Powieści i lektury

Po wydaniu mojej drugiej powieści zadzwonił do mnie profesor Domańczyk, mój nauczyciel historii z liceum. W dwóch pierwszych książkach nie opisałem go zbyt dobrze, więc propozycja: „Lang, musimy natychmiast porozmawiać, natychmiast, Lang”, nie wzbudziła we mnie przesadnego entuzjazmu… Powiedział, że może dla odmiany napisałbym coś dobrego, a on ma dla mnie taką historię, że… „Lang, przestań pisać o bzdetach, Lang” – krótko podsumował moje pisarstwo. Od niego dowiedziałem si...

‘‘Ce fut lui, le premier, qui vit la première lueur. Un cri lui échappa, tandis que ses deux mains s’agitaient frénétiquement en l’air. Et, presque aussitôt, comme des étincelles qui crépitent de tous les côtés, d’autres cris s’éparpillèrent dans le silence, qui se reforma instantanément, plus lourd et plus épais.’’ L’extraordinaire énigme des trois yeux. Voulez-vous savoir les réponses?

When Sir Edward Leithen leaves London to spend Whitsuntide as a guest at Flambard, he has no idea of the extraordinary sequence of events about to unfold. Among the collection of fellow guests, some of whom he knows and some he doesn’t, is the extraordinary mind of Professor Moe, a scientist who decides to select some of the houseguests as subjects for his latest experiment. He declares that he can make sure they can see into the future, and the people he chooses – for vari...

The novel tells the prophetic story of man’s harnessing of the newly-discovered power of the atom, how this power nearly destroys civilization in a catastrophic war and foreshadows nuclear warfare years before research began and describes the chain reactions involved and the resulting radiation. It is presented as a history of the important events of the 20th century, jumping back and forth amongst narratives of different eyewitnesses and major players in those events. „The...

This book was written in 1899, and is one of the last science-fiction books Wells wrote before his turn towards social realism in his writing. In this dystopian novel, Graham falls into a coma-like sleep, a sleep that he wakes from some 203 years in the future. But times have changed. Due to the wise investments of a board of trustees, Graham’s money has compounded into the greatest fortune the world has ever seen, and the trustees have used it to virtually enslave the enti...

Dedicated to all schoolmasters and schoolmistresses and every teacher in the world, this re-interpretation of the Book of Job is one of the author’s finest discussion novels. Written in 1918, this is the story of Job Huss, the headmaster of a progressive school. It is saturated with the ideas of educational reform and of the teaching of world history as the basis for a common civilization and is one of his most ambitious dialogue narratives. Essentially it is a modernized p...

Bert Smallways is the unlikely protagonist, a kind of Edwardian Mod, not interested in a steady career, always looking for a good time, riding his proto-scooter down to Brighton at the weekends. When Bert is accidentally scooped up by a German fleet, on its way to launch a surprise attack on the United States, he finds himself with a front row seat to the greatest war that has ever been – the war in the air! This new war is to be a different sort of war than all the wars th...

Decades ahead of his time, H.G. Wells leaps beyond the bounds of conventional imagination to tell the story of the Time Traveler. A seminal and hugely imaginative work of early science fiction, H.G. Wells’s „The Time Machine” is the first and greatest modern portrayal of time-travel and definitely a spiritual ancestor of every time travel story since. The book introduces a scientist who uses a Time Machine to be transferred into the age of a slowly dying earth. Humans have ...

One of the most famous science-fiction stories ever written, „The War of the Worlds” helped launch the entire genre by exploiting the concept of interplanetary travel. Thirty-five million miles into space, a species of Martians sets eyes on planet Earth. With their own planet doomed for destruction, the Martians prepare to invade. Their weapons are ready and their aim is ruthless. The war of the worlds is about to begin. „The War of the Worlds” describes the fictional 1895 ...

This is a short novel about a nineteen century Englishman who falls in a deep sleep only to awake over two hundred years later. The World has changed beyond recognition, and „The Sleeper” finds himself in a remarkable predicament – he has become the owner of the entire planet. However, his awakening profoundly shakes this state of affairs, and he suddenly finds himself at the very center of revolutionary social upheavals and a struggle for the ultimate power. But when he co...

„The Shape of Things to Come” is one of the great classics of science fiction. Originally written in 1929, this masterly work of science fiction has already confirmed H G Wells’ status as a remarkable soothsayer, and provides glimpses of what is perhaps yet to come. The book is written as a sort of historical account. It tells of how a world state could be considered an answer to Earth’s problems. After a large plague wipes out much of humanity, a dictatorship takes over, t...

