Top list: Classics and poetry

"The Language of Flowers" by H. G. Wells is a short essay. H. G. Wells once different, humorous social satire and ironic.

During the early Victorian revival of chivalry the Language of Flowers had some considerable vogue. The Romeo of the mutton-chop whiskers was expected to keep this delicate symbolism in view, and even to display his wit by some dainty conceits in it.

No Longer Human (1948, Ningen Shikkaku / A Shameful Life / Confessions of a Faulty Man) was an attack on the traditions of Japan, capturing the postwar crisis of Japanese cultural identity. Framed by an epilogue and prologue, the story is told in the form three notebooks left by Ōba Yōzō, whose calm exterior hides his tormented soul.

Osamu Dazai was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō (The Setting Sun) and Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human), are considered modern-day classics in Japan.

Japanese novelist and a master storyteller, who became at the end of World War II the literary voice and literary hero of his generation. Dazai's life ended in double-suicide with his married mistress. In many books Dazai used biographical material from his own family background, and made his self-destructive life the subject of his books.

Famous works of the author Osamu Dazai: The Setting Sun, Run, Melos!, Winter's firework, I heard it in this way, No Longer Human, Good-Bye.

Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025.

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

Dive into the intriguing world of Whose Body?, Dorothy Sayers' brilliant debut in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. When a mysterious body is discovered in a bathtub, wearing only a pair of spectacles, the case seems destined to remain unsolved. But Lord Peter Wimsey, a sophisticated amateur detective, takes on the challenge, unraveling clues and exposing hidden motives in a story filled with suspense and clever twists.

This captivating audiobook immerses listeners in a classic British mystery, showcasing Sayers' talent for intricate plotting and sharp dialogue. Perfect for fans of golden age detective fiction, Whose Body? promises a gripping experience from start to finish.

A brand-new recording of the classic work, narrated by Holliday Grainger, star of The Borgias and The Capture.

On a trip to the South of France, a shy young woman falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.

Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the other woman. An international bestseller, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.

'Rebecca is a masterpiece' GUARDIAN

'Excellent entertainment . . . du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings' STEPHEN KING

David Livingstone, discoverer of the Victoria Falls: Life and work in a short biography! Everything you need to know, brief and concise. Infotainment, education and entertainment at its best!

Read by Richard Armitage

JAMES BOND PLAYS A DEADLY GAME OF CHANCE IN IAN FLEMING’S LEGENDARY FIRST 007 NOVEL

“Le Chiffre” is a ruthless operative and the accountant for a soviet SMERSH cell in France, but he’s on the verge of disaster after gambling away his client’s money. Taking the last of his stash, he lures a dozen wealthy players to a high-stakes baccarat game, hoping to hustle his way whole.

The British Secret Service would like to see this red thorn plucked from the hide of Europe, and sends their best card sharp, James Bond, to bankrupt Le Chiffre for good.

With the cards running against him and SMERSH operatives threatening to kill him and his beautiful ally, Vesper Lynd, 007 needs his luck to turn before he wagers away their lives.

In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë created a strong, modern heroine who challenged the prevailing morals and politics of the Victorian era. When Helen Graham shut her bedroom door on her abusive, drunken husband, it was a door-slam heard around the world. Escaping to Wildfell Hall after a loveless marriage, Helen, the mysterious tenant, lives in quiet seclusion, but her reclusive nature quickly becomes the subject of local gossip. Gilbert Markham, a young farmer, becomes intrigued with Ms Graham and soon discovers the shocking secrets of her dark past…

A popular bestseller since its publication in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great page-turning thrillers of all time. Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Alexandre Dumas’s grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantès, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. As Robert Louis Stevenson declared, “I do not believe there is another volume extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance.”

Gogol’s great Russian classic is the Pickwick Papers of Russian Literature. It takes a sharp but humorous look at life in all its strata, but especially the devious complexities in Russia with its landowners and serfs. We are introduced to Tchitchikov, a businessman who, in order to trick the tax authorities, buys up dead ‘souls’ or serfs whose names still appear on the government census. Despite being a dealer in phantom crimes and paper ghosts, he is the most beguiling of Gogol’s characters. Gogol’s obsession with attempting to display ‘the untold riches of the Russian soul’ eventually led him to madness, religious mania and death. Dismissed by him as merely ‘a pale introduction to the great epic poem which is taking shape in my mind’, Dead Souls is the culmination of Gogol’s genius.

This brand-new unabridged audio book of , the second part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic adventure, , is read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director and author, Andy Serkis.The Two TowersThe Lord of the Rings

The company of the Ring is torn asunder. Frodo and Sam continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin – alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.

This continues the classic tale begun in , which reaches its awesome climax in .The Fellowship of the RingThe Return of the King

The Tempest is a play by English playwright William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610-1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.

Although The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare's late plays. The Tempest has been put to varied interpretations, from those that see it as a fable of art and creation, with Prospero representing Shakespeare, and Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, to interpretations that consider it an allegory of Europeans colonizing foreign lands.

Agnes Grey is the daughter of Mr. Grey, a minister of modest means, and Mrs. Grey, a woman who left her wealthy family and married purely out of love. Mr. Grey tries to increase the family's financial standing, but the merchant he entrusts his money to dies in a wreck, and the lost investment plunges the family into debt. Agnes, her sister Mary, and their mother all try to keep expenses low and bring in extra money, but Agnes is frustrated that everyone treats her like a child. To prove herself and to earn money, she is determined to get a position as a governess. Eventually, she obtains a recommendation from a well-placed acquaintance, is offered a position, and secures her parents' permission. With some misgivings, she travels to Wellwood house to work for the Bloomfield family.

