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Kate loves singing and playing her guitar – and she’s good, too. One Saturday, she goes to the town square with her friend Lucy, and plays there. It’s a big thing, playing in front of people, and Kate isn’t the only street performer in the square that day. The silver statue is there, and that’s OK because she never moves or speaks. But Joe the drummer is there too, and Kate’s music and Joe’s drums aren’t good together. Or are they?

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The woman in white first appears at night on a lonely heath near London. Who is she? Where has she come from, and what is her history?

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On a beautiful summer evening in the quiet town of Marlow, a young woman is walking home from church. She passes a man who is looking at the engine of his car. He turns round, smiles at her . . . and throws acid into her face. Then her father, the scientist George Ashton, disappears. And her sister, Penny, discovers that her husband-to-be, Malcolm, is a government agent. Why has Ashton disappeared, and why is Malcolm told to hunt for him? Who is George Ashton, anyway? And who is the enemy?

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When they leave school, Amelia returns to her wealthy family to await a suitable marriage. Meanwhile, Becky must earn her own living in a hard world.

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Tess leaves home to make money. She is clever but does not know the cruel ways of the world. When a man says he loves her, she is not careful enough.

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London in the 1830s was no place to be if you were a hungry ten-year-old boy, an orphan without friends or family, with no home to go to, and only a penny in your pocket to buy a piece of bread. But Oliver Twist finds some friends – Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates. They give him food and shelter, and play games with him, but it is not until some days later that Oliver finds out what kind of friends they are and what kind of ‘games’ they play…

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Jane Eyre is alone in the world. Disliked by her aunt’s family, she is sent away to school. Here she learns that a young girl, with neither money nor family to support her, can expect little from the world. She survives, but she wants more from life than simply to survive: she wants respect, and love. When she goes to work for Mr Rochester, she hopes she has found both at once. But the sound of strange laughter, late at night, behind a locked door, warns her that her troubles are only beginning.

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Dublin, Ireland, in the early years of the twentieth century. It is a poor city, and there is hard drinking, dishonesty, and violence just beneath the surface everywhere you look. Glance inside a few people’s lives, and you soon find loneliness and disappointment, self-hate, and despair. The people in these stories are paralysed: locked into the circles of their everyday lives, where they are caught waiting between life and death. For some, there is a way out – but will circumstances, or their own fear, stop them from taking it?

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‘The moment I first met you, I noticed your pride, your sense of superiority, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others. You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be persuaded to marry,’ said Elizabeth Bennet. And so Elizabeth rejects the proud Mr Darcy. Can nothing overcome her prejudice against him? And what of the other Bennet girls – their fortunes, and misfortunes, in the business of getting husbands? This famous novel by Jane Austen is full of wise and humorous observation of the people and manners of her times.

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Mrs. Proudie, the warlike wife of the new Bishop of Barchester, brings the Reverend Slope into the Bishop’s Palace to help dominate her husband and the local clergy. But Slope is a snake in the grass, determined to win advancement for himself – even to fight Mrs. Proudie!

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The Greek island of Corfu lies like a jewel, green and gold, in the Ionian sea, where dolphins swim in the sparkling blue water. What better place for an out-of-work actress to relax for a few weeks? But the island is full of danger and mysteries, and Lucy Waring’s holiday is far from peaceful. She meets a rude young man, who seems to have something to hide. Then there is a death by drowning, and then another . . .

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Carruthers and Davies find themselves sailing in the stormy waters of the North Sea, looking for a secret that could mean great danger for England.

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Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe… or if you are a child from the wrong social class… or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.

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The human brain is an amazing organ, but it is also very complex. So how does it control everything that we do and feel? How does it change as we get older? And what happens when it goes wrong? We now know the answers to some of these questions, but others are still a mystery. In this book, you’ll read about people who changed the history of neuroscience. You’ll discover some amazing facts about science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM). You’ll also be able to test your own brain and learn surprising things about yourself! Complete interactive activities, listen to audio at different speeds, and improve your English.

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When Mr. Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering Heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble.

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Sometimes the Dashwood girls do not seem like sisters. Elinor is all calmness and reason, and can be relied upon for practical, common sense opinions. Marianne, on the other hand, is all sensibility, full of passionate and romantic feeling. She has no time for dull common sense – or for middle-aged men of thirty-five, long past the age of marriage. True love can only be felt by the young, of course. And if your heart is broken at the age of seventeen, how can you ever expect to recover from the passionate misery that fills your life, waking and sleeping?

