Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

'It was the best of times, it was the the worst of times,' we are told at the outset, but it is mostly brutality on display in this richly-woven and moving tale, set against the bloody and fearsome events of the French Revolution. Two men, one a French aristocrat, one a dissipated English barrister, both love the same woman. Their rivalry takes them through cobblestone alleys thick with filth and violence, into the company of the revolution's most...

For generations, children around the world have come of age with Louisa May Alcott's March girls: hardworking eldest sister Meg, headstrong, impulsive Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. With their father away at war, and their loving mother Marmee working to support the family, the four sisters have to rely on one another for support as they endure the hardships of wartime and poverty. We witness the sisters growing up and figuring out what role...

So, I've written a book. Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (It's a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!) I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I've recorded and can't wait to...

In this thoughtful treatise spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell (The Tipping Point) aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers-to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines...

David Copperfield is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and as a book in 1850. David Copperfield is also an autobiographical novel: "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention", with events following Dickens's own life. Of the books he wrote, it was his favourite....

A mysterious visitor to his parent’s inn precipitates a chain of events that plunges Jim Hawkins into an unforgettable adventure among ruthless pirates seeking a fabulous treasure hidden on a desert island. Initially serialized in a magazine, Treasure Island first appeared as a book in 1883. Narrated primarily by young Jim Hawkins, the book can be seen as a coming of age story or a thriller for younger readers, but it is a swashbuckling delight...

Buck, a dog that has been forced into the harsh life of a sled dog, befriends a man seeking his fortune in the Klondike gold fields, and must ultimately decide whether to stay with his master or obey his instinct to join the wolves.

From Borrower to wizard, Tom Felton's childhood was anything but ordinary. Even as his parents' skepticism colored his early forays into acting, his childhood passion for performance buoyed him through a few inauspicious false starts, and he began booking major roles, rubbing shoulders with the likes of 007 and Hannibal Lecter. It wasn't until he landed the role of Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter's Slytherin supervillain, that he was catapulted into the...