Moon handbooks: Brazil

Author: Michael Sommers

Journalist Michael Sommers guides travelers to the best that Brazil has to offer, from surfing, hang gliding, and enjoying the sizzling nightlife in Rio to venturing into the Amazon to witness the Meeting of the Waters, where the Rio Negro and Rio Solimões join to form the world's mightiest river: the Amazon. Sommers also includes unique trip strategies like A Tale of Two Amazon Cities—which provides details on exploring the rainforest between Manaus and Belém—and Gastronomic Brazil, a mouthwatering tour of Brazil's cuisine. With expert advice on viewing popular attractions like Iguaçu Falls and Corcovado, as well as escaping the crowds in less frequented places, like Bahia's rustic fishing villages, Moon Brazil gives travelers the tools they need to create a more personal and memorable experience.

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Lipstick Jungle

Genre: Drama, Comedy, chick-lit, romance, contemporary. 

Author: Candace Bushnell

In this book, Victory Ford is the darling of the fashion world. Single, attractive, and iconoclastic, she has worked for years to create her own signature line. As Victory struggles to keep her company afloat, she learns crucial lessons about what she really wants in a relationship. Nico O'Neilly is the glamorous, brilliant editor of Bonfire Magazine - the pop-culture bible for fashion, show business, and politics. Considered one of the most powerful women in publishing, she seems to have it all. But in a mid-life crisis, she suddenly realizes this isn't enough. Wendy Healy's chutzpah has propelled her to the very top of the cut-throat movie industry. When it becomes clear that a competitor is trying to oust her, something has to give - and Wendy must decide between her career and her marriage.

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The Star Zoo

Genre: Cientific fiction, Futuristic

In our world today a hummingbird is a small, brilliantly coloured bird that lives in the tall trees of tropical forests. In the far distant future, Hummingbird (Hummy for short) is a girl of sixteen who lives somewhere in the Galaxy, on a planet called Just Like Home. She has the name 'Hummingbird' in big letters on all her clothes, but she has never seen a real hummingbird. She has never seen any living animal or bird at all. The Book of Remembering says that there were once many animals on a planet called Earth, but that was before the Burning, a long, long time ago ...

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Little Lord Fauntleroy

Genre: children's novel,

Little Lord Fauntleroy is a novel by the English-American writer Frances Hodgson Burnett, her first children's novel. It was published as a serial in St. Nicholas Magazine from November 1885 to October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's (the publisher of St. Nicholas) in 1886.

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Lord Dorincourt had occasion to wear his grim smile many a time as the days passed by. Indeed, as his acquaintance with his grandson progressed, he wore the smile so often that there were moments when it almost lost its grimness. When young Cedric Errol's father dies, he becomes heir to the fortune of his English grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, and must move from working-class New York to England. Bad-tempered, cantankerous and bitter, the old man is slowly won over by the kind, generous and cheerful spirit of Cedric.

When a plot arises to deprive Cedric of his inheritance and another pretender steps forward as heir, Cedric's friends in America become involved in order to thwart the challenger. Through Cedric's unconditional love and trust he teaches his grandfather to show compassion to those who are less fortunate than himself.

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The League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-baked Heroes from Comic Book History!

Genre: Comics, superheroes, graphic novels, humor.

Author: "Calamity" Jon Morris

You know about Batman, Superman, and Spiderman, but have you heard of Doll Man, Doctor Hormone, or Spider Queen?

In The League of Regrettable Superheroes, you'll meet one hundred of the strangest superheroes ever to see print, complete with backstories, vintage art, and colorful commentary. So prepare yourself for such not-ready-for-prime-time heroes as Bee Man (Batman, but with bees), the Clown (circus-themed crimebuster), the Eye (a giant, floating eyeball; just accept it), and many other oddballs and oddities. Drawing on the entire history of the medium, The League of Regrettable Superheroes will appeal to die-hard comics fans, casual comics readers, and anyone who enjoys peering into the stranger corners of pop culture.

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Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life

Genre: sports

Since the 1950s, when Pelé first started playing, soccer has been how the world sees Brazil, but it is also how Brazilians see themselves. The essence of their game is one in which prodigious individual skills outshine team tactics, where dribbles and delicate flicks are preferred over physical challenges or long-distance passes, where technique has all the elements of dance and, indeed, is often described as such. At their best, Brazilian soccer players are both athletes and artists. As Alex Bellos brilliantly reveals in his classic book, their game can symbolize racial harmony, flamboyance, youth, innovation, and skill―in short, it's a microcosm of the country itself.

Author: Alex Bellos

Bellos, a veteran journalist and author whose star has continued to rise since Futebol was first published in 2002, revisits his search for what the great Brazilian striker Ronaldo has called the "true truth" of the Brazilian way of life. With an unerring eye for an illustrative story and a pitch-perfect ear for the voices of the people he meets, Bellos uncovers the nuanced role soccer has played in the history of Brazil and the lives of its people.