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In sixteenth-century Venice – a city of wealthy merchants and bankers – money is all-important. Bassanio is penniless, but his great friend Antonio offers to help him by borrowing the money that he needs. To do this, though, Antonio must make an arrangement with an old enemy that puts his life in danger… The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, and it has been performed all over the world. It is retold in this Bookworms not as a play, but as a story.

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Arthur Clennam is back in England after many years abroad. He finds his mother as cold and hard as ever, but his father’s recent death has thrown up a mystery, and he is determined to get to the bottom of it. Could it have anything to do with Little Dorrit, the quiet, kind girl who sews for his mother and goes back at night to her home in the Marshalsea Prison? As Arthur gets to know the Dorrit family, he is too busy looking for the truth about his mother’s secret to notice that he has perhaps found the answer to his own happiness…

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Gatsby’s mansion on Long Island blazes with light, and the beautiful, the wealthy, and the famous drive out from New York to drink Gatsby’s champagne and to party all night long. But Jay Gatsby, the owner of all this wealth, wants only one thing – to find again the woman of his dreams, the woman he has held in his heart and his memory for five long years. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, is one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. It captures perfectly the Jazz Age of the 1920s, and goes deep into the hollow heart of the American Dream.

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In a gloomy, neglected house Miss Havisham sits, as she has sat year after year, in a wedding dress and veil that were once white, and are now faded and yellow with age. Her face is like a death’s head; her dark eyes burn with bitterness and hate. By her side sits a proud and beautiful girl, and in front of her, trembling with fear in his thick country boots, stands young Pip. Miss Havisham stares at Pip coldly, and murmurs to the girl at her side: ‘Break his heart, Estella. Break his heart!’

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Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses – if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man’s world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives…

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‘Please, Mr Murdstone! Don’t beat me! I’ve tried to learn my lessons, really I have, sir!’ sobs David. Although he is only eight years old, Mr Murdstone does beat him, and David is so frightened that he bites his cruel stepfather’s hand. For that, he is kept locked in his room for five days and nights, and nobody is allowed to speak to him. As David grows up, he learns that life is full of trouble and misery and cruelty. But he also finds laughter and kindness, trust and friendship… and love.

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Into the narrow social world of New York in the 1870s comes Countess Ellen Olenska, surrounded by shocked whispers about her failed marriage to a rich Polish Count. A woman who leaves her husband can never be accepted in polite society. Newland Archer is engaged to young May Welland, but the beautiful and mysterious Countess needs his help. He becomes her friend and defender, but friendship with an unhappy, lonely woman is a dangerous path for a young man to follow – especially a young man who is soon to be married.

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‘Suddenly, there was a high voice screaming in the darkness: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” It was Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint! I turned to run… ’ But young Jim Hawkins does not escape from the pirates this time. Will he and his friends find the treasure before the pirates do? Will they escape from the island, and sail back to England with a ship full of gold?

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‘I turned on the light, but there was nobody there. Then I saw something in the corner that made my blood turn cold. Scudder was lying on his back. There was a long knife through his heart, pinning him to the floor.’ Soon Richard Hannay is running for his life across the hills of Scotland. The police are chasing him for a murder he did not do, and another, more dangerous enemy is chasing him as well – the mysterious ‘Black Stone’. Who are these people? And why do they want Hannay dead?

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Finn and Ellie both know that something isn’t right in their world. But when they start asking questions, their lives are turned upside-down. Finn is in great danger, but when his brother Adam offers to help, he needs to find out fast if he can really trust him.

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It is 1866, and there is trouble in the world’s oceans. What is the extraordinary thing that people have seen there, travelling faster than a whale and cutting holes in the bottom of the strongest ships? Dr Aronnax joins the search for the ‘monster’, hoping for an exciting adventure. But when he meets the mysterious Captain Nemo, his adventure becomes more extraordinary than he had ever imagined, and he discovers a new underwater world, full of wonders, but of strange dangers too…

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‘I like work. I find it interesting… I can sit and look at it for hours.’ With ideas like this, perhaps it is not a good idea to spend a holiday taking a boat trip up the River Thames. But this is what the three friends – and Montmorency the dog – decide to do. It is the sort of holiday that is fun to remember afterwards, but not so much fun to wake up too early on a cold, wet morning. This famous book has made people laugh all over the world for a hundred years… and they are still laughing.