Herbert George Wells is a huge name in the world of literature. He is known as the king of Science Fiction stories. He was an accomplished teacher, a best-selling novelist, a historian and a journalist, however, he established his name in the world through his passion for writing and will be remembered forever as „Father of Science Fiction”. „The King Who Was a King – The Book of a Film” is a fascinating treatise on the development of film written by H. G. Wells and first p...

Depicting one man’s transformation and descent into brutality, H.G. Wells’s „The Invisible Man” is a riveting exploration of science’s power to corrupt. In this tale of psychological terror, a young scientist must live in the personal hell created by his own experiments. Using himself as the subject, the scientist discovers the key to invisibility; yet, he is unable to reverse the results. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but begins to become mentally ...

On a deceivingly beautiful island in the South Seas exists the sinister kingdom of Doctor Moreau. Edward Prendick is shipwrecked in the Pacific. Rescued by Doctor Moreau’s assistant he is taken to the doctor’s island home where he discovers the doctor has been experimenting on the animal inhabitants of the island, creating bizarre proto-humans...The main plot, a shunned biologist, Dr. Moreau, attempting to create a new species of animals by combining biological elements of ...

What happens when science tampers with nature? Mr. Bensington and Mr. Redwood create a new food material, Herakleophorbia, later called Boomfood, they hope will have beneficial uses to mankind. They come up with a substance that causes flora, fauna, and people to become giants. At first, there are giant nettles, mushrooms – but then it ramps up, with giant rats that can take down and eat horses and wasps so large one could hear them half a mile off. In the end it becomes a ...

Another H.G. Wells classic sci fi. The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon by the impecunious businessman Mr. Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr. Cavor. Bedford bankrupt businessman who is making a comeback by writing a play, through a series of circumstances, teams up with Professor Cavor a recluse scientist who does not realize his own potential. Together they build a contraption, sphere, that can cut off gravity waves. Once on the moon Bedfor...

A fictional biography of Rudolf „Rud” Whitlow, who builds a political party that slowly becomes a world dominant dictatorship. Wells wrote the work just before World War II as Hitler was consolidating his power in Germany. Rud, is a baby boy, and later, grew to be a young man who had a remarkable talent of oratory: the gift of gab. He is eventually encouraged to perform public speaking, lecturing and finally, revolutionary speeches. Through this character, Wells creates a p...

„The Brothers – A Story.” Herbert George Wells was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Wells returned to a literary genre in which he had always excelled: the satire written in the form of an allegory. In a land torn apart by civil war, Bolaris was fiercely loyal to the Strong Men. So when Number Four informed him that Ratzel, leader of the enemy, had been captured, it was naturally a cau...

This story was the first work of fiction in which an explorer traverses time through the use of a man-made device – a time machine – rather than through magic, divine intervention, or a natural phenomenon such as sleep. HG Wells’s „The Chronic Argonauts”, written seven years before his much more famous time travel work, „The Time Machine”. The mysterious Dr. Moses Nebogipfel arrives in a small Welsh town in 1887. The apprehensions of the simple rural folk eventually cause t...

Wells’s treatise on education is set in the region of Camford (Cambridge/Oxford), and tells of a visitor who proves that education can save the world from destruction. The story centres around a Utopian ’ventriloquist’ who subjects human life and in particular its treatment by the University of Camford to sympathetic but quite unsparing scrutiny. At its core, it was a warning to the educational world of imminent war and of its lack of action, as well as an exploration of th...

„The Bulpington of Blup”, a 1932 novel by H. G. Wells, is a character study analyzing the psychological sources of resistance to Wellsian ideology, and was influenced by Wells’s acquaintance with Carl Gustav Jung and his ideas. Theodore Bulpington is a very ordinary man – with a very vivid imagination. Ill at ease with himself, he sees a way to recreate his identity by adding layer upon layer of deception. This he does with such panache that eventually he becomes an imposto...

A soul-corrupting evil invades the remote English village of Cainsmarsh, infesting the minds of the local residents. Dark events are plaguing its people. An elderly woman stiffens in dread at her own shadow; a terrified farmer murders a scarecrow; food prepared by others is eyed with suspicion; family pets are bludgeoned to death; loving couples are devoured by rage and violence. People are becoming suspicious of every move each other makes. Children are coming to school wi...

