Ocean State Libraries

"It's back to Corduroy Mansions--the slightly dilapidated but well-lived-in mansion block in London's hip Pimlico neighborhood--for the third installment in Alexander McCall Smith's newest popular series. There's never a dull moment for the residents of Corduroy Mansions: Berthea Snark is still at work on her scathing biography of the only loathsome Liberal Democrat member of Parliament--her own son, Oedipus; literary agents Rupert Porter and Barbara...

A marked departure from Edith Wharton's usual ironic contemplation of the fashionable New York society to which she herself belonged, Ethan Frome is a sharply etched portrait of the simple inhabitants of a nineteenth-century New England village. The protagonist, Ethan Frome, is a man tormented by a passionate love for his ailing wife's young cousin. Trapped by the bonds of marriage and the fear of public condemnation, he is ultimately destroyed by...

Longing for the excitement and romance of a London season, country girl Lady Henrietta Maclellan never expected to find herself forced by scandal into marriage with the shocking Simon Darby, thanks to an impetuously written letter.

A collection of twelve tales includes stories about a waiter who reveals his shocking life of crime to his ex-wife, the disintegration of a marriage following a terrible tragedy, and a middle-aged accountant who ends a love affair.

"They say trouble comes in threes, and Bertie Wooster soon learns why. It all begins when his aunt Dahlia asks him to steal a silver cow creamer illegally obtained by her husband's silver rival. Then comes the telegram from Gussie Fink-Nottle begging Bertie to come to Totleigh Towers to mend the rift between him and his soppy fianceé, Madeline Bassett. To top it all off, Bertie must contend with Roderick Spode, the menacing, black shorts-wearing,...

"A wealthy family bound by the rules of tradition and property, two independent, cultured sisters, and a young man living on the edge of poverty." --

The story of the disastrous impact of outside life on a secluded community in Dorset, as two rivals, Giles Winterbourne and Dr Edred Fitzpiers, compete for the hand of Grace Melbury.

An English family's complex lives are followed and picked up again after a 10 year hiatus in order to explore the effects of time. "Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is one of her greatest literary achievements and among the most influential novels of the twentieth century. The serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement...

In the bar-parlor of The Angler's Rest, a bucolic English pub, Mr. Mulliner tells his amazing tales, holding the assembled company of pints of stout and whiskies and splash in the palm of his expressive hand. Here you can discover what happened to the man who gave up smoking, share a frisson when the butler delivers something squishy on a silver salver ("Your serpent, Sir," said the voice of Simmons), and experience the dreadful unpleasantness at...

Story of three generations of English middle-class people and their sexual conflicts. The Rainbow chronicles the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family of Nottinghamshire, and is a metaphysical inquiry into the possibilities that human relationships hold amid the uncompromisiing circumstance of industrial culture, which Lawrence continued in Women in Love. Throughout the novel the rainbow symbolises each character's search for self-fulfilment....