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Thucydides, historian and witness, recounts the major conflict between Athens and Sparta, revealing the deep mechanisms of war. Through battles, strategies, and political speeches, he analyzes human decisions and their consequences. Ambitions, fears, and rivalries shape a prolonged and destructive confrontation. This narrative goes beyond a simple military chronicle to become a reflection on power, politics, and human nature. The author delivers a rigorous and lucid work on the dynamics of conflict and the errors that lead to downfall.

Rachel, a young heiress, receives a precious diamond for her birthday, but it mysteriously disappears during the night. Franklin Blake, a close friend of the family, tries to solve the mystery within a circle of suspects with troubling behavior. Each testimony reveals a new facet of the case, mixing secrets, suspicion, and manipulation. The investigation progresses slowly, uncovering unexpected truths about the characters. The author builds a structured and compelling narrative, often considered one of the first detective novels, exploring perception, truth, and human complexity.

Attributed to Laozi, this work of Chinese wisdom gathers eighty-one short chapters, somewhere between maxim and poem. It turns on the Tao, the way that can be neither named nor grasped, and on the virtue that follows for those who keep to it. It praises water, emptiness and yielding, and a way of governing by non-action. The text explores restraint, withdrawal and the reversal of ordinary values. Laozi offers less a doctrine than an art of holding back, given here in James Legge's English translation of 1891.

An English adventure novel first published in 1901. On 5 November 1900, in the middle of the Atlantic, a flying ship of metal and glass draws alongside an American liner. Its owner, Lord Redgrave, a wealthy Englishman, built it from an invention by the father of Zaidie Rennick, a young American woman sailing to Europe to marry a man she does not love. He takes her on board, they marry, and their honeymoon carries them to the Moon, Mars, Venus and the giant planets, where a dead world covered in ruins and strange peoples await them. A lively and often funny story that shows how people imagined the solar system before the aeroplane was even invented.

A collection published in Manila in 1918 by Austin Craig for the schoolchildren of the Philippines. In simplified language, it brings together texts in which José Rizal tells the story of his own life. He describes his childhood in Kalamba, on the shore of a large lake, his mother teaching him to read in the evening, the strict school in Biñan, then his success at the college in Manila. Other pages recall the Spanish schools of his time, his family’s quarrel with the manager of the Kalamba estate, a journey from Japan to England and his exile in Dapitan. There are also proverbs, riddles and a legend from his homeland. A simple, lively way to discover the national hero of the Philippines.

An American science-fiction novel set in the year 2430, when Earth, Venus and Mars are linked by travel and messages. One May evening, the leaders of the three worlds are murdered almost at the same moment. Jac Hallen, a young news reporter in New York who tells the story, is summoned by his friend Dr Brende, a renowned scientist, whose daughter Elza he secretly loves. A message from Venus warns them to beware of Tarrano. This former minor officer from Venus wants to become master of the three worlds, and he wants Elza too. A fast-paced adventure of love and combat, in a future full of inventions: moving sidewalks, flying cars, news screens.

Mr Sabin, an elderly French duke in exile, lives happily in Massachusetts with his wife Lucille, until the day she vanishes in New York. Anonymous letters written in yellow crayon order him to go back home: the yellow crayon is the sign of a secret society of European nobles determined to hold back the socialists. Mr Sabin follows Lucille to London, where the society is using her to influence a powerful minister. A novel of drawing rooms and politics, in which an old man stands alone against a formidable organisation.

Freed after nineteen years in the galleys for a stolen loaf, Jean Valjean finds neither work nor shelter, until a bishop takes him in. A different man under a false name, he takes in Cosette, daughter of a working woman dead in destitution, and raises her in hiding. Inspector Javert, who cannot conceive that a convict changes, pursues him across France to the barricades of 1832. The novel explores poverty, law, redemption and what society does with those it condemns. Hugo binds a few lives to the portrait of a century and to a plea of his own.

This fourth volume of the Memoirs from Beyond the Grave covers the years 1815 to 1828. Chateaubriand, writer and statesman, tells of the Hundred Days, which he spends in Ghent with King Louis XVIII, of the Battle of Waterloo heard from afar, and then of Napoleon’s exile and death on Saint Helena. He goes on to trace his career under the Restoration: peer of France, ambassador in Berlin and then in London, foreign minister, up to his appointment to Rome. The volume ends with the life of his friend Madame Récamier. A first-hand account of Napoleon’s fall and the return of the kings.

An American novel. In Kentucky, early in the twentieth century, the old Thornwood mansion stands on Billy-goat Hill, a hill that the nearby city is slowly taking over. Colonel Bob Carsey lives there with his daughter, nicknamed Miss Lady, a free and joyful girl who has educated herself out of doors. She falls in love with Donald Morley, a rich and unsteady young man whom her father distrusts. A bloody brawl in a saloon on the edge of town, in which Donald is implicated, and then a tragic accident turn her life upside down. A novel full of humour and tenderness, peopled with colourful figures from the poor district.

An adventure and mystery novel published in 1905. Gordon Gregg, an English writer living near Livorno, Italy, is temporarily standing in for the British consul. He receives the owner of a yacht that has run aground, dines on board and finds there the torn photograph of a young Englishwoman, Elma Heath. The next morning, the consulate safe has been opened and the yacht has vanished. His investigation takes him to London, to Scotland and then to Finland, at that time a province of the Russian Empire, where the young woman seems to be in grave danger. A fast-paced story full of false identities, in which an ordinary man tries to save a stranger.

In a lonely village on the Thames marshes, Archie, a poor young painter, wants to marry Lucy. Her stepfather, Professor Braddock, a collector of Egyptian mummies, agrees on one condition: Archie must pay for a rare mummy, that of an Inca king of Peru wrapped in green bandages. The professor's assistant buys it in Malta and brings it home by ship. But when the packing case is opened, the mummy is gone: in its place lies the assistant's body, strangled. An English detective novel that combines a murder inquiry with a love story, set in the misty estuary.