„The Dream” by H.G Wells follows the character, Sarnac, who lives a whole other life as Harry Mortimer Smith. Sarnac is at the height of his career as a scientist by discovering new research. Sarnac goes with his friends including his girlfriend, Sunray to escape for the holidays. Little does Sarnac know that he would be dreaming a whole new life as a different person. His dream world is peculiar rules and what is socially acceptable than reality. The roles of each member i...

Mr. Parham is a university academic of the traditional, classical sort, very much a snob and unhappy with many of the social trends of the time. Sir Bussy Woodcock is a self-made millionaire of sharp intelligence and great energy but lowly beginnings and no cultural education. This unlikely pair meet by chance and form an intermittent relationship. In an attempt to foster this acquaintance that goes on for six years, Mr. Parham finds himself involved in séances that summon ...

The story centers on Joseph Davis, a popular writer of romanticized histories, who comes to believe that some people differ fundamentally from most of us. They are more rational, possibly more talented and intelligent. His wife has increasingly become a stranger, the imminent birth of his first child has left him in a panicked state, and his rosy-tinted histories have lately begun to strike him as so much bosh. And then he overhears a conversation at his Planetarium Club, i...

„In the Days of the Comet” is set in early 20th century England and covers Willie, a socialist who is angry and frustrated with everything to do with the world he lives in. The only thing Willie finds beautiful and tranquil is the love of his life, Nettie. The story follows Willie and his lust for Nettie as he finds himself perplexed by what the love of his life decides to do. The comet is referred back to quite often and eventually, when it hits, it brings some sort of cle...

Stella has it all – looks, intelligence and an undergraduate place at Cambridge, not to mention Gemini, her fervent admirer at Oxford. Stella and Gemini, the two babes of the story, come increasingly under the influence of a rather impressive psycho-therapeutist whose groundbreaking theories capture their imaginations. But when tragedy strikes they are soon to learn that intellectualism brings cold comfort. When James is disowned by his wrathful relatives, he goes to Russia...

H.G Wells wrote many tales of adventure and exploration, which were fascinating to early twentieth century readers as transportation to faraway lands was so difficult back then. Wells’ „Modern Utopia” was first published in 1905. It set the scene for many modern, scientific utopias and dystopias. The story is set on a planet very like earth. The Utopian Planet differs from earth in that the inhabitants have created a perfect society. Two men, the narrator and his colleague ...

Pierwszy tom bestsellerowej Trylogii Czasu. Nastoletnia Gwen odkrywa, że jest posiadaczką genu podróży w czasie. Przyjdzie jej się zmierzyć z zadaniami przekraczającymi jej epokę, a także... z miłością!

A novel told in first person by a human abducted mind,describing the world of the ancient alien strange civilization,a world of amazing colossal partial underground costructions that persisted buried for eons. The Shadow Out of Time is the story of Professor of Economics Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee who faints one day in the middle of a lecture and regains consciousness five years later only to find that he–or some entity inhabiting his body–has been pursuing eccentric researc...

Lovecraft has proven that he is a master of descriptive writing that creates a sense of mystery, atmosphere, and dismay. On an expedition to Antarctica, Professor William Dyer and his colleagues discover the remains of ancient half-vegetable, half-animal life-forms. The extremely early date in the geological strata is surprising because of the highly-evolved features found in these previously unknown life-forms. Through a series of dark revelations, violent episodes, and mi...

The Sea-Wolf is Jack London’s journey deep into the heart of darkness and madness that each person carries within themselves. It is the story of a Danish youth named Humphrey „Hump” van Weyden and his struggles against the sea, as well as his own inner demons. Humphrey Van Weyden is a gentleman, and academic, who has lived a soft life among civilized, like-minded people. He is on a steemer to visit a friend. On this trip, a fog settles and the ship gets struck and sinks. Mr...

The Iron Heel is a distopian utopian socialist novel, told in first person by someone that have read the manuscript finded in a oak, hidden 600 years ago that tolds the life and adventures of a socialist activist Avis Everhard and her husband Ernst Everhard executed in 1932. The Iron Heel is a story with stories within stories...it’s about a past, a present, and a future...all told from the perspective of a man (Jack London) in 1906...read by current readers almost 100 year...

Heavily influenced by Doyle’s growing belief in Spiritualism after the death of his son, brother, and two nephews in World War I, the book focuses on Edward Malone’s at first professional, and later personal interest in Spiritualism. This is the third and last novel in the „Professor Challenger” series, and is a marked departure from the previous tales. Professor Challenger and Malone return for the adventure, this time exploring the spiritual world. Malone, along with Chal...