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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 Christmas comes for the four March girls, there is no money for expensive presents and they give away their Christmas breakfast to a poor family. But there are no happier girls in America than Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. They miss their father, of course, who is away at the Civil War, but they try hard to be good so that he will be proud of his ‘little women’ when he comes home. This heart-warming story of family life has been popular for more than a hundred years.

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The horse Black Beauty is lucky – his first owners are kind. Later, many people are cruel. Black Beauty has many terrible stories to tell.

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You are walking through the streets of London. It is getting dark and you want to get home quickly. You enter a narrow side-street. Everything is quiet, but as you pass the door of a large, windowless building, you hear a key turning in the lock. A man comes out and looks at you. You have never seen him before, but you realize immediately that he hates you. You are shocked to discover, also, that you hate him. Who is this man that everybody hates? And why is he coming out of the laboratory of the very respectable Dr Jekyll?

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History and the modern world are full of women who have done extraordinary things in all areas of life – art, campaigning, science, medicine, sport, space travel and fashion. But their stories have not always been told, and these brave, determined women have not always been recognized or spoken about. From the 1800s to the present day, from South Korea to Spain, this book tells the stories of nine fearless women, and shows the great differences they have made to the world around us.

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You may hear adults say that being young was the best time of their lives – but being a teen can be difficult. Sometimes it feels like everything around you is changing, and there are big things happening in your brain and body, too. This book has lots of help and useful ideas about all the important things, like looking after yourself, good mental health, family, friends, dating, getting a job, and much more. It’ll help you to survive your teen years, and you’ll learn what easy things you can do to make sure that you enjoy them fully. Complete interactive activities, listen to audio at different speeds, and improve your English.

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It is more than forty years since the Great t rain Robbery. Some of the robbers are dead, and only one – Ronnie Biggs – is still in prison. But there is still one thing that the police would like to know: what happened to the rest of the money that was taken? Two million pounds has never been found. Perhaps some of the robbers would like to know the answer to this question too . . . Many great crimes end in a question. Who really killed President Kennedy? What happened to shergar? Who knows the truth about Azaria Chamberlain? Not all the answers are known. Join the world’s detectives and discover the love, death, hate, money and mystery held in the stories of the great crimes.

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Who will speak for the poor? Who will listen to slaves, and those who have no rights? Who will work for a future where everyone is equal? Who will give up his house, job, and money to fight for people who are shut out by everyone else? ‘I will,’ said Mohandas Gandhi. And he began to fight in a way the world had not seen before – not with weapons, and wild crowds, and words of hate, but with the power of non-violence. This is the story of a man who became the Father of the Nation in his own country of India, and a great leader for the whole world.

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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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When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father’s permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man. One day Catherine will have a fortune of 30,000 dollars a year…

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‘The Marquis lay there, like stone, with a knife pushed into his heart. On his chest lay a piece of paper, with the words: Drive him fast to the grave. This is from JACQUES.’ The French Revolution brings terror and death to many people. But even in these troubled times people can still love and be kind. They can be generous and true-hearted… and brave.

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In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner the linen-weaver keeps his gold. Every day he works hard at his weaving, and every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. The villagers are afraid of him and he has no family, no friends. Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living. But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away? What will Silas do then? What could possibly comfort him for the loss of his only friend?

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Scarlet is the colour of sin, and the letter ‘A’ stands for ‘Adultery’. In the 1600s, in Boston, Massachusetts, love was allowed only between a husband and a wife. A child born outside marriage was a child of sin. Hester Prynne must wear the scarlet letter on her dress for the rest of her life. How can she ever escape from this public shame? What will happen to her child, growing up in the shadow of the scarlet letter? The future holds no joy for Hester Prynne. And what will happen to her sinful lover – the father of her child?

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‘Soon I felt something alive moving along my leg and up my body to my face, and when I looked down, I saw a very small human being, only fifteen centimetres tall… I was so surprised that I gave a great shout.’ But that is only the first of many surprises which Gulliver has on his travels. He visits a land of giants and a flying island, meets ghosts from the past and horses which talk…

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Emma Woodhouse has no wish to marry, but she enjoys making matches for those around her. But does Emma really understand other people?

