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James diGriz, known as “Slippery Jim”, is a former master swindler, forcibly recruited by the Special Corps, a secret police force that operates among the stars. He is bored filing records when he discovers that a small, peaceful planet, Cittanuvo, is secretly building a giant battleship of a type that vanished a thousand years ago. Disguised as an admiral, he sets off to investigate alone. A humorous science fiction adventure, told by a hero who is as clever as he is cheeky. Lively and ironic, this short story can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

For an article judged too frank, Stephen Silk, a young diplomat, is sent as ambassador to New Texas, a planet peopled by descendants of Texans, which supplies meat to the whole galaxy. His predecessor has just been assassinated there. Silk soon discovers that, on New Texas, killing a politician is not necessarily a crime: a court only decides whether the victim had it coming. A political comedy full of humour, in which the young ambassador must also foil an invasion being prepared by a neighbouring alien people. Fast-paced, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

For her eighteenth birthday, Rachel Verinder inherits a fabulous diamond, the Moonstone, stolen long ago in India. That very night, the diamond disappears. Three mysterious Indians prowl around the house, and Sergeant Cuff, a famous London detective, comes to investigate. Each witness in turn tells what they saw, and the reader pieces the truth together bit by bit. It is one of the very first detective novels, and one of the finest. Each narrator has a voice of their own, like Betteredge, the old house steward who looks for answers to everything in “Robinson Crusoe”. The novel is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In 2353, Tom Corbett, a cadet at the Space Academy, shows off his ship, the Polaris, with his fellow cadets Roger and Astro, at a great exhibition on Venus. One night, two men dig a tunnel under the exhibition and steal the plans for a key that opens the safes of every ship. Now space pirates, they help the dangerous outlaw Bull Coxine to escape. To stop them, Tom disguises himself as a prisoner and goes aboard their ship. So begins a chase across the solar system. Fast and clear, this science fiction novel for young readers is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In 2430, Earth, Venus and Mars are linked by travel and messages. One May evening, the leaders of all three worlds are assassinated almost at the same moment. Jac Hallen, a young New York reporter, and his friend the scientist Brende receive a warning from Venus: “Beware of Tarrano!” Tarrano, once a minor officer, wants to rule all three worlds. He also wants Elza, the scientist's daughter, whom Jac secretly loves. An adventure of love and battle, in a future full of inventions: moving pavements, flying cars, news screens. Fast-paced from start to finish, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In a remote village on the Thames marshes, Archie, a poor young painter, wants to marry Lucy. Lucy's stepfather, Professor Braddock, a collector of mummies, sets one condition: Archie must pay for a rare mummy, that of an Inca king wrapped in green bandages. The professor's assistant goes to fetch it from Malta. But when the crate is opened, the mummy has vanished, and in its place lies the assistant's body, strangled. A misty detective puzzle, with a love story thrown in, by the author of “The Mystery of a Hansom Cab”, one of the greatest successes in crime fiction. Its absorbing plot makes it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

On a Saturday in June 1880, a wealthy American factory town hears some astonishing news. During the night, burglars have broken into Miss Wardour's house, forced her small safe and stolen the famous “Wardour diamonds”. The investigation begins, and behind the town's fine façades everyone seems to be hiding something. An American detective novel full of false leads and reversals. With its twists and lively dialogue, this novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In India, two babies are mixed up: the son of a captain and the son of a sergeant. Unable to tell which one is his, Captain Clinton brings up both boys as twins, Rupert and Edgar. When Edgar is sixteen, a stranger tells him that she is his real mother, and he runs away to join the army under a false name. With him, we travel up the Nile alongside the expedition sent to relieve General Gordon, besieged in Khartoum in 1884. A story of war and brotherly friendship that closely follows a very real campaign. Full of action, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In the middle of the First World War, Richard Hannay, the hero of “The Thirty-Nine Steps”, has to unmask a formidable German spy hidden in England. Under a false identity, he settles among pacifists. Then the trail leads him from Scotland to the Swiss mountains, and on to the front in France. Chases, disguises and coded messages: Hannay can count only on his nerve and a few loyal friends. The title comes from a character in “The Pilgrim's Progress”, the old book that accompanies Hannay throughout his mission. Its fast pace makes it easy to read in the language you are learning.

Rejected by his family and penniless, young Roderick Random leaves his native Scotland to seek his fortune in London, with his faithful friend Strap, a barber. Robbed, deceived and press-ganged into the navy, he becomes a surgeon's mate on a warship and lives through the Battle of Cartagena. Smollett had himself served as a naval surgeon, and his scenes on board are strikingly true to life. Full of hard knocks and satire, this adventure novel delighted Charles Dickens as a child. With the translation always in front of you, its humorous adventures are a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

One night, on board a liner returning from Asia, a passenger who never sleeps approaches the narrator and tells him his secret. A doctor at a remote post in the Dutch East Indies, he was visited by a European woman, beautiful and proud, who came to ask him for a forbidden operation. He refused, out of pride as much as desire, then set off after this woman like a man seized by madness. That is where the title comes from: amok, the frenzy that, in Malaya, drives a man to run straight ahead. You can read this short story by Stefan Zweig in one sitting in the language you are learning.