An English novel. London, May 1914. Gwenna Williams, a young and dreamy Welsh typist, goes to a flying display at Hendon and picks out, among the postcards, the portrait of an airman, Paul Dampier. She meets him soon afterwards at a dinner party, and he promises to take her up flying. Between her dreams, the ironic advice of her friend Leslie and office life, she goes to work at an aircraft factory. But the summer passes, and war is drawing near. A lively, romantic love story that captures the excitement of the early days of flight.

A group of characters is connected by a coveted diamond, an object of desire and manipulation. Each pursues their own interests, creating a complex web of lies and strategies. As the plot unfolds, alliances form and dissolve in constant tension. The novel presents a dynamic narrative centered on suspense and twists. The author constructs an effective story driven by greed and secrecy.

Roderick Random, an ambitious but penniless young man, leaves his native Scotland to find his place in an often hostile world. He goes through numerous experiences, especially in the navy, where he faces violence, injustice, and instability. His journeys expose him to extreme situations, revealing the harshest aspects of society. Between satire and realism, this adventure novel exposes social mechanisms and individual struggles. The author offers a dynamic narrative marked by survival, opportunism, and social criticism.

One August morning, the national pilgrimage leaves Paris for Lourdes, with whole trains full of the sick and of pilgrims. On board are Marie de Guersaint, a young woman who can no longer walk, and Father Pierre Froment, her childhood friend, who became a priest but no longer believes. She hopes to be healed, and hopes that he will find his faith again. Over the five days of the pilgrimage, the reader follows Pierre among the crowds, the sick, the doctors and the believers, between science and religion, doubt and hope. Zola depicts with precision people searching for meaning in suffering.

Richard Hannay, an experienced British agent, is tasked with infiltrating an enemy network during World War I. Under a false identity, he enters a world of espionage where every mistake can be fatal. Between secret missions, pursuits, and manipulation, he must navigate constant suspicion. His composure and intelligence become his only weapons to thwart enemy plans. This novel delivers continuous tension, blending action and strategy in an exploration of espionage and courage in wartime.

Miss Mapp, a central figure in a small town, observes and comments on her neighbors’ lives with obsessive attention. Through subtle rivalries, social strategies, and minor manipulations, she seeks to maintain her influence. Every interaction becomes a quiet power game where appearances matter as much as reality. The novel offers a sharp satire of social relations and modest ambitions. The author delivers an ironic and precise portrait of a convention-driven community.

An English novel, subtitled “A Comedy”. In London in 1902, Jane Holland, a young novelist, suddenly becomes famous. Her friend George Tanqueray, a writer of genius still unknown to the public, warns her that celebrity is the beginning of the end. Jane loves him in secret, but Tanqueray, who shuns society, marries Rose, the young servant who nursed him. Other writers move around them, such as the novelist Nina Lempriere and the poet Owen Prothero. Hugh Brodrick, the owner of a major newspaper, falls in love with Jane. Can one love, marry and still go on writing? A subtle, clear-sighted novel showing that the answer is not the same for a woman as for a man.

An English adventure novel from 1892. 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 own, Captain Clinton raises both boys as twins, Rupert and Edgar. At sixteen, Edgar is told by a stranger that she is his real mother. Refusing to keep a place that may not be his, Edgar runs away, enlists under a false name and leaves with the army for Egypt, then travels up the Nile with the expedition sent to relieve Khartoum, besieged in 1884. A story of war and brotherly friendship that closely follows a real military campaign.

An American novel. In the mid-nineteenth century, in the mountains of North Carolina, Tom De Willoughby, the neglected son of a prominent Tennessee family, keeps the store and post office at a remote crossroads. Huge, lazy and much loved by his neighbours, he one day takes in Sheba, a baby whose young mother, a stranger, has just died, and raises her alone. Years later his nephew Rupert arrives, poor and alone in the world: the Civil War has ruined the De Willoughbys, and a claim for compensation from the government in Washington could restore their fortune. A warm, humorous story about the family we choose for ourselves.

Under Nero, the patrician Vinicius falls in love with Lygia, a royal hostage raised in a Roman household and secretly Christian. Used to getting his way, he has her claimed for the palace; she escapes, and he discovers a community living by rules opposed to his own. When Rome burns and Nero looks for culprits, the Christians are thrown to the arena and Vinicius must choose. The novel explores power, conversion and the resistance of a new faith. Sienkiewicz rebuilds imperial Rome with a historian's care, at the pace of an adventure story.

A novel of romance and adventure. In London in the early twentieth century, Helen Wynton, a poor young secretary, dreams of seeing the eternal snows of the Alps. A wealthy American, Charles Spencer, overhears her wish and, without revealing his name, pays a small newspaper to send her to write articles at a grand hotel in Maloja, Switzerland. But Mark Bower, a rich man who takes too close an interest in her, boards the same train. Amid fashionable guests, mountain guides and glaciers, Spencer watches over Helen, while an old guide, Stampa, hides an old grief linked to Bower. A story of love and suspense set in the vast landscapes of the Swiss Alps.

An English novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1873. One winter day, Stephen Smith, a young assistant to a London architect, arrives in an isolated coastal village in the west of England to survey the old church, which needs restoring. Lodging with the vicar, he falls in love with his daughter Elfride, a young woman with blue eyes. But Stephen is hiding a secret: his father is a mason in that very village. The vicar opposes the marriage, and Stephen goes to work in India to make his fortune. Elfride then meets Henry Knight, a critic whom Stephen admires above all others. A sensitive novel about love and the weight of social class.