Ernest Hemingway "The Nick Adams Stories"

I recently read Ernest Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories".  It is a series of short stories about Nick Adams, from boy to man, living in different parts of the worlds.  Some stories are but a few pages long while others like "The Last Good Country" are over 40 pages long. As with most collections of short stories, some are intriguing while others are uninspiring. Some benefits to reading this book, and others of its era, is I constantly learned how the English language was commonly used. In reading older books, you are introduced to words that have little use in today's modern vernacular which can help improve your English.  Even for me, a native English speaker, there where five words on one page I did not know! I could understand them in the context of the sentence, but could not define them. In some stories he goes through painstaking detail about the art of fishing, and other topics, which might bore some readers.  For me these parts, although I understand that Hemingway was trying to build the character, were difficult to read. "The Killers" was the most entertaining read for me.  While you may not like every short story in the book, I think for advanced readers this is an a worthwhile book to build English vocabulary while improving your knowledge of who Hemingway really is.

David.

Wilkie Collins "The Woman in White"

Walter Hartright’s contemplations on the lonely, moonlit road are rudely broken by the nameless and distressed woman in white. the encounter is to change his life, for she is at the centre of villainous machinations which are profoundly to affect him – and those he loves.


Through carefully constructed characterization, intricate plotting and mastery skill in concealing and revealing secrets, Wilkie Collins has created one of the greatest mystery thrillers in the English language.

Jane

Robert Morgan “This Rock”

Robert Morgan takes two characters - brothers Powell, Muir and Moody, and wraps a novel around them.  The brothers are very different. Muir is ambitious, quiet and shy. He tries many different things from preaching to hunting and building. Moody likes rum running, gambling, drinking and fighting. Moody is the source of all troubles. Ginny, their mother, attempts to let them lead their own lives, she sees the truth about her boys and loves them despite their many failings and frustrations. This is a great story of family and faith.

The book is an interesting read. It appeals to your mind and heart.

Ann

Isabel Allende “The House of the Spirits”

The House of the Spirits" is a very good novel about the life of a family through three generations, a powerful history of characters. You can hate some characters and you admire some, but they are all interesting. Isabel Allende shows good times and bad times of the family, times of poverty and other times of wealth, love and hate, betrayal, accidents, life and death. It’s not a political novel but also connects with situation in Chile during the 20th Century, with revolution and dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

I enjoyed this book very much. It’s beautifully written and captivating to read. The language of the novel is simple.

Olga.

Bram Stoker "Dracula"

Dracula recounts the struggle of a group of men and a woman – Dr Seward, Dr Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker and his wife Mina – to destroy the vampire, whose sinister earth-filled coffins are discovered by Harker in a ruined chapel adjoining Dr Seward’s asylum. Cruel and noble, evilly and fatally desirable to women, Dracula possesses a terrifying lust for power and, like Dr Jekyll or Conan Doyle’s Moriarty, is one of the immortal fictional monsters.


Few readers will ever forget the nightmare atmosphere of Count Dracula’s sinister castle in Transylvania, the prowlings of the Un-dead, the blood-curdling tension as Bram Stoker’s tale races towards a thrilling climax.

Dracula is a unique horror masterpiece and the most famous of all vampire tales.

Bob