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Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective the world has ever seen, and he knows it. As the famous bank-robber, John Clay, says to him, ‘You think of everything, Mr Holmes. You’re very clever.’ People come to him with problems that no one, not even the police, can solve. Holmes sits, and thinks, and smokes his pipe, and in the end he finds the answer. In these plays, based on two of his stories, Holmes, helped by his old friend, Dr Watson, uses his great intelligence to solve two unusual and interesting cases.

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When Anna Delvey arrived in New York in 2013, everyone thought that she was rich. She ate at the best restaurants, went to the most exclusive parties, stayed in the most expensive hotels, and only wore designer clothes. She seemed to have it all, but by 2019 she was on trial and had nothing. Suddenly, the world wanted to know: who is this mysterious woman? Is Anna who she said she was – or was she lying about everything? Join crime reporter Steven Chandler as he tries to find out about the real Anna Delvey. Complete interactive activities, listen to audio at different speeds, and improve your English.

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Charles Bravo died from the poison antimony. He took three days to die, and the doctors could do nothing to help him. There were three people who had reasons for wanting Charles Bravo dead – Florence Bravo herself, Charles Bravo’s new young wife; Dr James Gully, Florence’s former lover; and Mrs Jane Cox, Florence’s friend, and companion. But the enquiry into the death in 1876 could not decide who the murderer was, and for more than 130 years people have wondered who did kill Charles Bravo…

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When Lord Asano drew his sword on Lord Kira one spring day in 1701, it began a story that is now a national legend in Japan. Lord Kira lived, but Lord Asano died, and after his death, his samurai became ronin, samurai without a master. And so began their long plan for revenge on Kira. Their loyalty to their dead master made him famous, and people in Japan remember them to this day. The story of the 47 ronin has been told and retold for 300 years – in plays, novels, and films. A major Hollywood film was made about the forty-seven ronin in 2013.

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When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well – too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead – if the hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn’t much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill.

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‘We must leave for Zenda at once, to find the King!’ cried Sapt. ‘If we’re caught, we’ll all be killed!’ So Rudolf Rassendyll and Sapt gallop through the night to find the King of Ruritania. But the King is now a prisoner in the Castle of Zenda. Who will rescue him from his enemies, the dangerous Duke Michael and Rupert of Hentzau? And who will win the heart of the beautiful Princess Flavia?

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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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The job was too good. There had to be a problem – and there was. John Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave him the job because he couldn’t say no; he couldn’t afford to be honest. And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and blinded him, so that he couldn’t see the real poison – until it was too late.

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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… which has been locked for ten years. And no one has the key.

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‘We have to leave our house in London,’ Mother said to the children. ‘We’re going to live in the country, in a little house near a railway line.’ And so begins a new life for Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis. They become the railway children – they know all the trains, Perks the station porter is their best friend, and they have many adventures on the railway line. But why has their father had to go away? Where is he, and will he ever come back?

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The Kiss: Love Stories from North America

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The Kiss: Love Stories from North America

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Love stories with a difference… There’s a kiss by a fireside that was a mistake, there’s a man-hating aunt by the seaside, and a gunman in Texas wanting a fight. There’s a white heron flying over a forest, and a messenger running between two benches in a park. And of course, there’s a girl who meets a boy… These love stories are by US writers Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Sarah Orne Jewett, O. Henry, and Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of the famous Anne of Green Gables).

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The human mind is a dark, bottomless pit, and sometimes it works in strange and frightening ways. That sound in the night… is it a door banging in the wind, or a murdered man knocking inside his coffin? The face in the mirror… is it yours, or the face of someone standing behind you, who is never there when you turn round? These famous short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, that master of horror, explore the dark world of the imagination, where the dead live and speak, where fear lies in every shadow of the mind…

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‘When we are happy, we are always good,’ says Lord Henry, ‘but when we are good, we are not always happy.’ Lord Henry’s lazy, clever words lead the young Dorian Gray into a world where it is better to be beautiful than to be good; a world where anything can be forgiven – even murder – if it can make people laugh at a dinner party.

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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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When Anne lived secretly in a few small rooms, she wrote diaries about her secret life. After the war, the diaries became famous around the world.

