Tom Swift enters an upcoming race with his specially-designed prototype electric race car. But as he makes the final preparations and adjustments, days before the race, he discovers a plot that would bankrupt not only his family, but also everyone else that relies on the local bank (which is the target of a nefarious bank-run scheme). Tom must solve the mystery and stop the criminals behind the plot before he’ll test himself on a 500 mile race against some of the best electric cars and skilled drivers in the United States...

The US Government is very smartly letting Tom Swift Jr. handle the recovery of its probe to Jupiter. But a mystery missile suddenly intercepts the probe and splashes it in the South Atlantic.Faced with a huge search task to find the probe on the ocean bottom, Tom soon realizes that the same shadowy group that attacked the probe is competing to find it, and no holds are barred: kidnap, coercion, and lethal force are all in play.Under such circumstances, what can Tom do? What he does every time, of course! He invents some utterly cool device to get the job done! And his Electronic Hydrolung is just the beginning!

The Titus Brothers Contractors company have won a government contract in Peru to blast a tunnel through a mountain and connect two isolated railroad lines. The deadline is approaching, and the contractors have hit a literal wall: excessively hard rock which defies conventional blasting techniques. The company is under pressure to finish, or else the contract will default to their rivals, Blakeson & Grinder. Mr. Job Titus has heard of Tom Swift and Tom's giant cannon, which is used in protecting the Panama Canal, and wants to hire Tom to develop a special blasting powder to help them finish the excavation...

Tom Swift is approached by Mr. Preston, the owner of a circus, and begins to tell the story of Jake Poddington, Mr. Preston's most skilled hunter. As it turns out, Jake went missing just after sending word to Preston that Jake was on the trail of a tribe of giants, somewhere in South Africa. That was the last Preston has heard of Jake Poddington. Preston would like Tom to use one of his airships to search for Poddington, and if possible, bring back a giant for the circus.Listeners are forewarned that some elements and characters included in Tom Swift books portray certain ethnic groups in a very dated manner that modern readers, and listeners, may find offensive...

Two writers, famous in their own countries for creating immortal characters: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in England and Maurice Leblanc in France. Their literary creations, Sherlock Holmes and Arsene Lupin are at two ends of the criminal spectrum. Holmes is a sleuth while Lupin is a burglar. When Maurice Leblanc introduces Sherlock Holmes in one of his Arsene Lupin stories, Conan Doyle is outraged. He sues Leblanc, who promptly changes the character's name to “Herlock Sholmes” and continues featuring...

The Eight Strokes of the Clock is a collection of eight short stories by Maurice Leblanc. The stories have his most famous creation, Arsène Lupin, gentleman-thief, as main character. The eight stories, even though independent, have a leading thread: Lupin, under the name of Serge Rénine, trying to conquer the heart of a young lady, travels with her, solving eight mysteries on the way.

In “The Blonde Lady, being a record of the duel of wits between Arsène Lupin and the English detective” – original title “Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes” – the gentleman-burglar once more meets his enemy, the English detective Herlock Sholmes. If in the last story of “Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar” Sherlock Holmes arrives too late (the name was at a later date changed to Herlock Sholmes in reply to complaints and threats by Conan Doyle regarding copyrights), in the two stories that compose “The Blonde Lady” these two great intellects are bound in opposite directions...

A collection of nine stories - or confessions - of the celebrated gentleman thief Arsene Lupin

This story opens with a young woman who voyages alone into the wilds of Alaska to escape her tragic past. It then continues on to a young man who passionately protects the pristine environment, people and way of life in this snowbound country. Finally, a greedy profiteer arrives in the narrative whose only aim is to fill his pockets. When these three characters encounter each other on the stark and snowy plains, it's a clash of ideals and the sparks begin to fly. The Alaskan by James Oliver Curwood is one of his very engaging adventure romance conservationist stories and was an instant bestseller, like most of his books, when it was first published in 1923...

