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Rose Macaulay and Mystery at Geneva - Novels of 1922 MP3
Secrets and politics and multiple kidnappings at the League of Nations, and some pointed messages about early feminism. Rose Macaulay's Mystery at Geneva is a fine satirical novel in the mystery mode. (NB this version replaces the inadvertently gigantic version released earlier.)
22.11.2013
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22.11.2013
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E C Bentley and Trent's Last Case - Novels of 1913 MP3
Trent's Last Case is a very modern Edwardian detective novel, with a Bohemian setting, the police in a cosy relationship with the media, and a cracking good mystery to solve ahead of the artist-journalist-detective hero.Â
20.06.2013
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20.06.2013
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Susan Coolidge and the What Katy Did books - Really Randoms 5 MP3
Three stories of a girl growing up in Ohio, in Connecticut, and travelling in Europe, which make a wonderful picture of 19th-century Victorian America. Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did, What Katy Did At School, and What Katy Did Next, are about natural, normal, delightful people, and the way they lived then. Charming, and totally absorbing. For readers who have fallen off a swing.
06.06.2013
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06.06.2013
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Louisa May Alcott and Good Wives - Really Randoms 4 MP3
In Kipling's The Naulakha, Kate goes to New York to train as a nurse. In Louisa May Alcott's Good Wives, Jo goes to New York to work independently as a writer, and turns into a hack journalist for the blood and thunder magazines of the 1860s. But she needs to be saved from this terrible profession, so enter Professor Bhaer, who will bring her back to the good Christian path, and open an orphanage. For readers who nee...
23.05.2013
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23.05.2013
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Rudyard Kipling and The Naulahka - Really Randoms 3 MP3
Rudyard Kipling's jointly written novel with a writer we've all forgotten is really very good. The Naulakha may be spelt wrong (Kipling's fault) but its a gripping mix of Victorian adventure and trouncing of feminist aspirations, set in a very corrupt Indian kingdom. For readers whose plans go awry.
09.05.2013
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09.05.2013
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Gene Wolfe and The Shadow of the Torturer - Really Randoms 3 MP3
Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer is about Severian, an apprentice torturer who is banished by his masters. His crime: to allow a client to die sooner than the law had intended. His mission: to not shame the guild. His real mission: to return the alien jewel to its owners. Science fiction par excellence, and linguistic invention to boggle your vocabulary.
25.04.2013
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25.04.2013
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Rosy Barnes and Sadomasochism for Accountants - Really Randoms 1 MP3
It's not at all what you think it is, although a lot of Rosy Barnes's novel Sadomasochism for Accountants takes place in a fetish club. Half of the characters are sweeties, the other half are vile: watch their comeuppance and enjoy the freeing of lonely, fettered souls. Great fun for all the family.
11.04.2013
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11.04.2013
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Susan Cooper and The Dark is Rising - Five Novels about King Arthur MP3
The Dark is Rising was a set of excellent novels for decades before it was a film. Susan Cooper's 1970s series is timeless, a real world quest fantasy steeped in Arthurian magic, where Merlin is a butler and a professor.
28.03.2013
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28.03.2013
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Mary Stewart and The Crystal Cave - Five Novels about King Arthur MP3
The story of Merlin, and how King Uther got to the Duchess of Cornwall's bedroom, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave fills in the gaps before Arthur's birth with the brilliant and believable story of Merlin. All the magic by mathematics and psychology you ever wanted.
21.03.2013
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21.03.2013
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Rosemary Sutcliff and The Lantern-Bearers - Five Novels about King Arthur MP3
A late period Rosemary Sutcliff novel, The Lantern-Bearers is set when the Roman Empire has pulled out of Britain, and there is no-one to hold back the Saxon hordes except the Roman-trained Aurelius Ambrosianus, and his nephew Arthur. A novel about what might have been Arthur's boyhood, and the beginnings of the Round Table.