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You’re fast asleep, and nothing is happening. Or is it? In fact, your body is hard at work. Your lungs are taking oxygen from the air, and your heart is pumping blood round your body. Millions of pieces of information are travelling backwards and forwards to your brain all the time. Muscles are repairing themselves, and in your lymph nodes special cells are cleaning germs and waste from the body. You may think that nothing is happening, but in the extraordinary machine that is the human body, it is very busy indeed…

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Our world is changing fast. We can travel and speak to people around the world, and use computers to do all kinds of things. But in some places, children go to bed hungry at night, and cannot drink clean water. Thousands of people cannot go to school, or live freely. And many species of animals and plants are now in danger as our climate changes and pollution worsens. These are just a few of today’s many important global issues. So how and why are they changing, and are there any answers to these problems?

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From the smallest fly to the biggest elephant, and from fish living at the bottom of the ocean to birds that fly several kilometres above land: this is the animal kingdom, the biggest group of living things in the world. Some are very different, others are the same in many ways – but these mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates have all managed to live for thousands and thousands of years. How do they find food, grow, keep safe, and have young – and what is the future for them in this fast-changing world?

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Jewels are often at the hearts of big crimes: they are wanted by everyone because they are beautiful and valuable. These two stories are both mysteries about precious jewels which have disappeared. Where are the emeralds and the blue diamond, and who has taken them? Only one person can find the answers to these questions: Sherlock Holmes. Complete interactive activities, listen to audio at different speeds, and improve your English.

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Pinewood Academy is an expensive school in the most fashionable part of town – and scholarship kids like Liza and her friends Marco and Suki aren’t always welcome there. There’s a lot of talk too when Liza begins dating good-looking Alex, the most popular boy in her year. But is anyone really angry enough to poison him and make Liza look like his murderer? Complete interactive activities, listen to audio at different speeds, and improve your English.

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Hardy shows us the lives of shepherds and hangmen, dukes, and teachers. Rich, poor, young, old, they all have feelings of fear and hope.

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Life is sweet for Othello. He is deeply in love with his new wife, Desdemona, and as the Duke’s general, he is the most important person in Venice’s army. But Othello does not know that his flag-bearer, Iago, hates him and wants revenge. As Iago begins to succeed with his clever plans, a frightening emotion takes hold of Othello: will jealousy destroy him? This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, retold here as a story, not a play.

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There are broken hearts and kisses and then weddings, so this is a story about love. There are actors who are funny because they cannot act, so it is also a story that makes people laugh. And there are fairies, spirits of the night, so it is a story about mischief and magic too. What happens when love and laughter come together with magic in an Athenian forest? A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written in about 1596 and is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. It has been retold for Bookworms, not as a play, but as a story.

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Life is always hard for the poor, in any place and at any time. Ethan Frome is a farmer in Massachusetts. He works long hours, but his farm makes little money. His wife, Zeena, is a thin, grey woman, always complaining, and only interested in her own ill health. Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Fromes’ house – and into Ethan’s lonely life. But poverty is a prison from which few people escape…

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Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says – just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money. But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future – and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget.

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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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When men find gold in the frozen north of Canada, they need dogs – big, strong dogs to pull the sledges on the long journeys to and from the gold mines. Buck is stolen from his home in the south and sold as a sledge-dog. He has to learn a new way of life – how to work in harness, how to stay alive in the ice and the snow… and how to fight. Because when a dog falls down in a fight, he never gets up again.

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William Shakespeare. Born April 1564, at Stratford- upon-Avon. Died April 1616. Married Anne Hathaway: two daughters, one son. Actor, poet, famous playwright. Wrote nearly 40 plays. But what was he like as a man? What did he think about when he rode into London for the first time… or when he was writing his plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet… or when his only son died? We know the facts of his life, but we can only guess at his hopes, his fears, his dreams.

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This is the true story of Solomon Northup, who left home in 1841 as a free black man. He was kidnapped and spent twelve years as a slave, but never stopped thinking of ways to escape.

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All he wanted to do was to marry the woman he loved. But his country said ‘No!’ He was Edward VIII, King of Great Britain, King of India, King of Australia, and King of thirty-nine other countries. And he loved the wrong woman. She was beautiful and she loved him – but she was already married to another man. It was a love story that shook the world. The King had to choose: to be King, or to have love… and leave his country, never to return.

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There were six of them – three Katherines, two Annes, and a Jane. One of them was the King’s wife for twenty-four years, another for only a year and a half. One died, two were divorced, and two were beheaded. It was a dangerous, uncertain life. After the King’s death in 1547, his sixth wife finds a box of old letters – one from each of the first five wives. They are sad, angry, frightened letters. They tell the story of what it was like to be the wife of Henry VIII of England.