A tale of mystery, romance, and honor, as David Carrigan must choose between his duty as an officer of the law and a girl who holds him captive; a girl who Carrigan thinks he may have fallen in love with no less! Who is this strange girl Jean-Marie, and why won’t she give him his freedom? And who are the people that she surrounds herself with along the great Canadian rivers and wilderness barrens and forests of the northwest?

Flower of the North finds Philip Whittemore on an adventure which takes him up the Churchill River of northern Canada to a land which he thought he knew. However, tucked in among the rocks and hills lies an unfamiliar outpost which he’s been told is called Fort o’ God whose inhabitants and history are shrouded in mystery. It is Jeanne D’Arcambal and her protector Pierre who have told him of this place, but there is so much which they haven’t told him, including who they really are, where they come from, and their clouded past.

James Curwood wrote many adventures of the far north. By 1909 he had saved enough money to travel to the Canadian northwest, a trip that provided the inspiration for his wilderness adventure stories. The success of his novels afforded him the opportunity to return to the Yukon and Alaska for several months each year that allowed him to write more than thirty such books. The Canadian North is often referred to as “God’s Country” God’s Country is a tale of adventure, mystery and romance!

The Country Beyond, subtitled A Romance In the Wilderness, is a story of “Jolly” Roger McKay, an outcast on the run from the law; Nada, the girl he falls in love with; and Peter, the devoted mixed-breed dog who links the two together as no human could, as action, adventure, and romance take them through the Northwest Canadian wilderness in search of The Country Beyond. (Summary by Roger Melin)

Subtitled: A Story of the Three River Country. James Kent has learned that he is terminally ill with perhaps only days to live, and so decides to confess to a murder and thus save an innocent man. Nobody believes his confession, particularly Marette, a mysterious girl who had shown up at Athabasca Landing only weeks before. Kent’s illness takes a turn and his death is postponed, and he sets about to find out more about the girl, who he ends up falling in love with, although she’ll not reveal her past to him, nor what she knows about the murder...

Chicago engineer Jack Howland is sent to the edge of the Canadian barren lands north of Prince Albert to establish a train route through some of the most treacherous terrain in North America. He would soon learn that it was not only the terrain that was forbidding, as he begins to understand why the previous engineers sent on the same mission had been forced to give up the task and flee back to the south. Mysterious visitors, suspicious characters, strange apparent coincidences, and one particularly mysterious girl meet Howland at every turn in this suspenseful tale of adventure, excitement, danger, and romance set in the northern Canadian wilderness.

In The Gold Hunters we find 3 men in search of a treasure of gold hidden away in the upper reaches of the Canadian wilderness. One, a young white man, another his half breed friend, and the third the wise old Indian sage who communes with the wilderness as only his people have done through the generations. The 3 men know the gold is there, they had found the map which is leading them to it. Yet it seems that the map is leading them to places that don't exist, and each day finds a new adventure and new dangers which they must overcome if they are to achieve their reward. (Introduction by Roger Melin)

With but two years of service in the RNMP Philip Raine finds himself somewhat unwillingly on the trail of Bram Johnson, wanted for murder and a wild, untamed and savage man who commands a pack of wolves as his brethren.But most peculiar of all is the snare which Bram had had in his posession and had somehow lost. It was a golden snare intricately woven out of the finest, most delicate flaxen hair of a woman. But what could possibly be the relationship between this half-human murderer and a woman...

Follow Roderick and his friends Wabi and Mukoki on their adventures in the pristine North. They fight voracious wolves, hostile natives, and the vicious elements of nature, while on the hunt. Getting more than they bargained for, they discover a mysterious cabin, and stumble upon a secret that has lain hidden for half a century. Full of twists and turns, danger and suspense, The Wolf Hunters, the prequal to The Gold Hunters, is an excellent read. (Introduction by Brian Adey)

Action, intrigue, and a touch of romance in the farthest reaches of northern Canada. Sergeant Billy MacVeigh of the Canadian Northwest Mounted, with his only partner Pelliter are the only official representatives in the lonely and desolate reaches of Point Fullerton, hundreds of miles from the next nearest outpost, and from any civilization. Both are nearing the end of their service in those regions, and their main function has been to try to find the elusive murderer Scottie Deane, and if they happen upon anybody trading in Eskimo women to haul them in also...

