"It’s Christmas in Allensbury, and the festivities are to die for…
When the curtains open on the Fenleys department store Christmas window display, there’s a shock in store.
A man lies dead amid the snow and reindeer, stabbed in the back. But who would murder mild-mannered, gentle Adrian Kendall?
Crime reporter Emma Fletcher is immediately on the case, determined to find the killer.
When a friend becomes the police’s prime suspect, she ploughs ahead with her investigation, desperate to find the truth whatever the cost.
Emma has to decide who has been naughty or nice before someone else gets hurt.
A Killer Christmas is a seasonal special and the next enthralling adventure in the Allensbury Mysteries crime series."
"Herbert George 'H. G.' Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer.
He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a 'father of science fiction'
BOOK 1: METAPHYSICS: As a preliminary to that experiment in mutual confession from which this book arose, I found it necessary to consider and state certain truths about the nature of knowledge, about the meaning of truth and the value of words, that is to say I found I had to begin by being metaphysical. In writing out these notes now I think it is well that I should state just how important I think this metaphysical prelude is."
"Herbert George 'H. G.' Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer.
He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a 'father of science fiction'
BOOK 2: OF BELIEFS: And now having stated my conception of the true relationship between our thoughts and words to facts, having distinguished between the more accurate and frequently verified propositions of science and the more arbitrary and infrequently verified propositions of belief, and made clear the spontaneous and artistic quality that inheres in all our moral and religious generalizations, I may hope to go on to my confession of faith with less misunderstanding."
"Herbert George 'H. G.' Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer.
He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a 'father of science fiction'
BOOK 3: OF GENERAL CONDUCT: I hold that the broad direction of conduct follows necessarily from belief. The believer does not require rewards and punishments to direct him to the right. Motive and idea are not so separable. To believe truly is to want to do right. To get salvation is to be unified by a comprehending idea of a purpose and by a ruling motive.
The believer wants to do right, he naturally and necessarily seeks to do right."
"Herbert George 'H. G.' Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer.
He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a 'father of science fiction'
BOOK 4: SOME PERSONAL THINGS: It has been most convenient to discuss all that might be generalized about conduct first, to put in the common background, the vistas and atmosphere of the scene. But a man's relations are of two orders, and these questions of rule and principle are over and about and round more vivid and immediate interests. A man is not simply a relationship between his individual self and the race, society, the world and God's Purpose."
"First and Last Things is a 1908 work of philosophy by H. G. Wells setting forth his beliefs in four 'books' entitled 'Metaphysics,' 'Of Belief,' 'Of General Conduct,' and 'Some Personal Things.' Parts of the book were published in the Independent Magazine in July and August 1908. Wells revised the book extensively in 1917, in response to his religious conversion, but later published a further revision in 1929 that restored much of the book to its earlier form. Its main intellectual influences are Darwinism and certain German thinkers Wells had read, such as August Weismann. The pragmatism of William James, who had become a friend of Wells, was also an influence."
"The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells (1866-1946). The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick who is a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat. He is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature. Wells described it as 'an exercise in youthful blasphemy.' - The Island of Doctor Moreau is a classic work of early science fiction and remains one of Wells' best-known books. The novel is the earliest depiction of the science fiction motif 'uplift' in which a more advanced race intervenes in the evolution of an animal species to bring the latter to a higher level of intelligence. It has been adapted to film and other media on many occasions.
The Island of Doctor Moreau is the account of Edward Prendick, an Englishman with a scientific education who survives a shipwreck in the southern Pacific Ocean. A passing ship called Ipecacuanha takes him aboard, and a man named Montgomery revives him. Prendick also meets a grotesque bestial native named M'ling, who appears to be Montgomery's manservant. The ship is transporting a number of animals which belong to Montgomery. As they approach the island, Montgomery's destination, the captain demands Prendick leave the ship with Montgomery. Montgomery explains that he will not be able to host Prendick on the island. Despite this, the captain leaves Prendick in a dinghy and sails away. Seeing that the captain has abandoned Prendick, Montgomery takes pity and rescues him. As ships rarely pass the island, Prendick will be housed in an outer room of an enclosed compound."
"The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Consisting of a series of episodes in the story of the English outlaw Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, the novel compiles traditional material into a coherent narrative in a colorful, invented 'old English' idiom that preserves some flavor of the ballads, and adapts it for children. The novel is notable for taking the subject of Robin Hood, which had been increasingly popular through the 19th century, in a new direction that influenced later writers, artists, and filmmakers through the next century."
"When a scientist is found dead in his living room, it appears to be natural causes, but local news reporter Dan Sullivan suspects a cover-up. After all, he saw the man abducted two days ago.
As Dan investigates, a second body is found in suspicious circumstances and his former university tutor, Dr Harry Evans, is the prime suspect. He asks Dan to help clear his name, but is he really telling Dan the truth?
Join Dan in a twisty tale of deceit, as he battles to find out the truth – even though he might be putting a friend’s life at stake.
A Deadly Truth is the second book in LM Milford’s exciting Allensbury Mysteries series."
"Sanders is a British colonial District Commissioner in Colonial Nigeria. He tries to rule his province fairly, including the various tribes comprising the Peoples of the River. He is regarded with respect by some and with fear by others, among whom he is referred to as 'Sandi' and 'Lord Sandi'. He has an ally in Bosambo, a literate and educated chief."
"Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy's Progress is Charles Dickens's second novel, and was first published as a serial from 1837 to 1839. The story centres on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the 'Artful Dodger', a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin.
Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century. The alternative title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.
In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own experiences as a youth contributed as well."
"'The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719. Just as in its significantly more popular predecessor, Robinson Crusoe (1719), the first edition credits the work's fictional protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author. It was published under the considerably longer original title: The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; Being the Second and Last Part of His Life, And of the Strange Surprising Accounts of his Travels Round three Parts of the Globe. Although intended to be the last Crusoe tale, the novel is followed by a non-fiction book involving Crusoe by Defoe entitled Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of the Angelick World (1720). The story is speculated to be partially based on Moscow embassy secretary Adam Brand's journal detailing the embassy's journey from Moscow to Peking from 1693 to 1695.
The book starts with the statement about Crusoe's marriage in England. He bought a little farm in Bedford and had three children: two sons and one daughter. Our hero suffered a distemper and a desire to see 'his island.' He could talk of nothing else, and one can imagine that no one took his stories seriously, except his wife. She told him, in tears, 'I will go with you, but I won't leave you.' But in the middle of this felicity, Providence unhinged him at once, with the loss of his wife."