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All they could hear was the wind, and the waves. All they could see was the night. They could not see the ship, broken in two, or the people holding on to the dark wet rock, slowly dying of cold. And they could not hear the cries for help – only the wind. How could a man and his daughter save the people on the rock? They only had a little wooden boat in that wild and dangerous sea. The Forfarshire was wrecked off the north-east coast of England in 1838. This is the true story of Grace Darling – a girl who became a famous heroine on that stormy night.

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New York, 1925. While her children play, Rosalia unpacks boxes in the family’s new apartment. In one of them, she finds her old sketchbook, and when she looks at the pictures, they take her back to her journey to America from Italy by sea in 1910, as a fourteen-year-old girl. It was a very important time for Rosalia. Like so many other people, she was leaving her home and country, and people who she loved, and crossing the Atlantic to start a new life. On that journey, she was at times afraid and lonely – but she also found adventure, new friends... and something more, too.

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In 1920, flying is dangerous, and people think it is only for men. But nothing stops Amelia, and soon she is flying further and higher than anyone before.

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What does the name ‘Agatha Christie’ mean? To many people, it means a book about a murder mystery – a ‘whodunnit’. ‘I’m reading an Agatha Christie,’ people say. ‘I’m not sure who the murderer is – I think it’s… ’ But they are usually wrong, because it is not easy to guess the murderer’s name before the end of the book. But who was Agatha Christie? What was she like? Was her life quiet and unexciting, or was it full of interest and adventure? Was there a mystery in her life, too?

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Richard Walton is in trouble again. He has lost his job, and he has borrowed money from his sister, Jennifer – again. And now he has disappeared. Jennifer is looking for him, and so are the police. They both have some questions that they want to ask him. How did he lose his job? Why did he fly to Frankfurt? Who gave his girlfriend those very expensive gold ear-rings? Only Richard can answer these questions. But nobody can find Richard.

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Mr Ross lives on an island where no visitors come. He stops people from taking photographs of him. He is young and rich, but he looks sad. And there is one room in his house which is always locked. Carol Sanders and her mother come to the island to work for Mr Ross. Carol soon decides that there is something very strange about Mr Ross. Where did he get his money from? How can a young man buy an island? So she watches, and she listens – and one night she learns what is behind the locked door.

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Does it really matter if you are called Montague or Capulet? When Romeo, son of Lord Montague, falls in love with the most beautiful girl he's ever seen, he finds that it does matter. It makes all the difference in the world because both families hate each other.

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Money or love? Which is more important in life? Can money buy anything? Can it help a young man to marry the girl he loves? Does money really make people happy, or does it just cause problems? These four plays about money, love, and life are adapted from short stories written a hundred years ago by the great American storyteller O. Henry. Henry had his own difficulties with money and loneliness, and wrote from personal experience.

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Claudio and Hero want to marry, but Don John has a wicked plan to stop them. Will he succeed? Beatrice and Benedick keep arguing, but how do they really feel?

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Why does Hamlet, the young Prince of Denmark, look so sad? Why does he often say something strange? He has discovered a terrible secret about a recent crime in his family. What will he decide to do?

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What are the most beautiful, the most interesting, the most wonderful things in the world? The Great Pyramid, the Great Wall of China, the Panama Canal – everyone has their favourites. And there are natural wonders too – Mount Everest, Niagara Falls, and the Northern Lights, for example. Here is one person’s choice of 11 wonders. Some of them are made by people, and others are natural. Come and discover new wonders…

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Stephen Hawking, famous in the field of cosmology, had a terrible disease called ALS. He could only move and speak with the help of machines. This has not stopped him from working to try and understand our world better.

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Thousands of years ago, people looked out across an ocean and asked themselves, ‘What is on the other side?’ And the bravest of them began to travel and find the answers – beautiful islands, frozen lands, different peoples… And there are still interesting questions about the oceans. Why does the water go up and down twice a day? Why do most animals and plants live near the land? And what can possibly live at the bottom of the ocean, thousands of metres down, where there is no light? Surely nothing can stay alive in a place like that…

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Muhammad Ali's fights were not just in the boxing ring. He fought for peace and for those in need. This is the story of how he became 'The Greatest'.