Updated and with a new chapter covering recent events in Brazil, this revised edition of Futebol is perfectly timed to coincide with the 2014 World Cup, as the world turns its rapt attention to Brazil and their Beautiful Game and the country once again becomes the capital of "the world's game."

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Animals of the World (The Blackbirch Press visual encyclopedia)

Genre: Encyclopedia

A visual encyclopedia of invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals found throughout the world. 

Author: Lewis K Parker

Alpha Library

▪ Alice's Adventures In Wonderland And Through The Looking Glass

▪ A Midsummer Nights Dream

▪ Animal Farm

▪ Animals Of The World

▪ Arabian Nights

▪ Batman/Superman Vol. 1

▪ Catch a Thief 

▪ Don Quixote

▪ Eleven short stories

▪ Frankenstein

▪ Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life

▪ Grimms' Fairy Tales

▪ Harley Quinn – Hot in the city Vol.1

▪ Heatcliff – Olympic champ

▪ Les Misérables

▪ Lipstick Jungle

▪ Little Lord Fauntleroy

▪ Madame Bovary

▪ Moon Brazil

▪ Oliver Twist

▪ Peter Pan

▪ Pride And Prejudice

▪ Round the world in eighty days

▪ Sense And Sensibility

▪ The berenstain bears – No girls allowed

▪ The berenstain bears – Go out for the team

▪ The Best of Sherlock Holmes

▪ The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas

▪ The Call of the Wild

▪ The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame

▪ The Hound of the Baskervilles

▪ The inner landscape

▪ The Jungle Book

▪ The League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-baked Heroes from Comic Book History!

▪ The Little Prince

▪ The nooty nooty boy in nation’s volunteers

▪ The Odyssey

▪ The Phantom of the Opera

▪ The Sheriff

▪ The Star Zoo

▪ The Three Musketeers

▪ Titanic

▪ To Sir Phillip, With Love

▪ Wuthering Heights

Frankenstein

Author: Mary Shelley

Genre: Horror, Gothich Literature, Cientific Fiction, Romance.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque but sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London in 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared on the second edition, published in France in 1823.

Shelley travelled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the River Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim which is just 17 km (10 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where, two centuries before, an alchemist was engaged in experiments. Later, she travelled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)—where much of the story takes place—and the topic of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made; her dream later evolved into the novel's story.

Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. At the same time, it is an early example of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story because, in contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence in literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories, films and plays.

Grimms' Fairy Tales

Author: Brothers Grimm

Genre: Fairy Tale, Foklore.

Collected by the German Grimm brothers, these folk tales have captured the imaginations of children and adults alike since they were first published in 1812. The best-known stories such as The Golden Goose, Hansel and Gretel, The Frog Prince, and Snow-White and Rose-Red remain as popular today as when first told, although there is an underlying darkness and violence to the original stories that has softened over time. [Read more]

The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame

Author: Victor Hugo

Genre: Gothic Literature, Romantism, Fiction.

'Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.'

Set in medieval Paris, against the backdrop of the brooding Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Hugo's take on the classic story of Beauty and the Beast tells of the hunchbacked, grotesque bellringer, Quasimodo. Rejected by Parisian society because of his appearance, Quasimodo resides in Notre-Dame, harbouring a love for the only woman that pities him, a gypsy named Esmerelda. However, a sinister archdeacon also covets Esmerelda, and when his advances are spurned, he seeks to destroy her.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris) is a French Romantic/Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. The original French title refers to Notre Dame Cathedral, on which the story is centered. English translator Frederic Shoberl named the novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1833 because at the time, Gothic novels were more popular than Romance novels in England. The story is set in Paris, France in the Late Middle Ages, during the reign of Louis XI. [Read More]

The Best of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre: Detective fiction.

The Best of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twenty of the very best tales from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fifty-six short stories featuring the arch-sleuth.
Basing his selection around the author's own twelve personal favourites, David Stuart Davies has added a further eight sparkling stories to Conan Doyle's ' Baker Street Dozen', creating a unique volume which distils the pure essence of the world's most famous detective.  Within these pages the reader will encounter the greatest collection of villains and the weirdest and most puzzling mysteries ever seen in print. And there at the centre, in a London swathed in eddies of fog and illuminated by gaslight, is to be found the remarkable character of Sherlock Holmes and his staunch companion, Doctor John H. Watson. Few will be able to resist this invitation to step aboard the waiting hansom cab and rattle off along cobbled streets into unimagined dangers and intrigues.

A Midsummer Nights Dream

Author: William Shakespeare

Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Fiction.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1595/96. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors (the mechanicals) who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.