An unlikely pair were Neewa, the black bear cub who had been orphaned at a young age, and Miki, part Mackenzie hound, part Airedale and Spitz who had become separated from his master in the frozen reaches of northern Canada. But the two befriended one another, and these nomads fended for themselves until they too became separated in an unfortunate way. While Neewa searched for his friend, Miki was taken by northern trappers who felt he could be trained to become a good fighting dog, a valuable asset in the north. What follows is Miki's attempts to flee from his captors and search for his master, and Neewa's search for his canine friend.

This adventurous story of a woman in peril begins "It was all new - most of it singularly dramatic and even appalling to the woman who sat with the pearl-gray veil drawn closely about her face. For eighteen hours she had been a keenly attentive, wide-eyed, and partly frightened bit of humanity in this onrush of "the horde." She had heard a voice behind her speak of it as "the horde" - a deep, thick, gruff voice which she knew without looking had filtered its way through a beard." - Introduction from the book

David Raine is travelling, trying to escape his own memories. On the train he meets Father Rolland, who invites him North, to a world of "mystery and savage glory", to help him find himself again. On the same train, he meets a mysterious woman searching for a man named Michael O'Doone. When she's gone, he finds a thin package on her seat. It contains the photograph of a girl and David makes it his aim to find her, while following Father Rolland into the mysterious North.

A young Englishman struck by Gold Fever! He is desperate to travel to California and become part of the great gold rush. He journeys to this remote and unfamiliar place and there he discovers the true value of gold, humanity and God. The Golden Dream by RM Ballantyne is one of more than one hundred books written for young adults by this Scottish author. Published in 1861, the book follows the glorious tradition of Victorian adventure sagas which emerged from the great discoveries that were made during this time, as England began colonizing distant lands...

A fatherless boy joins the crew of a whaling ship in order to earn a living for himself and his mother. Beyond being a fascinating depiction of a now-alien time, occupation, and culture, it’s also a rousing adventure story. One is left with the impression that hunting and catching a whale in a sailing ship was akin to you or me being stalked, ambushed, and killed by a shoebox full of mice.

At the age of 16 Ballantyne went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company. His rule in writing, being in every case, was to write as far as possible from personal knowledge of the scenes he described. In this book he details the lives of the crew as they must overwinter in the frozen north including their meetings with Eskimos and bears and their struggles with disease. This is a realistic account of what life was like for the explorers of the Arctic.

R. M. Ballantyne (April 24, 1825 – February 8, 1894) was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer. Born Robert Michael Ballantyne in Edinburgh, he was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. At the age of 16 he went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He returned to Scotland in 1847, and published his first book the following year, Hudson’s Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America. For some time he was employed by Messrs Constable, the publishers, but in 1856 he gave up business for the profession of literature, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated.

This is a story of an adventure involving a young man, his dog, and two friends. Together they wander through the Western prairies on a mission to make peace between the “pale-faces” and the “Red men”. They face many perils and become heroes many times over. This wonderful story takes the characters (and the reader) on an action-packed journey through the Western prairies during the times when relations between the white man and the Natives were not always peaceful.

Although the book's title Black Ivory denotes dealing in the slave trade it is not our heroes who are doing it. At the very first chapter there is a shipwreck, which leaves the son of the charterer of the sinking ship, and a seaman friend of his, alone on the east coast of Africa, where Arab and Portuguese slave traders were still carrying out their evil trade, despite the great efforts of patrolling British warships to limit it and free the unfortunates whom they found being carried away in the Arab dhows...

