know a pigskin from a pitcher's mound. So why is he drawn to the shameless sexpot like a heat-seeking missile? And why does the coach's good ol' boy charm leave cosmopolitan Phoebe feeling awkward, tongue-tied....and ready to fight? The sexy, heartwarming, and hilarious "prequel" to Susan Elizabeth Phillip's This Heart of Mine -- her sensational bestsellng blockbuster -- It Had To Be You is an enchanting story of two stubborn people who believe in playing for keeps.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - This heart of mine

Molly Somerville loves her career as the creator of the Daphne the Bunny children's book series, but the rest of her life could use some improvement. She has a reputation for trouble that started even before she gave away her fifteen-million-dollar inheritance. Then there's her long-term crush on the quarterback for the Chicago Stars football team her sister owns -- that awful, gorgeous Kevin Tucker, a man who can't even remember Molly's name! One night Kevin barges into Molly's not-quite-perfect life and turns it upside down. Unfortunately, the Ferrari-driving, poodle-hating jock isn't as shallow as she wishes he were, and she soon finds herself at a place called Wind Lake. Surrounded by paintbox cottages, including a charming old bed-and-breakfast, Molly and Kevin battle their attraction and each other as they face one of life's most important lessons. Sometimes love hurts, sometimes it makes you mad as hell, and sometimes -- if you're lucky -- it can heal in a most unexpected way.

Melissa Hill - Please forgive me

Don’t you wish you could change your life? Leonie thinks she has. The day she leaves for San Francsico, not even her best friend knows where she is.

Now she’s living in a gorgeous apartment, working in a flower shop, beginning to make new friends. Things couldn’t be more different. Until she stumbles on a bundle of mysterious love letters, and begins to wonder if maybe, instead of running away, she needs to start remembering all she’s left behind . . .

Celia Rees - Pirates

Nancy Kington, daughter of a rich merchant, suddenly orphaned when her father dies, is sent to live on her family's plantation in Jamaica. Disgusted by the treatment of the slaves and her brother's willingness to marry her off, she and one of the slaves, Minerva, run away and join a band of pirates. For both girls the pirate life is their only chance for freedom in a society where both are treated like property... rather than individuals! Together they go in search of adventure, love, and a new life that breaks all restrictions of gender, race, and position.

Told through Nancy's writings, their adventures will appeal to readers across the spectrum and around the world.

Dalia Sofer - The Septembers of Shiraz

In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known. As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer. And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger. A page-turning literary debut, The Septembers of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not simply for a spouse or a child, but for all the intangible sights and smells of the place we call home.

Henry Miller - Tropic of cancer

Now hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller's masterpiece, was banned as obscene in the USA for 27 years after its publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller's famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s.

Jules Verne - 20.000 leagues under the sea

When a huge, and glowing sea monster attacks and wrecks several ships, French professor Professor Arronax joins an US mission to hunt for the mysterious beast. The professor soon finds himself aboard the submarine beast Nautilus and a "guest" of Captain Nemo who is intent on exploring the ocean depths.

The French title of this novel is Vingt mille lieues sous les mers. This is accurately translated as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the SEAS - rather than the SEA, as with many English editions. Verne's novel features a tour of the major oceans, and the term Leagues in its title is used as a measure not of depth but distance.

Dan Simmons - A winter haunting

A once-respected college professor and novelist, Dale Stewart has sabotaged his career and his marriage -- and now darkness is closing in on him. In the last hours of Halloween he has returned to the dying town of Elm Haven, his boyhood home, where he hopes to find peace in isolation. But moving into a long-deserted farmhouse on the far outskirts of town -- the one-time residence of a strange and brilliant friend who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960 -- is only the latest in his long succession of recent mistakes. Because Dale is not alone here. He has been followed to this house of shadows by private demons who are now twisting his reality into horrifying new forms. And a thick, blanketing early snow is starting to fall ...

Colleen McCullough - The thorn birds

Colleen McCullough's sweeping saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback has enthralled readers the world over. This is the chronicle of three generations of Clearys, ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. Most of all, it is the story of only daughter Meggie and her lifelong relationship with the haunted priest Father Ralph de Bricassart—an intense joining of two hearts and souls that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma. A poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit, Colleen McCullough's acclaimed masterwork remains a monumental literary achievement—a landmark novel to be cherished and read again and again.

