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Harriet Jacobs is born a slave in North Carolina. As a teenager, she is pursued by her master's advances. To escape him and protect her children, she hides for seven years in a tiny attic at her grandmother's house, watching her children through a small hole, before she can flee to the North. It is one of the few slave narratives written by a woman. In it she says what others kept silent: what slavery did to women and mothers. She tells her life simply, like a confidence, and her story is a moving read in the language you are learning.

Frederick Douglass is born a slave on a plantation in Maryland, separated from his mother at birth. As a child he secretly learns to read, although it is forbidden, and understands that knowledge is the path to freedom. He tells of the beatings, the hunger, the resistance, and his escape to the North. A deeply moving account, written by a man who became one of the great voices against slavery. Its simple, powerful sentences make it easy to read in the language you are learning.

Fifteen stories about Dublin around 1900, from childhood to adulthood. A schoolboy dreams of going to a grand bazaar, a young woman hesitates to leave everything behind for a sailor, an office clerk drowns his anger in drink, a family gathers for its annual dance at Christmas time. Joyce portrays ordinary people, caught in routine, at the moment their lives tip slightly. The collection ends with “The Dead”, one of the finest stories ever written. The stories are short and can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

As a young boy, Larry Livingston starts out in a brokerage house, chalking up stock prices on a board. He becomes one of the greatest speculators on Wall Street, and tells of his strokes of genius, his bankruptcies, and everything his mistakes taught him about the markets and about himself. A cult book among traders and investors, still read for its lessons on risk, patience and keeping your emotions in check. Told in the first person, like a long conversation, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Lu Xun remembers his childhood and youth: the Hundred-Plant Garden where he used to play, his old nurse and the book of monsters she gave him, the temple fair he could only see after reciting his lesson. Then come his father's illness, and his student years in Japan with his teacher, Fujino. Ten bittersweet memories, in which we discover the childhood of the greatest modern Chinese writer, and the China of the past. This short book can be read memory by memory, in the language you are learning.

Around the year 400, Augustine, now Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, tells the story of his life, speaking directly to God. He remembers his childhood, the pears he stole just for the pleasure of doing wrong, his youth in Carthage and his long search for the truth. Until the day when, in a garden in Milan, he hears a child's voice singing: “Take up and read”. This book is often seen as the first great autobiography of the Western world. We meet a man who doubts, makes mistakes and searches for himself, with a sincerity that still moves us today. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great classic in the language you are learning.

In these texts gathered for the schoolchildren of the Philippines, José Rizal tells his own life: his childhood in Calamba, on the shore of a large lake, his mother teaching him to read in the evenings, the strict school in Biñan, then his success at college in Manila. Other pages tell of his travels, from Japan to England, and of his exile in Dapitan. We get to know the national hero of the Philippines from the inside, with proverbs, riddles and a legend from his country as well. Written in simple sentences, this little book is easy to read in the language you are learning.

This fourth volume of the Memoirs from Beyond the Grave covers the years 1815 to 1828. Chateaubriand tells of the Hundred Days, which he spends in Ghent with King Louis XVIII, and of the Battle of Waterloo, which he hears thundering in the distance. Then come Napoleon's exile and death on Saint Helena. Chateaubriand also tells of his own career: ambassador in Berlin and London, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. A witness at the heart of events tells from the inside the fall of Napoleon and the return of the kings, and paints a portrait of his friend Madame Récamier. With the translation always in front of you, you can read these famous memoirs in the language you are learning.

Diogenes Laertius tells the lives and ideas of the philosophers of ancient Greece, from Thales to Epicurus. We see Thales fall into a ditch while gazing at the stars, and Diogenes the Cynic looking for an honest man in broad daylight, lantern in hand, or asking Alexander the Great to stand out of his sun. Funny or surprising, these anecdotes bring the great thinkers close and make them human. We understand what each one thought by seeing how he lived: a lively way into the origins of philosophy. Each life is a story of its own, and the book can be read at your own pace in the language you are learning.

As a child, Mark Twain dreamed of piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi. As a young man, he becomes an apprentice pilot and has to learn by heart every bend in the river and every sandbank, by day and by night. Twenty years later, he returns to the river and discovers how much the world has changed. Memories, anecdotes and humorous portraits: it is in this book that he explains where his pen name, “Mark Twain”, comes from: a call used by the boatmen who sounded the river. Full of true stories, this book is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In London in 1902, Jane Holland, a young novelist, suddenly becomes famous. Her friend George Tanqueray, a writer of genius who is still unknown, warns her: for him, fame is the beginning of the end. Jane secretly loves him, but Tanqueray, who shuns society, marries Rose, the young servant who nursed him. The novel asks a question that has lost none of its force: can you love, marry and go on writing, and is the answer the same for a woman as for a man? With the translation always in front of you, you can discover this subtle and witty novel in the language you are learning.

The book opens with Mark Antony, who abandons his troops at Actium to chase after Cleopatra. Then, chapter after chapter, Lyndon Orr tells of other famous couples in history, some of whom were led to their ruin by passion. Each chapter reads like a short true story, in which we discover how love could change the fate of the great. You can read these stories one by one, at your own pace, in the language you are learning.

Frank to the point of bluntness, a young man from Tokyo accepts a post as a maths teacher in a small town on Shikoku. On his very first night on duty at the school, his pupils slip grasshoppers into his bed. His colleagues turn out to be even more devious, and he gives them nicknames, such as “Red Shirt”. As incapable of lying as of scheming, he takes sides and makes enemies. It is one of the best loved novels in Japan: its author, Natsume Sōseki, taught in Matsuyama himself, and the town has made the novel's hero its own. Told by the hero himself, with humour and plain speaking, this short novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Louise Guiney paints portraits of six people from old England who have stayed in the shadow of the great names, among them a friend of the poet John Donne and two friends of Samuel Johnson. From 1561 to 1830, she follows their families, their friendships and their work. These lively portraits, full of true detail, take us into three centuries of English life by the side door, the door of friendship and everyday life. Each portrait can be read on its own, at your own pace, in the language you are learning.

Benjamin Franklin tells the story of his life to his son, starting from his years as an apprentice in his brother's printing shop in Boston. At seventeen he runs away and arrives in Philadelphia almost penniless, with three large loaves under his arm. There he becomes a printer, publishes a newspaper, founds a library, and sets himself thirteen virtues that he checks every day in a little notebook. It is one of the first stories of success through hard work, and many readers still find in it common-sense advice on getting organised and persuading others. Franklin writes with humour and simplicity, and his book is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Harriet Martineau is born in 1802 in Norwich and loses her hearing in her teens. Yet she becomes a writer, and enjoys enormous success with stories that explain economics to everyone. She travels to the United States, where she speaks out against slavery, then goes through five years of illness. She also writes for a major London newspaper. In this biography, Florence Fenwick Miller paints a portrait of a free and tireless woman who made herself heard at a time when women were rarely listened to. With the translation always in front of you, this extraordinary life is easy to read in the language you are learning.

Born in Brooklyn, Austin Bidwell starts work young in a Wall Street office, where he acquires a taste for gambling and easy money. In 1873, with his brother George and two accomplices, he pulls off a coup of incredible daring: getting the Bank of England to accept forged bills of exchange. Then come the escape, through Ireland, Spain and Cuba, the trial and prison. These are the memoirs of a real swindler, who gives an insider's view of the finance, police and prisons of the nineteenth century. Told in the first person, like an adventure story, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.