This story surrounds a child waif, a young woman, a young gentleman doctor, and an elderly lady. This tale unfolds the story of a bond that brings these unlikely friends together and merges their separate paths of life into one common path. The bond is "Dumps", or "Pompey", the "doggie". With many twists, turns, and uncertainties, the ending may surprise the reader. All's well that ends well in this doggie "tail". (Introduction by Allyson Hester)

Whether you're a parent or a child, a young reader or an older one, the Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter is indeed just that – a treasure chest of delightful, charming little stories full of animals and people. Beatrix Potter today has spawned a whole industry of merchandise, games and theme parks, but the stories remain as fresh and sparkling as they were when they first came out in 1901. The Great Big Treasury contains three collections compiled into one enchanting volume - The Giant Treasury of Peter Rabbit, Further Tales of Peter Rabbit and The Giant Treasury of Beatrix Potter...

Mary Roberts Rinehart -- "America's Agatha Christie," as she used to be called -- set this story in a New York suburban town, shortly after the end of the first world war. Dick Livingstone is a young, successful doctor, who in the course of events becomes engaged to Elizabeth Wheeler. But there is a mystery about his past, and he thinks himself honor-bound to unravel it before giving himself to her in marriage. In particular, a shock of undetermined origin has wiped out his memory prior to roughly the last decade...

Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote 6 books about the elderly Letitia (Tish) Carberry and the escapades she gets her elderly lady cronies into. The series led to a 1942 movie with Marjorie Main. This particular book, the third in the series, was written after Mary's stint as a war correspondent in Belgium during the first World War.

In 1879 John Muir went to Alaska for the first time. Its stupendous living glaciers aroused his unbounded interest, for they enabled him to verify his theories of glacial action. Again and again he returned to this continental laboratory of landscapes. The greatest of the tide-water glaciers appropriately commemorates his name. Upon this book of Alaska travels, all but finished before his unforeseen departure, John Muir expended the last months of his life.

It tells the story of Henry Esmond's twin grandsons, George and Henry Warrington. Henry's romantic entanglements with an older woman lead up to his taking a commission in the British army and fighting under the command of General Wolfe at the capture of Quebec. On the outbreak of the American War of Independence he takes the revolutionary side. George, who is also a British officer, thereupon resigns his commission rather than take up arms against his brother.

Joe Kenmore heard the airlock close with a sickening wheeze and then a clank. In desperation he turned toward Haney. “My God, we’ve been locked out!” Through the transparent domes of their space helmets, Joe could see a look of horror and disbelief pass across Haney’s face. But it was true! Joe and his crew were locked out of the Space Platform. Four thousand miles below circled the Earth. Under Joe’s feet rested the solid steel hull of his home in outer space. But without tools there was no hope of getting back inside. Joe looked at his oxygen meter. It registered thirty minutes to live.

It is 30,000 years following dramatically changed climate conditions on earth which had let massive amounts of carbon dioxide belch from the interior of the planet into the atmosphere. Over the millenia this would have quite devastating effects on life as it had once been known. Much of the human and animal population would not survive the climate change, and indeed those few humans who did survive knew nothing of all which their predecessors had learned and built. Indeed, they knew not even of their existence...

Jed Cochrane is about to take off on man's first interstellar voyage. His mission: Make sure it's good television! (Introduction by Mark Nelson)

SPACE PLATFORM tells the exciting story of a young man helping to build this first station. With scientific accuracy and imagination Murray Leinster, one of the world's top science-fiction writers, describes the building and launching of the platform. Here is a fast-paced story of sabotage and murder directed against a project more secret and valuable than the atom bomb!

The Bastable children, first met in The Treasure Seekers, are sent to stay in the countryside; is it large enough to contain their exuberant activities? They (and Pincher the dog) have every intention of being good…

A fourteen year old homeless boy, Dick, tries to make an honest living in the streets of 1860s New York as a bootblack. He is determined to stay honorable, though he is tempted many times to easy pickings and a life of crime. When a regular customer is impressed by Dick's integrity and invites him to his mansion, this marks a turning point in the life of the young street-smart teenager. Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger Jr was first published in 1868. It represents a typical coming of age story in which a child attains the maturity of adulthood through circumstances in which important choices are made...

