Berthoud Community Library District

Thackeray's best-loved work, "Vanity Fair, is a satire of epic proportions, and proves that deep-seated cynicism and heartfelt morality don't have to get in the way of a good story. Filled with exceptionally drawn characters, biting social humor, and Thackeray's own illustrations, "Vanity Fair is not only one of the great English novels of the nineteenth century, its title has become synonymous with the follies of high society. Nicholas Dames is Assistant...

A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. In the story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched...

Misfortune after misfortune befalls a young woman who inherits a priceless jewel that was stolen from a Hindu shrine by a plundering ancestor. London detective Sergeant Cuff is hired to solve the mystery.

Mansfield Park is a study of three families - the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices - with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny price, at its centre. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty, and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are among the qualities whose true worth is not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford,...

Originally published in 1902, this is a story of deceit and betrayal, as well as of forgiveness. Milly Theale is an heiress with a short time to live and a passion for experiencing life to its fullest. Merton Densher is the man she loves, and the magnificent, predatory Kate Croy is the woman he loves, and will conspire with against Millie.

Traces the relationship between parents and children through several generations of a middle-class English family.

"A swashbuckling epic of chivalry, honor, and derring-do, it is set in France during the 1620s and richly populated with romantic heroes, unattainable heroines, kings, queens, cavaliers, and criminals in a whirl of adventure, espionage, conspiracy, murder, vengeance, love, scandal, and suspense. Dumas transforms major and minor historical figures into larger-than-life characters: the brave d'Artagnan, an impetuous young man in pursuit of glory; the...

Due to a lack of biographical evidence regarding the identity of Homer it has been suggested that the two great works attributed to him, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" may in fact be the work of multiple authors passed down through a long oral tradition. While scholarship on the subject will likely never definitely prove one way or the other, it is now generally accepted that these two great epic poems are the work of a single Greek author, Homer,...

A powerful and courageous work of fiction, Hard Times looks at working conditions in a Victorian factory town in the industrial north of England. It's an extraordinary novel that considers how enslavement to systems at the expense of imagination and feeling can wreck human lives. This edition celebrates Charles Dickens' most openly campaigning novel, through which the author said he aimed to 'strike the heaviest blow in my power'. Hard Times explores...

Henpecked by his domineering wife and manipulated by his hypocritical chaplain, the new bishop, Dr. Proudie, hopes for a quiet life. Instead, he sets off a chain of intrigues and upsets in Victorian Barchester.