A young woman flees Athens with her lover, only to be pursued by her would-be husband and by her best friend. Unwittingly, all four find themselves in an enchanted forest where fairies and sprites soon take an interest in human affairs, dispensing magical love potions and casting mischievous spells. In this dazzling comedy, confusion ends in harmony, as love is transformed, misplaced, and - ultimately - restored.  [Read more]

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre: Detective fiction

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the crime novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson investigate the case. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character's eventual revival.
In 2003, the book was listed as number 128 of 200 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel." In 1999, it was listed as the top Holmes novel, with a perfect rating from Sherlockian scholars of 100.

Les Misérables

Author: Victor Hugo

Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance.

Les Misérables is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims and The Dispossessed. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.

Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Les Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for the stage, television, and film, including a musical and a film adaptation of that musical. [Read more]

Batman/Superman Vol. 1

Author: Greg Pak

The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight meet for the first time-propelled into an adventure that takes them to a whole new world- the world of Earth 2!
Years ago, a young Clark Kent visited Gotham City for the first time. His father had warned him about it because, unlike Smallville, where groups of people came together to survive; in Gotham, the strong come together to eat the weak. It didn't take long for him to understand why his father had warned him.
Nearby, Bruce Wayne was watching as a group of young boys bullied a young middle-eastern boy named Zack because of his ethnicity. Bruce saw something of himself in the boy, and decided to let the bullying continue, so that he could see for himself the point at which Zack decided to fight back. That moment was stolen from him, though, when Clark Kent intervened, shouting at the boys, and sending them running. Bruce's first impression of Clark was that his compassion makes him weak - and annoying. He was surprised, though, that Clark was able to recognize him as the billionaire playboy that he was, despite his grubby street clothes.

The Odyssey

Author: Homer

Genre: Epic, Epic poetry

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature; the Iliad is the oldest. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.

The poem mainly focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths), king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed Odysseus has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. [Read more]

The Three Musketeers

Author: Alexandre Dumas

Genre: Historical, Romance, Fiction.

The Three Musketeers is a historical novel by Alexandre Dumas.
Set in 1625–1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan (based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although D'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos, Porthos and Aramis and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
In genre, The Three Musketeers is primarily a historical and adventure novel. However, Dumas also frequently works into the plot various injustices, abuses and absurdities of the old regime, giving the novel an additional political aspect at a time when the debate in France between republicans and monarchists was still fierce. The story was first serialised from March to July 1844, during the July Monarchy, four years before the French Revolution of 1848 violently established the Second Republic. The author's father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, had been a well-known General in France's Republican army during the French Revolutionary Wars.
The story of d'Artagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. [Read more]

Adventurous and spirited in tone, The Three Musketeers is considered one of the greatest historical French novels. When Athos, Porthos and Aramis befriend a young and determined country boy d’Artagnan, together they confront the scheming King’s Minister, Cardinal Richelieu and the female spy Milady who threaten to undermine the King. Swashbuckling, romantic and often humourous, Dumas’ novel is a timeless tale of friendship and intrigue.

Wuthering Heights

Author: Emily Brontë

Genre: Tragedy

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. Written between October 1845 and June 1846, Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 under the pseudonym "Ellis Bell"; Brontë died the following year, aged 30. Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey were accepted by publisher Thomas Newby before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel, Jane Eyre. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of Wuthering Heights, and arranged for the edited version to be published as a posthumous second edition in 1850.

Although Wuthering Heights is now widely regarded as a classic of English literature, contemporary reviews for the novel were deeply polarised; it was considered controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually stark, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day regarding religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality. [Read More]

When Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visits his landlord at Wuthering Heights, he is astounded by the unorthodox character of the man and his household. Back at the Grange, he asks his servant, Nelly, about the family. She tells him a strange, multigenerational tale of love, class, jealousy, and revenge. Thirty years earlier, Mr. Earnshaw, master of Wuthering Heights, returned from a trip to Liverpool with an unkempt orphan in tow, announcing to his wife and children that the child was now a member of the family. While young Catherine Earnshaw became close with this boy, Heathcliff, her older brother Hindley sank into bitter resentment of the urchin who had usurped his father’s and his sister’s affections—a feeling that only deepened when his father sent him away to college. As Catherine and Heathcliff grew into young adults, and their affection blossomed into desire, Hindley’s resentment boiled over into hatred, setting the stage for a tragic and twisted drama whose aftermath would shake the foundations of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Introduced to a serpentine plot; emotionally tortured, larger-than-life characters; and a richly gothic atmosphere, many critics viewed Wuthering Heights as a brilliant folly when it was first published. Readers have spent the last century and a half making it one of the most popular novels in history. 

The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas

Author: John Boyne

Genre: Historical fiction, Tragicomedy, Postmodern literature.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 Holocaust novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. Unlike the months of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end. As of March 2010, the novel had sold more than five million copies around the world. In both 2007 and 2008, it was the best selling book of the year in Spain, and it has also reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as in the UK, Ireland, and Australia. The book was adapted in 2008 as a film of the same name. (Read More)