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Like many other schoolgirls, Malala enjoyed watching TV, playing with her brothers, and laughing with her friends. She loved going to school, too. But in her town in north-west Pakistan, the Taliban became very important, and they did not want girls to have an education. It was dangerous to speak against the Taliban, but Malala thought that everyone needed to go to school, and she was not afraid to talk about this on the TV and in the newspapers. Because of this, on 9th October 2012, a man got onto Malala’s school bus and shot her in the head. Malala did not die. She stayed in hospital for three months, in Pakistan and then in England. Now she was famous not just in Pakistan but around the world – and she wanted more than ever to fight for education for every child.

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‘What does the world look like from the moon?’ ‘How do our bodies work?’ ‘Is it possible for people to fly?’ ‘Can I make a horse of bronze that is 8 metres tall?’ ‘How can we have cleaner cities?’ All his life, Leonardo da Vinci asked questions. We know him as a great artist, but he was one of the great thinkers of all time, and even today, doctors and scientists are still learning from his ideas. Meet the man who made a robot lion, wrote backwards, and tried to win a war by moving a river…

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‘Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.’ More than fifty years ago, the new US President, John F. Kennedy, spoke these words. Millions of Americans listened, and they were filled with hope. With Kennedy as president, surely there was a great future ahead for their country. But Kennedy would not finish his four years as president. In November 1963, the world stopped as terrible news came from Dallas, Texas…

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In 2015, the 193 countries of the United Nations agreed on seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. These goals are very important because they tell us what we must do to end the world’s biggest problems, like poverty, hunger and climate change. This book explains each of the goals and gives examples of the wonderful work that is already happening around the world to end these huge problems. It also gives great ideas of changes that we can all make in our own lives. We must all work together, to build a better world for everyone!

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When she gets a summer job at a fashion and beauty website called Gloss, she’s very excited. But things are not easy. ‘Am I ever going to write something for Gloss?’ Anna thinks.

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Arnold Bennett is famous for his stories about the Five Towns and the people who live there. They look and sound just like other people, and, like all of us, sometimes they do some very strange things. There’s Sir Jee, who is a rich businessman. So why is he making a plan with a burglar? Then there is Toby Hall. Why does he decide to visit Number 11 Child Row, and who does he find there? And then there are the Hessian brothers and Annie Emery – and the little problem of twelve thousand pounds.

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One day, a farmer tells a farm boy to take everything out of an old building and throw it away. ‘It’s all rubbish,’ he says. In the middle of all the rubbish, the boy finds a beautiful old piano. He has never played before, but now, when his fingers touch the piano, he begins to play. He closes his eyes and the music comes to him – and the music moves his fingers. When he opens his eyes again, he knows that his life is changed for ever…

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When Catherine Morland is invited to Northanger Abbey, it seems full of mystery to her, like the novels she has read. But soon Catherine begins to learn a few lessons about real life.

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A housewife, a tramp, a lawyer, a waitress, an actress – ordinary people living ordinary lives in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. The city has changed greatly since that time, but its people are much the same. Some are rich, some are poor, some are happy, some are sad, some have found love, some are looking for love. O. Henry’s famous short stories – sensitive, funny, sympathetic – give us vivid pictures of the everyday lives of these New Yorkers.

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Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew want to adopt an orphan, to help on the farm at Green Gables. They ask for a boy, but they get Anne, who has red hair and freckles, and who talks and talks and talks. They didn’t want a girl, but how can they send a child back, like an unwanted parcel? So Anne stays, and begins a new life in the sleepy, quiet village of Avonlea in Canada. But it is not so quiet after Anne comes to live there…

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Richard is bored with the quiet life of his village. He would like to have a motor-car and drive it… very fast. But Richard lives in a future world where there are no cars, only bicycles and small villages and green forests. And now he is twelve years old, and like the other children, he must do his Year of Sharing. He must live alone in the forest with the wild animals. He must learn to share his world; he must learn how animals live and eat and fight… and die.

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The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories

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The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories

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Everybody has bad dreams. Horrible things move towards you in the dark, things you can hear but not see. Then you wake up, in your own warm bed, and turn over to go back to sleep. But imagine that you wake up on a hard floor, in a darkness blacker than the blackest night. You listen to the silence, and smell a wet dead smell. Death is all around you, waiting… In these stories by Edgar Allan Poe, death whispers at you from every dark corner, and fear can send you mad…