I met a lady in the meads /Full beautiful, a faery's child. /Her hair was long, her foot was light, /And her eyes were wild. -John Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" Keats' famous poem might be describing Lady Meriel Grahame, the enchanting heroine of this passionate tale set amidst magical gardens. An equally appealing leading man, a thrilling love story, and a rich historical milieu make this novel positively irresistible. More pagan than lady, Meriel spends her days running barefoot through her English estate, cultivating her flowers and her mystical connection to nature. She is mute and, according to most people, mad. But handsome Dominic Renbourne, who has been sent by his twin to court her, senses in Meriel a kindred spirit. He manages to inspire her trust, and against his better judgement, her passion. Award-winning, New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Mary Jo Putney lives up to her reputation for creating strong, intelligent characters. Barbara Rosenblat's stimulating performance will awaken all your senses, if not the wild child in you.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Finalist for the National Book Award

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

Winner of the Howell’s Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books

“A great American novel, a masterpiece, a thrilling page-turner.” —San Francisco Chronicle

*With a new preface by Don DeLillo on the 25th anniversary of publication*

Don DeLillo's mesmerizing novel was a major bestseller when it was published in 1997 and was the most widely reviewed novel of the year. It opens with a legendary baseball game played between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants in 1951. The home run that won the game was called the Shot Heard Round the World, and was shadowed by the terrifying news that on the same day, Russia tested its first hydrogen bomb. Underworld then tells the story of Klara Sax and Nick Shay, and of a half century of American life during the Cold War and beyond.

“A dazzling, phosphorescent work of art.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“This is a novel that draws together baseball, the Bomb, J. Edgar Hoover, waste disposal, drugs, gangs, Vietnam, fathers and sons, comic Lenny Bruce and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It also depicts passionate adultery, weapons testing, the care of aging mothers, the postwar Bronx, '60s civil rights demonstrations, advertising, graffiti artists at work, Catholic education, chess and murder. There's a viewing of a lost Eisenstein film, meditations on the Watts Tower, an evening at Truman Capote's Black & White Ball, a hot-air balloon ride, serial murders in Texas, a camping trip in the Southwest, a nun on the Internet, reflections on history, one hit (or possibly two) by the New York mob and an apparent miracle. As DeLillo says and proves, ‘Everything is connected in the end.’" —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

“Underworld is an amazing performance, a novel that encompasses some five decades of history, both the hard, bright world of public events and the more subterranean world of private emotions. It is the story of one man, one family, but it is also the story of what happened to America in the second half of the 20th century.” —The New York Times

“Astonishing…A benchmark of twentieth-century fiction, Underworld is stunningly beautiful in its generous humanity, locating the true power of history not in tyranny, collective political movements or history books, but inside each of us.” —Greg Burkman, The Seattle Times

“It’s hard to imagine a way people might better understand American life in the second half of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first than by reading Don DeLillo. The scale of his inquiry is global and historic… His work is astounding, made of stealthy blessings… it proves to my generation of writers that fiction can still do anything it wants.” —Jennifer Egan, in her presentation of the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

“Underworld is a page-turner and a masterwork, a sublime novel and a delight to read.” —Joan Mellen, The Baltimore Sun

Following her departure from Faerie, Alice tries to adjust to the rhythm of her old life. But confusing emotions draw her into a new venture with Dorothy, a girl from a neighboring farm. When the pair are transported to a whole new part of Faerie, Alice encounters former acquaintances who, like her, haven't moved past what transpired in the Unseelie kingdom. With a new, powerful enemy fixating on Dorothy, and with trauma evolving into trust, Alice must decide if she can afford to risk her heart . . . again.

Contains mature themes. Trigger and content warnings are available on the author's website.

Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty. Their governess must struggle alone to confront and exorcise the demons which she believes possess their souls… Published in 1898, the story was immediately met with glowing reviews. It remains one of Henry James’s most popular works.

Published in 1948, this cautionary tale follows a lone protagonist who struggles under the rule of a repressive totalitarian government. Set in a future version of England, called Airstrip One, the novel is famous for its imagined language that conjures a cruelly cynical authoritarian regime. One of the most popular novels in the English language, it is part political thriller and part science fiction, and it established the word Orwellian to describe official deception, unwarranted surveillance, and revisionist history by the state.

‘The Last Battle’ by CS Lewis concludes the Narnia series of novels. The story takes place 2500 Narnian years since the creation of the world as related in ‘The Magician's Nephew’. The ape Shift sets up a false Aslan, starts to order his fellow Narnians around and causes conflict between true and false Narnians, and between Narnia and Calormen, whose people worship the malevolent Tash. With its dark imagery and sinister undertone, ‘The Last Battle’ seems to be more of an adult’s book than a children’s book. The story concludes with the termination of the world by Aslan, and the entry of believers into eternal life in the final kingdom. ‘The Last Battle’ won the 1956 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association.

"Inferno" tells the story "of those who have rejected spiritual values", of those who are lost and are unable to find the right way to salvation. It describes each sin and the corresponding punishment. It differentiates between Purgatory and Hell by presenting people begging for forgiveness and others willing to justify their sins. "Inferno" represents the Christian soul who gets to see what it really is to commit a sin and what is to be expected in the afterlife.

"Inferno" is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s medieval poem "The Divine Comedy" which was written in the period 1308-1320. It depicts the nine circles of Hell and Dante’s journey through them.

Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet, philosopher, language and political theorist, born in Florence in 1265. He is one of the best known poets of the Middle Ages and his masterpiece "The Divine Comedy" is considered to be a representative of the medieval world-view. "The Divine Comedy" and "The New life" were written in vernacular, i.e. the speech variety that was used in everyday life. This made the literature accessible to most people and this is mainly why Dante is called "The father of Italian language". Dante’s life was divided by poetry and politics and the relationships between secular and religious authority were topics which were often depicted in his literary works.