The final, and certainly climactic, adventure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor George Edward Challenger is 1928’s „When the World Screamed”. It is another Professor Challenger story where a new craziness pressures him to make the earth feel the existence of human being on its surface. Professor says the earth is a giant creature and it doesn’t even care or know that we – the human being – exist on its surface. Professor believes that by drilling into the center of the ...

Mystery of the Cloomber unfolds, revealing Heathstone’s war crime against a Buddhist priest. Narrated by John Fothergill West, a Scottish man, who moves from Edinburgh to Wigtownshire to care for the family estate when his father’s half brother dies. Near the estate is The Cloomber Hall, for years uninhabited, but now the residence of John Berthier Heatherstone, a general of the Indian Army. General Heatherstone is nervous to the point of being paranoid. As the story unfold...

„The Poison Belt”, a novella by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is remarkable in that we, with the central characters, are permitted to witness what seems to be a global apocalypse, while enduring only minimal emotional fall out. Professor Challenger urgently summons his fellow explorers (Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and reporter E.D. Malone) to a meeting. Oddly, he requires each to bring an oxygen cylinder with him. The mysterious substance suddenly becomes a deadly thre...

The restless, questing intellect of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spurred him far beyond the ingenious puzzles he constructed for Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle’s „The Lost World” focuses on a story about an expedition in the South American Rainforest, leading its four protagonists on a plateau which seems to surround a world believed to be long-gone. Professor Challenger is the one defending his findings, Professor Summerlee is the skeptic, and there are two unbiased observe...

Głównymi bohaterami tej trzytomowej powieści są Winnetou – młody, szlachetny wódz indiańskiego plemienia Apaczów, i jego biały przyjaciel, Old Shatterhand.Młodzi wojownicy zawierają braterstwo krwi, poprzez które – zgodnie z indiańskimi wierzeniami – „ich dusze wchodzą w siebie nawzajem i tworzą jedną jedyną”. Niezwykła przyjaźń sprawdza się podczas licznych przygód, jakie przeżywają Winnetou i Old Shatterhand, stając oko w oko z niebezpiecznymi plemionami Siuksów i Ko...

„The Disintegration Machine” is a story featuring Doyle’s famous character Professor Challenger. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in January 1929. The story centers on the discovery of a machine capable of disintegrating objects and reforming them as they were. This short story is a part of the „Challenger series”, a collection of stories about the wealthy eccentric adventurer Professor Challenger. Unlike Conan Doyle’s laid-back, analytic character, Sherlock Ho...

The people of the small town of Tamfield are not used to exciting things happening. When millionaire Raffles Haw moves to town, rumors spread like wildfire about him. When his home is overtaken by workmen and strange boxes are seen coming and going, it only adds to the intrigue. Robert and Laura are his nearest neighbors and are soon delighted to meet this eccentric new addition to the small English town. The advent of Mr. Haw, however, changes the town, and particularly th...

Rachel Vinrace sets out on a voyage from the confines of her home in England, where she is raised by her spinster aunts, to the exotic coast of South America in the early twentieth century. But more than just the physical journey from one shore to another, „The Voyage Out” is a story of the transformation of this essentially unworldly girl to a more self-possessed woman in love with the seemingly enlightened yet searching young writer, Terence Hewet. Her experiences, from a...

„Jacob’s Room” is an impressionistic novel in which there is no defined plot; rather, random circumstances in the central character’s life, Jacob Flanders, are portrayed as observations of the people who come in contact with him. Set in early 20th century England, Jacob’s Room is simply the story of a young man who dies in the first world war, Jacob Flanderrs, as told in fleeting recollections by his mother and his close friends. The novel follows Jacob’s life, but he is se...

The book opens with an unnamed narrator’s description of a party held one Christmas Eve in England at which some friends have gathered to share ghost stories. One of the partygoers, Douglas, says that he knows a particularly sinister ghost story about a governess’s time spent taking care of a wealthy Londoner’s niece and nephew at a country estate haunted by two ghosts.The story is that a governess goes to an English country house to take charge of two orphaned children, Mi...

In this Gothic novella, Robert Louis Stevenson combines the horrors of the human soul with a disgust for the Victorian importance of reputation. Stevenson delves into the darkest depths of humanity, and seems to discover what Sigmund Freud would not publish for another 15 years: the repression of the id, or the instinctive side of human nature, by the super-ego, or the part of us that holds on to the cultural ideals and rules we were raised with. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a...

