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Книги издательства «Oxford University Press»
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Every town should have a 'card' — someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next? |
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Victor Frankenstein thinks he has found the secret of life. He takes parts from dead people and builds a new 'man'. But this monster is so big and frightening that everyone runs away from him — even Frankenstein himself! The monster is like an enormous baby who needs love. But nobody gives him love, and soon he learns to hate. And, because he is so strong, the next thing he learns is how to kill... |
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Terrorists blow up the Queen's coach outside Parliament. The Queen escapes, but five people are killed, and forty others badly hurt — ordinary, innocent people, like Alan Cole, the Queen's coachman, who loses his leg in the bombing. And for Alan and his daughter Jane there is more terror to come, in the search for the truth behind the bombing. Will the terrorists be caught and brought to justice? But what kind of justice? What can give Alan Cole his leg back, or give life back to people who have been blown to pieces by a bomb? |
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«'I ran to the side of the ship. «Help, help! Murder!» I screamed, and my uncle slowly turned to look at me. I did not see any more. Already strong hands were pulling me away. Then something hit my head; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell to the ground...' And so begin David Balfour's adventures. He is kidnapped, taken to sea, and meets many dangers. He also meets a friend, Alan Breck. But Alan is in danger himself, on the run from the English army across the wild Highlands of Scotland...» |
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'Moondial!' As Minty spoke the word, a cold wind went past her, and her ears were filled with a thousand frightened voices. She shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears — and the voices and the wind went away. Minty opened her eyes ...and knew that she was in a different morning, not the one she had woken up to. And so Minty's strange adventure begins — a journey through time into the past, where she finds Tom, and Sarah... and the evil Miss Vole. |
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Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens — and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden... been locked for ten years. And no one has the key. |
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'I wish I could get through into looking-glass house', Alice said. 'Let's pretend that the glass has gone soft and... Why, I do believe it has! It's turning into a kind of cloud!' A moment later Alice is inside the looking-glass world. There she finds herself part of a great game of chess, travelling through forests and jumping across brooks. The chess pieces talk and argue with her, give orders and repeat poems... It is the strangest dream that anyone ever had... |
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Down by the river bank, where the wind whispers through the willow trees, is a very pleasant place to have a lunch party with a few friends. But life is not always so peaceful for the Mole and the Water Rat. There is the time, for example, when Toad gets interested in motor-cars — goes mad about them in fact... The story of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad has been loved by young and old for over a hundred years. |
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Hurricane Mabel is far out in the Atlantic Ocean and moving slowly northwards. Perhaps it will never come near land at all. But if it hits the island of San Fernandez, many thousands of people will die. There could be winds of more than 250 kilometres an hour. There could be a huge tidal wave from the sea, which will drown the capital city of St Pierre. Mabel will destroy houses, farms, roads, bridges... Only one man, David Wyatt, believes that Mabel will hit San Fernandez, but nobody will listen to him ... |
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Life in the small English town of Cranford seems very quiet and peaceful. The ladies of Cranford lead tidy, regular lives. They make their visits between the hours of twelve and three, give little evening parties, and worry about their maid-servants. But life is not always smooth — there are little arguments and jealousies, sudden deaths and unexpected marriages... Mrs Gaskell's timeless picture of small-town life in the first half of the nineteenth century has delighted readers for nearly 150 years. |
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It was a very inconvenient time for murder. Florence was full of Christmas shoppers and half the police force was already on holiday. At first it seemed quite an ordinary murder. Of course, there are always a few mysteries. In this case, the dead man had been in the habit of moving his furniture at three o'clock in the morning. Naturally, the police wanted to know why. The case became more complicated. But all the time, the answer was right under their noses. They just couldn't see it. It was, after all, a very ordinary murder. |
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Three different parts of the world, but all of them dangerous, lonely places. Three different women, but all of them determined to go — and to come back alive! Robyn Davidson walked nearly 3,000 kilometres across the Australian desert — with a dog and four camels. Arlene Blum led a team of ten women to the top of Annapurna — one of the highest mountains in the world. Only eight came down again. Naomi James sailed around the world alone, on a journey lasting more than 250 days. |
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In 1944 Henry Tillotson brings his new wife, Margaret, home to his farmhouse in the English countryside. Margaret is a strange, unpleasant woman, determined, it seems, to make Henry's life miserable. 'Poor Henry!' say his friends, as they visit at weekends and holidays. 'What an awful life he has!' But Henry is not at all the sad and disappointed man we might expect him to be. He manages to enjoy life, and indeed, has quite a lot of fun, one way and another... Mary Wesley's story takes a sharp but light-hearted look at love, sex, and marriage — and the things people will do to get what they want. |
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In the second century AD, when the Ninth Roman Legion marched into the mists of northern Britain, not one man came back. Four thousand men disappeared, and the Eagle, the symbol of the Legion's honour, was lost. Years later there is a story that the Eagle has been seen again. So Marcus Aquila, whose father disappeared with the Ninth, travels north, to find the Eagle and bring it back, and to learn how his father died. But the tribes of the north are wild and dangerous, and they hate the Romans... |
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Dartmoor. A wild, wet place in the south-west of England. A place where it is easy to get lost, and to fall into the soft green earth which can pull the strongest man down to his death. A man is running for his life. Behind him comes an enormous dog — a dog from his worst dreams, a dog from hell. Between him and a terrible death stands only one person — the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes. |
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A hundred years ago a seaman's life was full of danger, but Jim, the first mate on board the Patna, is not afraid of danger. He is young, strong, confident of his bravery. He dreams of great adventures — and the chance to show the world what a hero he is. But the sea is no place for dreamers. When the chance comes, on a calm moonlit night in the Indian Ocean, Jim fails the test, and his world falls to pieces around him. He disappears into the jungles of south-east Asia, searching for a way to prove himself, once and for all... |
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One winter's day in 1673 young John Ridd is riding home from school, across the wild lonely hills of Exmoor. He has to pass Doone valley — a dangerous place, as the Doones are famous robbers and murderers. All Exmoor lives in fear of the Doones. At home there is sad news waiting for young John, and he learns that he has good reason to hate the Doones. But in the years to come he meets Lorna Doone, with her lovely smile and big dark eyes. And soon he is deeply, hopelessly, in love... |
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When Nicola arrives in Crete a day early, she gets more than just an extra day of holiday. She comes to a village where no one can be trusted, and she becomes involved in a murder mystery that puts her own life in danger. This story is set in a small village in the mountains of Crete. This is an island where people have strong feelings, where arguments begin suddenly, and end quickly. And Nicola has arrived in the middle of an argument that could end very quickly — with a gun. |
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'Hornblower fired. There was a small cloud of smoke, but no bang. This is death, he thought. My pistol was the unloaded one'. But Horatio Hornblower does not die. He survives the duel with Simpson, learns to overcome his seasickness, and goes on to risk his life many times over. It is 1793, Britain is at war with France, and life on a sailing ship of war is hard and dangerous. But the hardest battles are fought by Hornblower within himself. |
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At nineteen Anne Elliot refuses an offer of marriage from Frederick Wentworth, persuaded to do so by Lady Russell, a friend of her dead mother. Wentworth is a sailor, with no money and an uncertain future, says Lady Russell — just a nobody, certainly not worthy of a baronet's daughter. Eight years later Wentworth returns, a rich and successful captain, looking for a wife. Anne is still unmarried, but Captain Wentworth clearly prefers the company of the two Musgrove girls... |
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