14.03.2013
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14.03.2013
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T H White and The Once and Future King - Five Novels about King Arthur MP3
Not one novel about Arthur, but five: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, The Candle in the Wind, and The Book of Merlyn. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Arthurian legend, in brilliant postmodern style. T H White was a genius: these books are marvellous.
07.03.2013
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07.03.2013
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Mark Twain and A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King ArthUr - Five Novels about King Arthur MP3
Here's a fine satire about ignorance and primitive living at Camelot, where the benign reign of King Arthur needs improving. Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee takes over the kingdom and brings the 19th century into the 6th century: a great novel about the impossibility of messing around with time. For those suspicious about the practicalities of armour.
28.02.2013
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28.02.2013
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Terry Pratchett and The Truth MP3
Brace yourself for deep truths about newspapers and reporting, in a world where the characters have names with a strange resemblance to typefaces, and where no magic is used to make the news, only identifying the story. Brilliant satire from Terry Pratchett in The Truth: what more do you need?
21.02.2013
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21.02.2013
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Monica Dickens and My Turn to Make the Tea MP3
It;s the 1950s and Monica Dickens is a very junior reporter on a very local paper. It's always her turn to make the tea. She bicycles everywhere. She lodges with the landlady from hell. Her stories about post-war life for ordinary people are heart-breaking and appalling. This is proper reportage.
14.02.2013
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14.02.2013
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Evelyn Waugh and Scoop - Five Fictions about Newspapers MP3
It's the late 1930s, and the newspaper industry is not so much a trade as a profession for gentlemen. Lord Cropper knows so little about how his empire works that he sends the wrong man to a war zone. In Waugh's Scoop, a fine satire on newspaper mayhem, an unknown nobody learns how to be a journalist in north Africa while waiting for the Russians to invade, but he would far rather be writing nature essays. For old ha...
07.02.2013
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07.02.2013
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Rose Macaulay and Potterism - Five Fictions about Newspapers MP3
Potterism is a way of thinking, in that it isn't thinking at all, just repeating stale thoughts and unfinished ideas. The Anti-Potterism League wishes to combat the deadly malaise of Potterism spread by the Potter empire's newspapers, but they get caught up in their own cleverness. Rose Macaulay's satire of the 1920s newspaper scene shows her despair of the British public ever seeing sense.
31.01.2013
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31.01.2013
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Rudyard Kipling and The Village That Voted The Earth Was Flat - Five Fictions About Newspapers MP3
Read all about the power of the Edwardian newspaper in this short story about bullying, corruption, the abuse of power, and the defeat of small-mindedness. Rudyard Kipling's 'The Village That Voted The Earth Was Flat' is a lesson in collusion and taking revenge.
24.01.2013
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24.01.2013
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Georgette Heyer and The Masqueraders - Five Fine Swashbuckling Novels MP3
More wigs! More swordfights! Learn how to tip wine down your coat sleeve if you don't want to get drunk while dressed in clothes of the opposite sex. Study the disguises of highwaymen and practice your court curtseys. Georgette Heyer's The Masqueraders teaches valuable life skills for the 18th century.
17.01.2013
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17.01.2013
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Baroness Orczy and The Scarlet Pimpernel - Five Fine Swashbuckling Novels MP3
Get out the jewel box and summon the wig powderer, the aristocrats have escaped the Terror, and are looking for revenge. Some magnificent swashbuckling action and double-crossing plot twists in Baroness Orczy's classic novel of the French Revolution, in which the Scarlet Pimpernel leads the establishment's backlash against Revolutionary excess.
10.01.2013
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10.01.2013
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John Buchan and John Burnet of Barns - Five Fine Swashbuckling Novels MP3
Yet more galloping about in the heather, in the late 17th century as an anxious nation awaits the departure of James III and the arrival of William of Orange. John Buchan's John Burnet of Barns has his estate to worry about, and his girl, and knows that his wicked cousin Gilbert will have them all if he can. For law-abiding folk who believe in virtue being its own reward.
03.01.2013
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03.01.2013
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