James Joyce first wrote Portrait as a one-thousand page novel, full of well-developed scenes and long explanations of Stephen’s motives, but he decided to trim it into a short book with a new sort of style. The novel tells the story of the first twenty years of Stephen Dedalus – a young Catholic boy growing up in late 19th century Ireland. As the title suggests, this is the story not just of a young man, but of a boy developing into an artist. His search for knowledge and u...

Wielki finał Trylogii Snów! Są na świecie ludzie, którzy mają dostęp do snów. Z marzeń sennych można się bardzo wiele dowiedzieć  - pogrzebać w świadomości i podświadomości. Można też popchnąć śniącego do czynów, których nigdy nie dopuściłby się na jawie... Główna bohaterka serii, Liv Silver, ma same kłopoty. Jej antagonista Arthur rośnie w siłę, blogerka Secrecy wie coraz więcej, a groźna Anabel znów pojawia się na sennych korytarzach. Liv musi połączyć siły z przyjaciółmi...

Książka opisuje dzieje potopu szwedzkiego z lat 1655–1660. Dramatyczne Potop jest drugą powieścią historyczną tworzącą Trylogię Henryka Sienkiewicza, w skład której wchodzą także Ogniem i mieczem i Pan Wołodyjowski. wydarzenia historyczne z dziejów Rzeczypospolitej z oblężeniem Częstochowy na pierwszym planie, przeplatają się z losami bohaterów powołanych do życia przez Henryka Sienkiewicza: Andrzeja Kmicica, Oleńki Billewiczówny, Bogusława Radziwiłła, Jana Onufrego Zagłoby c...

Ogniem i mieczem jest pierwszą powieścią historyczną cyklu zwanego Trylogią, w skład którego wchodzą także Potop i Pan Wołodyjowski. Jej akcja rozgrywa się w latach 1648–1651 w czasie powstania Chmielnickiego na Ukrainie. Dramatyczne wydarzenia historyczne z dziejów Rzeczypospolitej przeplatają się z losami bohaterów powołanych do życia przez Henryka Sienkiewicza: Jana Skrzetuskiego, Heleny Kurcewiczówny, Jana Onufrego Zagłoby, Longinusa Podbipięty czy Jurko Bohuna. Dzięki ge...

Zbiór opowieści Gabrieli Zapolskiej zatytułowanych nazwami zwierząt, pod którymi autorka ukrywa ludzkie cechy i przywary. Smutne, czasem prześmiewcze spojrzenie na historie różnych osób, z których wyłania się niepokojący obraz ludzkiej kondycji jako takiej. Stworzonych przez Zapolską bohaterów charakteryzują małostkowość, zazdrość, pycha i brak lojalności.

„Pałuba” to awangardowa, wielowymiarowa proza Karola Irzykowskiego. Główny wątek opowiada historię życia Piotra Włoska, balansującego między rzeczywistością a idealistycznymi oczekiwaniami. Wątek powieściowy opleciony jest licznymi warstwami metaliterackimi, obejmującymi rozważania filozoficzne, psychologiczne i socjologiczne. Irzykowski wyprzedził w „Pałubie” myśl Freuda i dzieło Prousta.

Bułhakow sięga do konwencji science fiction, aby w satyryczny sposób zaprezentować obraz Związku Radzieckiego po rewolucji. W parodystycznej powieści katastroficznej pewien uczony odkrywa tajemnicze promienie, które mają zadziwiający wpływ na organizmy żywe. Na kłopoty nie trzeba długo czekać – wkrótce Związek Radziecki zalewa plaga potwornych gadów.

Jednak „Winnetou” to przede wszystkim opowieść o niezwykłej przyjaźni, pokonującej granice ras i kultur. Relacja łącząca młodego indiańskiego wodza i przybysza z Europy zachwyca bezinteresownością, tolerancją, zrozumieniem dla różnic. We wspólnych przygodach ujawniają się także niezwykłe oddanie i godna podziwu wierność, które składają się na obraz przyjaźni doskonałej.

Tło powieści Winnetou stanowią wydarzenia końcowej fazy podboju Dzikiego Zachodu. Dziki, pierwotny, indiański świat przeciwstawiony jest cywilizacji amerykańskiej, przy czym szala sympatii przechyla się często na stronę Indian. May pokazuje białych osadników jako zachłannych i niegodziwych obcych, który działania zaburzają dotychczasowe życie Indian.