Carl Hiaasen - Skinny Dip

Charles "Chaz" Perrone fancies himself a take-charge kind of guy. So when this "biologist by default" suspects that his curvaceous wife, Joey, has stumbled onto a profitable pollution scam he's running on behalf of Florida agribusiness mogul Red Hammernut, he sets out right away to solve the problem--by heaving Joey off the deck of a luxury cruise liner and into the Atlantic Ocean, far from Key West. But--whoops!--Joey, a former swimming champ, doesn't drown. Instead, as Carl Hiaasen tells in his 10th adult novel, Skinny Dip, she makes her way back to shore, thanks both to a wayward bale of Jamaican marijuana and lonerish ex-cop Mick Stranahan (Skin Tight, 1989), and then launches a bogus blackmail campaign that's guaranteed to drive her lazy, libidinous hubby into a self-protective frenzy.You've got to hand it to Hiaasen: He's perfected a formula for crisply written, satirical crime fiction that makes the best use of imaginatively repulsive villains, as well as less thoroughly venal scoundrels and victims who ultimately overcome their antagonists, all while stumping for the preservation of Florida's environment, particularly the Everglades. In Skinny Dip, we find Chaz (who'd rather be golfing than puttering around the "hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous" reaches of nature) falsifying water samples to help Hammernut turn the 'Glades into "God's septic tank." That scheme, though, is endangered not just by Joey's sudden disappearance, but by the suspicions of a python-loving police detective and Chaz's own outstanding inability to tame his Viagra-enhanced tumescence. Even by assigning Chaz a baby-sitter--the hulking, hirsute, and painkiller-addicted Tool--Hammernut can't keep his pet biologist out of trouble. As Joey and Stranahan unfold their revenge plot, and Tool's conscience grows in competition with Chaz's ego, the reader can only marvel at the extent of the train wreck ahead.As much fun as Hiaasen has delivering Chaz his climactic comeuppance, what's missing from Skinny Dip is a more complex, more credible development of Stranahan's character and the relationship he builds with the much younger Joey Perrone. Like Erin Grant, from Strip Tease, Joey has far more going for her than her bra-cup size; but "hero" Stranahan is of far less interest here than any of his fellow players.

Anne Rice - Violin

Triana's grief is deep and almost boundless. Death has marked her, and taken her husband. Now only the music in her dreams can carry her from night to night. And now, into those dreams, into those nights, comes Stefan, the restless, tormented ghost of a Russian aristocrat. Stefan's musical genius will first enchant Triana, then dominate her so that she will be drawn into the cruel past in which he lived his earthly life. Finally Triana will find herself in the realm of ghosts and spectres where an ally awaits her...

Anita Loos - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -and- But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

The incomparable adventures of Lorelei Lee, a little girl from Little Rock who takes the world by storm. Anita Loos first published the diaries of the ultimate gold-digging blonde in the flapper days of 1925. Now GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and its brunette sequel are together at last in a two-in-one volume, complete with the original hilarious Ralph Barton illustrations throughout.

Santa Montefiore - Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree

Spoilt, wilful, resourceful and proud, Sofia Solanas grows up on a magnificent ranch in the middle of the Argentine pampas, loved by all around her. All, that is, except her Irish mother, Anna, who punishes her daughter for her own sense of alienation and inadequacy while doting on her sons. When a horrified Anna discovers that Sofia has embarked on a passionate love affair that can only bring shame upon the family, she sends Sofia away to Europe, inadvertently exiling her from her family and the man she loves for over twenty years. And then a family tragedy calls Sofia home. Following the story of the Solanas family in Argentina during the tumultous years of political upheaval, and Sofia's life in exile, MEET ME UNDER THE OMBU TREE is a moving, evocative and unforgettable story of love and forgiveness from a brilliant new voice.

Astrid Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking

This is the story of Pippi Longstocking who lives in the Villa Villekula and her horse and monkey (Mr. NIilsson). Pippi is stronger than any policeman ever seen in all the world and is forever rushing from one adventure to the other with her red pigtails that stick straight out and her mistmatched stockings.

Felix Salten - Bambi

The Prince of the Forest Bambi's life in the woods begins happily. There are forest animals to play with -- Friend Hare, the chattery squirrel, the noisy screech owl, and Bambi's twin cousins, frail Gobo and beautiful Faline. But winter comes, and Bambi learns that the woods hold danger -- and things he doesn't understand. The first snowfall makes food hard to find. Bambi's father, a handsome stag, roams the forest, but leaves Bambi and his mother alone. Then there is Man. He comes to the forest with weapons that can wound an animal. He does terrible things to Gobo, to Bambi's mother, and even to Bambi. But He can't keep Bambi from growing into a handsome stag himself, and becoming...the Prince of the Forest.

