Simon Prebble
1) Scorpia
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Series
Language
English
Description
After being told that his father was an assassin for a criminal organization, fourteen-year-old Alex goes to Italy to find out more and becomes involved in a plan to kill thousands of English school children.
2) Eagle Strike
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 4
Language
English
Description
After a chance encounter with assassin Yassen Gregorovich in the South of France, teenage spy Alex Rider investigates international pop star and philanthropist Damian Cray whose new video game venture hides sinister motives involving Air Force One, nuclear missiles, and the international drug trade.
3) Skeleton Key
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 3
Language
English
Description
Reluctant teenage-spy Alex Rider, on a routine mission at the Wimbledon tennis championships, gets caught up in Chinese gangs, illegal nuclear weapons, and the suspect plans of his Russian host, General Sarov.
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England in August 1914. In January 1915, after battling its way for six weeks through a thousand miles of pack ice and now only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted northwest before it was finally crushed. But...
5) Point blank
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 2
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Alex, a fourteen-year-old spy, has been assigned by the British MI6 to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. He ends up in a boarding school in the Swiss Alps, and finds many strange things are happening to the students.
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 9
Language
English
Description
When the world's deadliest terrorist organization, Scorpia, stirs up trouble in the Middle East, it is up to fourteen-year-old MI6 agent Alex Rider to thwart their plans.
7) Ark angel
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 6
Language
English
Description
After recovering from a near fatal gunshot wound, teenage spy Alex Rider embarks on a new mission to stop a group of eco-terrorists from sabotaging the launch of the first outer space hotel.
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
Here is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about...
Author
Language
English
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Description
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England's history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician, the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome,...
10) Never say die
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 11
Language
English
Description
Fifteen-year-old MI6 agent Alex Rider travels around the world on a dangerous mission to destroy the deadly terrorist organization, Scorpia, once and for all.
11) Crocodile Tears
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 8
Language
English
Description
"Targeted by a hitman and under threat of his past being exposed by the media, Alex reluctantly turns to MI6. But their help doesn't come cheap: they need Alex to spy on the activities at a GM crop plant. There he spots Desmond McCain, a high profile charity organiser, who realises that Alex is on to him and the real plans for the money he's raising. Kidnapped and whisked off to Africa, Alex learns the full horror of McCain's plot: to create an epic...
12) Raven's gate
Author
Series
Gatekeepers (Anthony Horowitz) volume 1
Language
English
Description
Sent to live in a foster home in a remote Yorkshire village, Matt, a troubled fourteen-year-old English boy, uncovers an evil plot involving witchcraft and the site of an ancient stone circle.
13) Snakehead
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 7
Language
English
Description
While working with the Australian Secret Service on a dangerous mission, teenaged spy Alex Rider uncovers information about his parents.
Author
Series
Alex Rider adventures volume 10
Language
English
Description
Presented with an unexpected assignment, Alex Rider's greatest nemesis, Yassen Gregoravich, recalls his life and the path that led him to become an assassin while his one-time friend, Alex's uncle, became a spy.
15) 1984
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Series
Language
English
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Description
"Written in 1948, [this book] was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while [the year] 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever... Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes...
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English
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Description
Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?...
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Series
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English
Description
One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal bestseller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Dickens, Collins's friend and mentor. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall readers today. The story begins with an eerie midnight encounter between artist Walter Hartright and a ghostly woman dressed all in white who seems...
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English
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Description
"Journey to the Center of the Earth is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern...
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Series
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English
Appears on these lists
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Description
Written in 1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau is one of the earliest scientific romances. An instant sensation, it was meant as a commentary on Darwin's theory of evolution, which H. G. Wells stoutly believed. The story centers on the depraved Dr. Moreau, who conducts unspeakable animal experiments on a remote tropical island, with hideous, humanlike results. Edward Prendick, an English-man whose misfortunes bring him to the island, is witness to the...
20) On the beach
Author
Language
English
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Description
Set in Melbourne following a catastrophic war in the northern hemisphere, Nevil Shute's classic is the story of a handful of survivors in the terrifying aftermath of nuclear apocalypse. First published in 1957-and famously adapted for the screen soon after by Stanley Kramer, in a film starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner-On the Beach is the perhaps the greatest work of popular fiction about the end of the world.