Showing results by author "Mentor New York" in All Categories

A young boy named Ben runs away to make a life of his own in the big city. He learns very quickly that this will be a lot harder than his imagination prepared him for. Summary by Tori Faulder

In this classic novel, a young girl named Alice chases after a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. She discovers a place that rejects traditional reason, and only follows its own mad logic. Join Alice as she meets iconic characters like The Mad Hatter while she tries to navigate this strange new world. (Summary by Vin Cramer)

In an era before the advent of electric lights, telephones or motor vehicles, there exists a small cluster of aristocratic "old revolutionary stock" families that rule New York's social life. Under the rules of this society, "being things" is better than "doing things" and reputation and outward appearances come at the exclusion of everything else. In this Gilded Age, when America’s expansion and increased industrialism produce a group of newly wealthy robber barons and financiers, the patient, time-honored values of the old ruling class, and century, are giving way to the expediencies of ...

Farewell Nikola is the fifth and last novel of the Dr Nikola series. We are reacquainted with Richard "Dick" Hatteras, former South Seas adventurer and Roustabout who clashed with Dr Nicola in “A Bid for Fortune". He is now Sir Richard Hatteras and firmly married. He is taking a long sojourn with his wife and companions in Venice, where quite by chance (or is it ?) he bumps into Dr Nikola, who despite their stormy past, is the height of affability. He is still suave, cosmopolitan, cultivated and just as unscrupulous as he ever was. We discover that Nikola lives alone in Venice in a ...

Against Celsus, preserved entirely in Greek, is a major apologetics work by the Church Father Origen of Alexandria, written in around 248 AD, countering the writings of Celsus, a pagan philosopher and controversialist who had written a scathing attack on Christianity in his treatise "The True Word". Among a variety of other charges, Celsus had denounced many Christian doctrines as irrational and criticized Christians themselves as uneducated, deluded, unpatriotic, close-minded towards reason, and too accepting of sinners. He had accused Jesus of performing his miracles using black magic rather...

The Battle of Marathon is a rhymed, dramatic, narrative-poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Written in 1820, it retells powerfully The Battle of Marathon: during which the Athenian state defeated the much larger invading force during the first Persian invasion of Greece. (Summary from Wikipedia)

The coverup of a murder leads to the search for the dead man's heiress decades later in this delightful 3 part novel by Mary Jane Holmes. Her characters are as always very interesting and realistic. Poor little Bessie is raised in poverty because her mother spends most of her time at the gaming tables of Monte Carlo or Baden Baden while her so called aristocratic father looks down on all menial work. Her wealthy relatives will do nothing to help. Add the love of three men for one girl to the mix and the result is an absorbing historical romance.

Inspector Hanaud is a member of the French Sûreté. He is said to have been the model for Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, as well as the opposite of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The Affair At The Semiramis Hotel (1917), a novella, is the second Hanaud mystery. Did the robbery/murder really happen or was it the mescal-induced hallucination of the witness? The first novel is At The Villa Rose (1910). The third is The House Of The Arrow (1924) (there are seven through 1949, available at project gutenberg Australia). In 1910, Mason undertook to create a fictional detective as different as...

This is a wonderfully written novel by Mrs. Hungerford about the perennial bachelor and the various interests in his life, where he is a doctor by trade. From taking care of his sister's children to a possible love on the horizon, the author keeps us on our toes in this quick read of a book with its many unexpected twists and turns!

The superb skill and dexterity of D.H. Lawrence, a writer who profoundly influenced the literature of the twentieth century, is very evident in this collection of poems conceived during the years of The Great War. Lawrence, living a semi-nomadic lifestyle in England throughout these years, seized the opportunity to write of events and their effects from an objective but by no means dispassionate perspective. Indeed the passion of Lawrence while attempting to understand the collective motivation of mankind in the name of wartime vengeance is very evident throughout this work, manifesting itself...

A collection of my favorite short children's stories and rhymes. Each book can be found online at Gutenberg.org if you wish to look at the wonderful pictures while you listen! (Summary by Kara)

Sherlock Holmes is involved in a simple case of finding the owner of a battered hat and a dead goose. Or so he thinks. All too soon this hat and duck turn into a first class case of felony and theft of a very precious Blue Carbuncle. A fun and well written tale. (Summary by phil chenevert )

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Alice Adams chronicles the attempts of a lower middle class American midwestern family at the turn of the 20th century to climb the social ladder. The eponymous heroine is at the heart of the story, a young woman who wants a better place in society and a better life. As Gerard Previn Meyer has stated, "Apart from being the contribution to social history its author conceived it to be, [Alice Adams] is something more, that something being what has attracted to it so large a public: its portrait of a (despite her faults) 'lovable girl'." (Summary by Jeannie)

Betty Gordon found herself an orphan at age twelve. She became the ward of her uncle, Richard Gordon. She immediately came to love her uncle dearly. Unfortunately, his job took him on travels regularly. Therefore, he decided to send Betty to spend the summer with an old friend, Agatha Peabody, at Bramble Farm. Little did Uncle Dick or Betty know, that Bramble Farm was not a welcoming or joyful place to live, as Agatha's husband was a miserly and sour man. The only bright spot in Betty's summer was her friendship with Bob, a poor orphan, bound to work tirelessly upon the farm. - Summary by ...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. Its narrative course, structure, characters, and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular ...

Beowulf was composed by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet. Francis Barton Gummere translates this beautiful poem. Beowulf is an epic poem. The main character, Beowulf, proves himself a hero as he battles against supernatural demons and beasts. (Summary by Tad E.)

In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to 2 years of hard labor for acts of ‘gross indecency’. During his time at Reading Gaol, he witnessed a rare hanging, and in the three years between his release and his untimely death in 1900, was inspired to write the following poem, a meditation on the death penalty and the importance of forgiveness, even for (and especially for) something as heinous as murdering one’s spouse; for even the murderer, Wilde argues, is human and suffers more so for being the cause of his own pain, for ‘having killed the thing he loved’; for everyone is the cause of ...

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is a novella by the American novelist Herman Melville (1819–1891). It first appeared anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 editions of Putnam's Magazine, and was reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. ( Summary by Wikipedia )

This epic poem is about Alfred the Great's defense of Christian England against the pagan Viking invaders. The decisive battle is fought in sight of a white horse mark made on a hill, after which the poem is named. As the white horse mark must be continually maintained by weeding to be clearly seen, Chesterton sees it as a symbol of the continual struggle to maintain the Christian culture and values for which Alfred the Great fought. - Summary by Robin Lamb

A novel with some utopian elements, but primarily dystopian. A French doctor and a German professor both inherit a vast fortune as descendants of a French soldier who married the rich widow of an Indian prince. They both decide to go to America and establish their own "ideal" society. Dr. Sarrasin, the French doctor, is focused on maintaining public health. He builds Ville-France. Professor Schultze, the German scientist, is a bit of a militarist and racist. He builds Stahlstadt and devotes his city to the production of ever more powerful weapons so that he can destroy Sarrasin's city. They ...