Frances Mayes - Under the Tuscan Sun

Frances Mayes--widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer--opens the door to a wondrous new world when she buys and restores an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. In sensuous and evocative language, she brings the reader along as she discovers the beauty and simplicity of life in Italy. An accomplished cook and food writer, Mayes also creates dozens of delicious seasonal recipes from her traditional kitchen and simple garden, all of which are included in this audio. Doing for Tuscany what M.F.K. Fisher and Peter Mayle did for Provence, Mayes writes about the tastes and pleasures of a foreign country with gusto and passion. A celebration of the extraordinary quality of life in Tuscany, Under the Tuscan Sun is a feast for all senses.

Kenize Mourad - The garden of Badalpur

A marvelous tale of filial love that examines the complex roots of East and West. Set in turn-of-the-20th century India, Zahr, a Sultan's daughter orphaned at birth and raised in Europe, returns to her homeland to begin the poignant search for her father and her rightful lineage, but encounters instead a country torn by religious strife, poverty and loss.

Kenize Mourad - Regards from the Dead Princess

On January 13, 1941, the Rani Selma of Badalpur and Aysha Salimabad died in German-occupied France. She left behind grieving friends, an estranged husband (the Rajah Amir), and a fifteen-month-old daughter. Some four decades later, her orphaned daughter re-creates in novel form the life of the mother she never truly knew.

The story opens in the last months of World War I, with the introduction of Princess Selma--granddaughter of Sultan Murad V. Murad V ascended to the throne of the Ottoman Empire with the death of his uncle, Abdul Aziz, in 1876, only to be overthrown and replaced by his brother Abdul Hamid II. Despite such political developments, Princess Selma spent her childhood amidst the luxury and privilege of a member of a royal family which had ruled a vast empire for some six hundred years. Yet, before she came of age, the Empire suffered the indignity of defeat, invasion, and occupation by the victorious Allied powers. Then followed years of civil war as nationalist forces under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal battled the Greeks, British, and French in pursuit of independence from foreign rule. Ultimately, the victory of Kemal led to the overthrow of the Sultanate, the establishment of the Turkish Republic, and the exile of all members of the royal family.

In consequence, Selma and her mother took refuge in Lebanon with such funds as they were able to carry away on short notice. In Beirut, under conditions of genteel poverty, Selma became an attractive and important fixture in Lebanese society. With no fortune at her disposal, she was obliged to barter the family name for the security of marriage. Therefore, in 1936, she agreed to marry the Rajah of Badalpur and Aysha Salimabad. Ironically, Selma, who witnessed the decline and death of an empire as a child, now found herself a spectator as British colonial rule in India approached its end. Selma found it difficult, to say the least, to adjust to life as the Rani of Badalpur and Aysha Salimabad. In 1939, pregnant and estranged from her husband, Selma fled to Paris--ostensibly to take advantage of the medical facilities available in France. In fact, however, she had no intention of returning to her husband--informing him that the child was born dead. The strain of being an enemy alien in Occupied France proved too much for Selma, and she died tragically in 1941.

Elizabeth Kostova - The historian

A college professor is given a book containing a picture leading him to look into Dracula. HIs fellow professor goes missing and starts us on a jpurney through history and personal lives.A girl discovers some letters in her father's library and embarks on a voyage, discovering about her absent mother and about her father's professor, a voyage which leads us to many European countries, starting in Amsterdam, crossing Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, and many more, in an exciting and frightening journey, with the purpose of finding out the final resting place of Dracula.

Amin Maalouf - Samarkand

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genuis, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus beginds the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand. Vividly re-creating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country's struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript ; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyaat's final resting place - all are brought to life with keen assurance by this gifted and award-winning writer.

Johanna Spyri - Heidi

Adelheid (third syllable is pronounced as "height"), alias Heidi, is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. This has earned him the nickname Alp-Öhi . He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat - herd.

Dete returns three years later to bring Heidi to Frankfurt as a companion of a 12-year-old girl named Klara Sesemann, who is regarded as an invalid. Heidi spends a year with Klara, conflicting with the Sesemanns' strict housekeeper Fraulein Rottenmeier and becoming more and more homesick. Her one diversion is learning to read and write, motivated by her desire to go home and read to Peter's blind grandmother. Heidi's increasingly failing health and several instances of sleepwalking (her grandfather had earlier expressed concern that stress might cause Heidi to manifest epilepsy and sleepwalking traits from her mother) prompt Klara's doctor to send her home to her grandfather. Her return prompts the grandfather to descend to the village for the first time in years, marking an end to his seclusion.