The typical action hero with a stiff upper lip whose actions speak louder than his words, a mysterious American who lives in dread of being killed, an anarchist plot to destabilize Greece, a deadly German spy network, a notebook entirely written in code, and all this set in the weeks preceding the outbreak of World War I. The Thirty-nine Steps, by John Buchan is a spy classic entirely worthy of its genre and will delight modern day readers with its complicated plot. It is also notable for being the literary progenitor of the spook novel that typically features the secret operative on the run, determined to unravel a world domination plot...

Greenmantle is the second of five Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan, first published in 1916 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being Mr Standfast (1919); Hannay’s first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set in the period immediately before the war started. – Hannay is called in to investigate rumours of an uprising in the Muslim world, and undertakes a perilous journey through enemy territory to meet up with his friend Sandy in Constantinople. Once there, he and his friends must thwart the Germans’ plans to use religion to help them win the war, climaxing at the battle of Erzurum.

This classic adventure novel by the author of Greenmantle and The Thirty-Nine Steps relates the first-person exploits of young David Crawfurd before the age of twenty.

These twelve poems are from Ballads of a Cheechako which was Robert W. Service’s third book of Yukon poems, published in 1909. The word Cheechako, from Chinook Jargon, originated in the United States (Alaska) and Canada (Yukon) and was imported into local English during the Yukon gold rush that began in 1896. Cheechako, is a non derogatory word meaning “newcomer” or “tenderfoot.” The derivation looks something like this: chee new cha come ko home.

The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service with patrons, musicians and organizers. Robert Service is an iconic Canadian poet.

'Roughing It In the Bush' is Susanna Moodie's account of how she coped with the harshness of life in the woods of Upper Canada, as an Englishwoman homesteading abroad. Her narrative was constructed partly as a response to the glowing falsehoods European land-agents were circulating about life in the New World. Her chronicle is frank and humorous, and was a popular sensation at the time of its publication in 1852.

This road trip novel is set in the early twentieth century and follows the experiences of an aristocratic New Englander and her father as they travel by automobile from Minneapolis to Seattle. She is wooed and won by a noble but simple commoner she meets along the way. Lewis is at his usual wryly humorous self, poking fun at the upper class and treating the common people only slightly better.

First published in 1863, The Water Babies by Rev Charles Kingsley became a Victorian children's classic along with J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Lewis Caroll's Alice books. It is an endearing and entertaining novel that can equally be enjoyed by adult readers as well. However, it fell out of favor in later years since it contained many ideas that are considered politically incorrect and offensive today from a humanitarian perspective. The Water Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby to give the book its complete title tells the story of Tom, a young orphan chimney-sweep in Victorian London...

A sailing memoir written by seaman and adventurer Joshua Slocum, who was the first person to sail around the world alone, documents his epic solo circumnavigation. An international best-seller, the book became a great influence and inspiration to travelers from each corner of the globe. Additionally, Slocum is an example that through determination, courage and hard work any dream can easily become a reality. Written in a modern and conversational tone, the autobiographical account begins with Slocum’s description of his hometown of Nova Scotia and its maritime history...

This novel is written by the author of, among other novels, the Stories of Sherlock Holmes. It is narrated by John Fothergill West, who tries to discover why the tenant of Cloomber Hall, General Heatherstone, is nervous to the point of being paranoid. Why are his fears becoming stronger every year at the fifth of October? And why doesn't he let his children leave home? This is a great mystery novel with a sharp twist at the end.

Looking for a replacement to Sherlock Holmes after the author had killed him off in 1894, Doyle wrote this murder mystery in the dying years of the 19th century. Set in Napoleon’s era, it involves a Frenchman returning to his native land to join the Emperor’s ranks.

This is a collection of early Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short stories. It includes stories of mystery, comedy, shipwrecks and fantasy.

Also published under the title The Tragedy of the Korosko (1898). A group of European tourists are enjoying their trip to Egypt in the year 1895. They are sailing up the River Nile in a "a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler", the Korosko. They intend to travel to Abousir at the southern frontier of Egypt, after which the Dervish country starts. They are attacked and abducted by a marauding band of Dervish warriors. The novel contains a strong defence of British Imperialism and in particular the Imperial project in North Africa. It also reveals the very great suspicion of Islam felt by many Europeans at the time.