In the near future, huge airliners link Plymouth and New York in thirty hours. Sir John Custance, head of the British air police, has just become engaged to Connie Shepherd, an actress all London adores. But pirates with silent engines are plundering planes over the Atlantic, and they kidnap Connie. Unrecognisable in disguise, Sir John follows their trail all the way to Cornwall. Written in 1919, this adventure novel already imagined a sky full of airliners. Told by Sir John himself, at a fast pace, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In London at the start of the twentieth century, Helen Wynton, a poor young secretary, dreams of seeing the eternal snows of the Alps. A rich American, Charles Spencer, overhears her wish. Without giving his name, he pays a small newspaper, which sends Helen to write articles at a grand hotel in Maloja, in Switzerland. But Mark Bower, a man far too interested in her, takes the same train. Among glaciers and mountain guides, Spencer watches over Helen, while an old guide, Stampa, hides an old grief connected with Bower. A story of love and suspense in the heart of the Alps. With plenty of dialogue, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

One June morning, a young man who calls himself Walker Farr is walking the roads of New England. He looks like a tramp, but he speaks like an educated man and hides his past. He stops at Marion, a cotton-mill town. Typhoid is striking its poor families, because of the water sold by Colonel Dodd's company. Dodd also controls the state's politicians. Asking nothing for himself, Farr joins the fight against him, and meets Kate Kilgour, Dodd's secretary. A lively novel about the courage of one man against a political machine. Absorbing from start to finish, this story is easy to read in the language you are learning.

John Algernon Owens tells the life of Willard Glazier, born into a modest family in New York State: his childhood on the farm, his years as a schoolteacher, then the Civil War in the Union cavalry, his capture, prison and escape. Now a successful writer, Glazier rides across the United States on horseback, then canoes down the Mississippi, whose true source he claims to have found, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. A life of adventure, told while its hero was still alive, from letters and articles of the time. Told like an adventure novel, this biography is a pleasure to read in the language you are learning.

In the Caucasus in the 1830s, an old captain tells a traveller the story of Pechorin, a young Russian officer who is brilliant, jaded and dangerous to those who love him. Then the traveller gets hold of his journal. In it we read how Pechorin seduces a princess out of sheer boredom, and how he fights a duel coldly, almost out of curiosity. Lermontov, who himself died in a duel at twenty-six, made Pechorin one of the most fascinating characters in Russian literature: a hero who is no hero. Made up of five short stories, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Peter Moore, a wireless operator on Pacific liners, has the sharpest ear in the trade. In San Francisco's Chinatown, a woman throws him a note from a window ordering him to keep away. Soon he picks up a call for help in Morse code, and a young American woman is kidnapped. The adventure takes him all the way to a river near Shanghai, towards the domain of the “Grey Dragon”, a powerful mine owner. A fast-moving mystery in early twentieth-century China, with a hero who has more daring than caution. Its fast pace and direct sentences make it easy to read in the language you are learning.

Around 1890, on the banks of the Kootenai River, near the border between Canada and the United States, a sixteen-year-old girl who lives among the Native Americans dives into the icy water to save a child. Dan Overton, a guide respected throughout the region, takes her to live in the village of Sinna Ferry, in Idaho. There she calls herself Montana, refuses to say where she comes from and keeps the secret map of a place rich in gold. The portrait of a free and defiant heroine, in a land of forests and gold prospectors. This novel of the American West is easy to read in the language you are learning.

The son of a woman who followed the armies and robbed the dead on battlefields, Ferdinand is taken in by a generous nobleman, Count de Melvil, and brought up with his son Renaldo. But the boy dreams only of rising by cunning. He betrays his benefactors, then travels across Europe cheating at cards and seducing women, until he passes himself off as a count in London. The hero of this novel by Tobias Smollett is a true rogue, and we watch for each new trick with pleasure mixed with dread. With the translation always in front of you, you can discover this great adventure novel in the language you are learning.

A young woman from New York society, suddenly ruined, marries, almost without thinking, Duncan McKail, a former engineer of Scottish descent who has become a wheat farmer in western Canada. She discovers her new life: a plank shack in the middle of the prairie, a Swedish farmhand, the hens, the cooking and the loneliness. She tells it all, day after day, in a diary addressed to her friend Matilda Anne, with a humour and frankness that make her very endearing. Written as a diary, in a lively, natural tone, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

After two years in the Burmese jungle, Edward Courtlandt, a rich American, returns to Paris to see Nora Harrigan again. She has become a famous opera singer, performing at the Opera under an Italian name. When he forces his way in, she shoots at him and misses, then disappears, and the newspapers talk of a kidnapping. What happened between them two years earlier? The novel reveals it little by little, between comedy and suspense, from Paris to Lake Como. Light and full of twists, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In the eighteenth century, in an English spa town, people spend their days between the baths, the balls and the card tables. Young Phyllida is courted by Francis Vernon, a gambler buried in debt who talks of running away with her, while a young poet is also trying to win her. But Phyllida's mother does not want to see her married. A witty comedy of manners, Compton Mackenzie's first novel, full of the charm of powdered wigs and the balls of long ago. Its light tone and humour make it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

On the coast of Maine, young Captain Boyd Mayo commands the yacht of Julius Marston, a rich Wall Street financier, and falls for his daughter, Alma. Humiliated by Marston in front of his guests, he decides to leave. That same night, in the fog, a very old sailing ship loaded with timber catches him as it passes and carries him off to sea against his will. After a storm, he helps fishing families driven from their island, and takes on Marston, who wants to seize the steamship lines along the coast. A humorous novel of adventure and love, set to the rhythm of old sea shanties. Its lively dialogue and absorbing story make it an enjoyable read in the language you are learning.

In 1854, Harry Hardinge, a young officer in the Welsh Fusiliers, is waiting to leave for the war against Russia. On a large estate in Wales, he is reunited with Lady Estelle, whom he loves in silence, and a troubling rival. Then his regiment leaves for the Crimea, and Harry experiences the Battle of Inkerman and the trenches before Sevastopol. A novel of war and love, which stays close to the soldiers marching under the flag of the red dragon. Harry tells his own story, and this action-packed novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.