Leo Drake, the “Mad Monk of Monkcrest,” is notoriously eccentric and unquestionably reclusive.  But he is also a noted antiquities expert, which is why Beatrice Poole has demanded his reluctant assistance.
The freethinking authoress of “horrid novels,” Beatrice is searching for the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite, a mythic treasure she suspects played a role in her uncle's death.  Beatrice finds Leo every...

This is a moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another.

"On the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, comes a riveting biography of its author, Mary Shelley, whose life reads like a dark gothic novel, filled with scandal, death, drama, and one of the strangest love stories in literary history"-- A biography of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, reads like a dark gothic novel, filled with scandal, death, drama, and one of the strangest love stories in literary history. Reef discusses...

A biography of the author of "The Chronicles of Narnia" who converted from atheism to Christianity.

The young Jane Austen is not particularly interested in getting married, although she does find the mysterious Mr. Lefroy an intriguing possibility--but first she has to deal with the accusation that her cousin Eliza is a French spy, and solve a murder.

Big Brother Is Watching You: The words are inextricably associated with the classic dystopian novel 1984 and with its revered author, George Orwell. The Modern Scholar series continues its exploration of great authors with this course from esteemed professor Michael Shelden. In these lectures Orwell, who also penned the epitome of the political satire, Animal Farm, is discussed in full, from his childhood in Henley-on-Thames to his final days.

Traces the author's lifelong search for happiness as the adopted daughter of Pentecostal parents who raised her through practices of fierce control and paranoia, an experience that prompted her to search for her biological mother.

Follows the life and writing career of the popular nineteenth-century English novelist.

"On April 18th, 1941, twenty-two days after Virginia Woolf went for a walk near her weekend house and never returned, her body was reclaimed from the River Ouse. For more than half a century, Woolf's suicide has been attributed to alleged depression; bipolar disorder; her impaired mental state after two of her London apartments had been bombed during the Second World War's brutal Blitz. With Adeline--a ... reimagining of the events that brought Virginia...

The story of Mary Poppins, the quintessentially English and utterly magical children's nanny, is remarkable enough. She was instantly hailed as a classic, then became a household name when Julie Andrews stepped into the role in Disney's hugely successful film. Now she is a Broadway sensation all over again. But the story of Mary Poppins's creator, as this first biography reveals, is just as unexpected and remarkable. Australian journalist Pamela Lyndon...