Search results for ""author arnold bennett""

Henry Earlforward, a shabby Clerkenwell bookseller, has retired from life to devote himself (and his wife Violet) to a consuming passion for money. Miserliness becomes a fatal illness and Bennett gives a terrifying description of its ravages. But the book's horrible situation is saved through the character of Elsie - whose life-affirming refusal to engage with the nightmarish world of the bookseller transforms the story.Bennett wished in Riceyman Steps to create an English novel as powerful as anything by Balzac, the writer he most admired, with the same sense of great human issues being played out within the confines of a household. The result is an unforgettable work which is also a gripping description of the harsh, battered London of the period just after the First World War.

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Arnold Bennet’s classic book, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, has been changing the way people use and consider their time since it was first published in 1910. In the intervening century surprisingly little has changed - we still struggle to make use of our time and are often plagued by the persistent worry that we are not making the most of our lives. Bennett encourages readers to stop merely following the rote patterns of their lives and leverage their free hours by viewing time as a commodity like money - each of us is allotted exactly 24 hours every day to spend as we see fit. What we make of our lives will ultimately be a result of what we make of that time. Bennet’s prescription is simple, but revolutionary: consider the time outside your work day as an entirely separate day, sixteen hours (give or take) during which you are free to do anything you like to grow and improve yourself and your happiness. Building on that premise, he helps readers begin to take control of their time - starting with just 90 minutes three times a week - and use it to truly live. Bennet’s writing is realistic and his advice transcends the years since it was first written. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day is an honest and refreshing perspective on how we can seize control of our time and spend it in the wisest way possible.

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Nella, daughter of millionaire Theodore Racksole, orders a dinner of steak and beer at the exclusive Grand Babylon Hotel in London. Her order is refused, so Theodore promptly buys the chef, the kitchen and the whole hotel. But when hotel staff begin to vanish and a German prince goes missing, Nella discovers that murder, blackmail and kidnapping are also on the menu. A rollicking murder mystery from one of the finest writers of the last century.

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'Deeply moving, original, and dealing with material that I had never encountered in fiction, but only in life' Margaret DrabbleGrowing up in the world of the 'five towns' of industrial England, with their furnaces and chimneys, huddled red-brown streets, prayer meetings and small-minded bigotry, Anna is dominated by her miserly and tyrannical father. When she inherits a fortune and finds love, she struggles to break free from the constraints upon her, even though she is torn between duty and her deepest feelings. Arnold's novel of parental tyranny and rebellion is a portrayal of a woman of great spirit, complexity and integrity.

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One of fiction's greatest chancers - the story of Denry Machin and his unceasing, ingenious efforts to become a great manSet in the raw, Victorian world of the 'Five Towns', The Card tells the extremely funny and tangled story of Denry Machin's rise from mediocrity to fame through a series of ludicrous and yet perversely successful schemes. He dances, pleads, cheats and inspires his way through life in a series of set-pieces which wonderfully evoke a now long-gone world of civic balls, seaside excursions, newspaper boys and patent chocolate remedies. As everybody said after one of his most stylish coups, Denry 'was not simply a card; he was the card.'

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Miserly and mysterious, the richest man in the Five Towns lives simply, ruling his household with an iron fist and a cruel temper. His daughter, Anna, is used to the life of strict, thrifty order imposed by her father. But when she comes of age, Anna inherits a small fortune and attracts the attentions of the town's most eligible bachelor. A new world seems to be opening to Anna, but her heart, given a taste of freedom, leads her in unexpected directions.

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No longer a boy, not quite a man, Edwin Clayhanger stands on a canal bridge on his last day of school, and surveys the valley of Bursley and the Five Towns. Serious, good-natured and full of incoherent ambition, Edwin's hopes and dreams for the future are just taking shape, even as they are put to the test by challenges from Edwin's domineering father, the stifling constraints of society, and an unusual young woman.

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"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

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‘There are few more moving accounts of the effects of time, the passage of history and the slow encroachment of age than this remarkable, epic novel’ Guardian Discover this powerful novel about the ordinary lives of the Baines sisters. The perfect next step for fans of Little Women. In The Old Wives' Tale, Arnold Bennett tells the story of two such old wives, sisters Constance and Sophia, from youth, through marriage, heartbreak, triumphs and disasters, to old age. In doing so, he reveals with careful compassion the intense inner lives that throb beneath every seemingly insignificant exterior. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SATHNAM SANGHERA

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'Llandudno is more stylish than either Rhyl or Blackpool and not dearer', observed Edwardian author Arnold Bennett. Prime Minister Lloyd George considered the resort a perfect tonic, advising colleagues 'to come to Llandudno is a great pick-me-up'. An 1890 visit by romantic novelist and erstwhile Queen of Romania, Carmen Sylva prompted a description so apt it was adopted as the town's official motto, 'A Beautiful Haven of Peace'. To everyone Llandudno evokes an era of quiet traditional seaside pleasures but has the town entirely escaped the destructive winds of change? The 1933 Official Guide to Llandudno advised prospective holidaymakers, As a holiday centre Llandudno has no rival. All the glorious scenery of North Wales is easily accessible by train, coach, motor or steamerA" and the Broadway Garage, Craig-y-don was at hand to supply motors or drivers as required. Times change and Broadway Garage no longer supplies Rover cars, charabancs or chauffeurs but instead sells German and Japanese cars and self-service petrol. This collection of then and now photographs meticulously compiled and researched by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Llandudno & Colwyn Bay History Society offers a unique insight into the changing fortunes of 'The Queen of the Welsh Resorts'.

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