1. the Author Knows Exactly What Boys Are Like; He Has a Compelling Imagination; and The

BOOK BLURBS

1. The author knows exactly what boys are like; he has a compelling imagination; and the vivid realism with which he describes the disintegration of their untried and precarious civilization under the pressure of raw nature carries the reader to the bloody climax... A most absorbing and instructive tale. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Some said he had been a German spy, others that he was related to one of Europe's royal families. Nearly everyone took advantage of his fabulous hospitality. And it was fabulous. In his superb Long Island home he gave the most amazing parties, and not the least remarkable thing about them was that few people could recognize their host. He seemed to be a man without a background, without history; whose eyes were always searching the glitter and razzmatazz for something . . . someone? It is one of the great love stories of our time. In it the author distilled the essences of glamour and illusion so powerfully that his book has haunted and tantalized generations of readers………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. The wish uttered by the hero as he gazes at his portrait forms the basis of the plot of this brilliant and disturbing story of a gilded and spoilt hedonist who, Faust-like, is willing to sell his soul for his beauty. First published to scandalized protest in 1890, this fantastic melodrama was widely condemned by the novelist's contemporaries as an affront to the values of polite society. It has since become one of his most celebrated works, a brilliant example of his power as a storyteller and of his flamboyant wit and aestheticism……………………………………………………………………………………………….

4. When it was first published in 1949 this world-famous satire coined new and potent words of warning for us all: Newspeak, Big Brother, the Thought Police, etc...The story of Winston Smith 's rebellion against the Party is still a gripping and supremely relevant vision of brutalized and manipulated humanity……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

5. It is one of the most famous and popular British post-war novels. The hero, Leo, remembers the secret of the diary he had written as a child. It is a secret that frightens him. The diary contains an account of the events in 1900, events which had spoiled his life. He picks up the diary and opens it. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

6. Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to make their lives extraordinary………………………………………………………………………………………………….

7. A singularly skilled first novel, original in its conception and unnervingly acute in its observation of an obsession. It is the story of a kidnapping, a nutty clerk captures and holds the art student he has become fixated upon, and there follows a fiendish interplay of sanity and insanity, the contest of minds without a meeting point………………………………………………………………………………..

8. Marcus is twelve. Will is thirty-six. Why can’t they both act their age? In his second novel the author explores the connections people make when the so-called ideal family model does not apply. A stunner of a novel. Utterly read-in-one-day, forget-where-you-are-on-the-tube gripping… A brilliant book which tells you more about late-1990s cultural life than any number of flash mags and social treatises ever will – and it’s wildly entertaining into the bargain.

9. The time? 802,701 A.D. The place? An earth stranger than you can imagine. The people? A pretty, childlike race, the Eloi – and their distant cousins, the Morlocks: disgusting, hairy creatures who live in caves and feed on the flesh of – what? Enter the hero, who has hurtled almost a million years into the future. After the Morlocks steal his machine, he may be trapped there … and at their mercy.

10. Welcome to Cold Mountain Penitentiary, home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. Convicted killers all, each awaits his turn to walk the Green Mile, keeping a date with “Old Sparky”, the electric chair. Prison guard Paul Edgecombe has seen his share of oddities in his years working the Mile. But he’s never seen anyone like John Coffey, a main with the body of a giant and the mind of a child, condemned for a crime terrifying in its violence and shocking in its depravity. In this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecombe is about to discover the terrible wondrous truth about Coffey, a truth that will challenge his most cherished beliefs … and yours. A. The go-between (L.P. Hartley) B. The great Gatsby (F.S. Fitzgerald) C. The picture of Dorian Gray ( O. Wilde) D. The Dead Poets Society (novel by N.H. Kleinbaum, based on the film written by Tom Schulman) E. The Collector (J. Fowles) F. Nineteen Eighty-four (G. Orwell) G. Lord of the Flies (William Golding) H. About a Boy (Nick Hornby) I. The Time Machine (H.G. Wells) J. The Green Mile (Stephen King)