Heidi and Klara continue to contact each other. A visit by the doctor to Heidi and her grandfather convinces him to recommend Klara to visit Heidi. Meanwhile, Heidi teaches Peter to read and write. Klara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi. Klara becomes stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air, but Peter, feeling deprived of Heidi's attention, pushes Klara's wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction. Without her wheelchair, Klara attempts to walk and is gradually successful. Klara's grandmother and father are amazed and overcome with joy to see Klara walking. Klara's wealthy family promises to provide a shelter for Heidi, in case her grandfather will no longer be able to do so.

Alberto Moravia - The Woman of Rome

The glitter and cynicism of Rome under Mussolini provide the background of what is probably Alberto Moravia's best and best-known novel - The Woman of Rome. It's the story of Adriana, a simple girl with no fortune but her beauty who models naked for a painter, accepts gifts from men, and could never quite identify the moment when she traded her private dream of home and children for the life of a prostitute. One of the very few novels of the twentieth century which can be ranked with the work of Dostoevsky, The Woman of Rome also tells the stories of the tortured university student Giacomo, a failed revolutionary who refuses to admit his love for Adriana; of the sinister figure of Astarita, the Secret Police officer obsessed with Adriana; and of the coarse and brutal criminal Sonzogno, who treats Adriana as his private property.

Sophie Kinsella - Mini Shopaholic

Sophie Kinsella has dazzled readers with her irresistible Shopaholic novels which are also in a series—sensational international bestsellers that have garnered millions of devoted fans and catapulted her into the first rank of contemporary storytellers. Now her beloved heroine Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) returns in a hilarious tale of married life, toddlerhood, and the perils of trying to give a fabulous surprise party—on a budget! Becky Brandon thought motherhood would be a breeze and that having a daughter was a dream come true: a shopping friend for life! But it’s trickier than she thought. Two-year-old Minnie has a quite different approach to shopping. Minnie creates havoc everywhere she goes, from Harrods to her own christening. Her favorite word is “Mine!” and she’s even trying to get into eBay! On top of everything else, Becky and Luke are still living with her parents (the deal on house #5 has fallen through), when suddenly there’s a huge financial crisis. With people having to “cut back,” Becky decides to throw a surprise party for Luke to cheer everyone up. But when costs start to spiral out of control, she must decide whether to accept help from an unexpected source—and therefore run the risk of hurting the person she loves. Will Becky be able to pull off the celebration of the year? Will she and Luke ever find a home of their own? Will Minnie ever learn to behave? And . . . most importantly . . . will Becky’s secret wishes ever come true?

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Just imagine

The War Between the States may be over for the rest of the country, but not for Kit Weston. Disguised as a boy, she's come to New York City to kill Baron Cain, the man who stands between her and Risen Glory, the South Carolina home she loves. But unknown to Kit, the Yankee war hero is more than her most bitter enemy -- he's also her guardian. And he'll be a lot harder to kill than she's figured on... Believing that Kit's a boy, Cain offers the grubby rapscallion a job in his stable. But he has no idea what he's in for, and it's not long before the hero of Missionary Ridge discovers the truth. His scamp of a stable boy is a strong-willed, violet-eyed beauty who's hell-bent on driving him crazy. Two hard-headed, passionate people....Two stubborn opponents with tender souls....Sometimes wars of the heart can only be won through the sweetest of surrenders.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón - The Shadow of the Wind

Barcelona, 1945 -- just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

Ernest Hemingway - The sun also rises

A group of American dilettantes living in post-World War I Europe travel from France to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The men in the group (as well as many of the locals they encounter) covet and vigorously pursue the beautiful and promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley, but the narrator, war veteran Jake Barnes, is unable to consummate his desire for her as a result of a war injury that spared him his life, but took his manhood.

Jennifer Crusie - Bet me

Minerva Dobbs knows that happily-ever-after is a fairy tale, especially with a man who asked her to dinner to win a bet. Even if he is gorgeous and successful Calvin Morrisey. Cal knows commitment is impossible, especially with a woman as cranky as Min Dobbs. Even if she does wear great shoes, and keep him on his toes. When they say good-bye at the end of their evening, they cut their losses and agree never to see each other again. But Fate has other plans, and it's not long before Min and Cal meet again. Soon, they're dealing with a jealous ex-boyfriend, Krispy Kreme donuts, a determined psychologist, chaos theory, a freakishly intelligent cat, Chicken Marsala, and more risky propositions than either of them ever dreamed of. Including the biggest gamble of all-true love.