Herbert Ernest Bates Knihy

Kniha vypráví o jedné obyčejné anglické rodině (Larkinových), která se chce vyhnout svým zákonným povinnostem. Jedná se o osmičlennou rodinu venkovských usedlíků, která je schopná podnikat na docela slušné úrovni. Všichni, až na nejstarší dceru Mariettu, jsou velmi dobrými jedlíky. Jednoho dne přichází mladý daňový inspektor pan Charlton. Jeho profese napovídá, že se pokusí od této neplatičské rodiny vymoci daň. Jak k tomu však v podobných případech dochází, náš mladý hrdina se zamiluje (do Marietty). Je hostěn pochutinami maminy Larkinové, která je skutečnou mistriní kuchařského řemesla. Taťka Larkin ho zase zahrnuje značným množstvím alkoholických nápojů, které sám mixuje. Není se ani čemu divit, že pan Charlton ztrácí vládu nad sebou a začíná se mu mezi těmito lidmi líbit...

Příběh vypráví o Johnu Franklinovi, pilotovi bombardéru Wellington, který si během druhé světové války, při havárii letadla v Němci okupované Francii, vážně poraní ruku. On a jeho posádka se dostanou na odlehlou farmu, kde se jich ujme rodina francouzského farmáře. Plánuje, že je všechnypropašuje zpět do Británie, přes Marseille ovládanou Vichy, ale Franklinův zdravotní stav se zhoršuje. Zůstává tak na farmě a během následujících horkých letních týdnů se zamiluje do farmářovy dcery Françoise. Nakonec spolu podniknou riskantní cestu na veslici, na kole a vlakem.

Set during World War II, the story follows an English bomber pilot who is shot down over occupied France. Rescued by a French family, he must stay behind to recover from his injuries while his crew escapes. As he heals, he develops a romantic bond with the homeowner's daughter, and together they embark on a journey through France, navigating danger and uncertainty in their quest to return to England. The novel explores themes of love, sacrifice, and resilience amidst the backdrop of war.

A journey down the banks and in the waters of two contrasting Midland rivers, the Nene and Ouse

Pauline, young and beautiful, despairs of escaping from her bullying, drunken father, Quintus Harper, and the miserable poverty of the street where she lives. Then she falls in love with Masher Jonathan, a sensitive man whose quiet talk of justice and freedom transforms her beliefs. But their decision to leave Charlotte's Row bring with it violence and pain of a kind they did not anticipate.

Perfick, Perfick! The Story of the Larkin Family (The Pop Larkin The Darling Buds of May; A Breath of French Air; When the Green Woods Laugh; Oh! To Be In England; A Little of What You Fancy)

Short stories about people who seem perfectly ordinary, but as we get to know them better we see that their feelings are not at all ordinary. High interest low vocab for Adult Literacy and learners. Vocabulary: 1000 words.

Thirty-five of his best short stories, written between 1925 and 1961, and chosen by H.E. Bates.Contents:The Flame; A Flower Piece; The Mower; Time; The Mill; The Station; The Kimono; Breeze Anstey; The Ox; Colonel Julian; The Lighthouse; The Flag; The Frontier; A Christmas Song; The Major of Hussars; Elaine; The Daffodil Sky; The Good Corn; Country Society; Acrosss the Bay; Chaff in the Wind; The Evolution of Saxby; Go Lovely Rose; The Maker of Coffins; Love in a Wych-elm; Let's Play Soldiers; The Watercress Girl; The Cowslip Field; Great Uncle Crow; The Enchantress; Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal; Where the Cloud Breaks; Lost Ball; Thelma; Mrs Eglantine

Used book in good condition, due to its age it could contain normal signs of use

With a letter announcing the imminent arrival of Madame Dupont, Pop and Ma Larkin learn that little Oscar and Blenheim - are to be christened. Pop, who needs no excuse to open a few bottles and host the perfick party, rushes out and buys a fun fair to celebrate. But there are one or two gatecrashers even Pop hadn't counted on turning up.

The story of a beautiful English girl growing up in the 1920s and her lover Richardson.

4 hrs.A year has passed, and in this third novel of the Pop Larkin series, Pop Larkin is preparing to build the bungalow he promised Charley and Mariette upon their engagement. He buys a country home slated for demolition, intending to convert it for the two, but it is not long before a London couple persuade him to sell it. Pop, ever the trickster, sells it for an extortionate price, as the two social climbers know little about country life. Party throwing and cocktail mixing abound until a rocky boat and a misplaced pair of hands have Pop before the local magistrate....

'I should like to go to France,' said Ma. And so at the end of a rainy English August the Larkins - all ten of them, bundle into the old Rolls and cross the Channel. France proves less than welcoming to an eccentric English family. When the manager learns that Ma and Pop are unmarried yet sharing a room under his roof, the trouble really begins.

In each of these ten stories H. E. Bates evokes places and defines a life you could never before have imagined. A pig farmer's wife secretly builds up a 'rich, expensive, dazzling' wardrobe to escape the filthy squalor of her life; a hypocritical do-gooder is driven to more than distraction by two jaguar-belt sirens; a woman wearing odd stockings gets involved with a man who reads his newspaper upside down... The Wild Cherry Tree shows Bates at his most tense and immediate; observing with baleful accuracy just what happens when people are 'thrown suddenly with neither direction nor compass into territory utterly strange or unexplored.'

A story about the bleak and unforgiving nature of insomnia, of restlessness, repressed passion and dislocation. Orlingford is a town where it is hard to differentiate between pleasure and pain: the wonder of a moment is ignored, misconstrued or overridden by the fear of it passing.

Now the basis for a major motion picture from the producers of Howard's End and The Remains of the Day--a brooding, suspenseful novel of sensuality and vengenance, set amid the fields and villages of 19th century England. Bella Ford, jilted by her unscrupulous lover, plans revenge that ends in a catastrophic act of violence.

The Four Beauties was the author's last novella collection, and contains a comic piece, a South Seas adventure, a semi-autobiographical remembrance of a young reporter and his loves, and an exploration of a love triangle. The stories are: The Simple Life, The Four Beauties, The Chords of Youth and The White Wind. Alternate cover edition; 014003420X

A warm summer night. The moon shines down on the quiet houses and gardens. Everyone is asleep. Everyone except the man in pyjamas and slippers, standing on the wet grass at the end of his garden, watching and waiting ... In these three short stories, H.E. Bates presents ordinary people like you and me. But as we get to know them better, we see that their feelings are not at all ordinary. In fact, what happens to them - and in them - is passionate, and even extraordinary. Could this happen to you and me?

'Teetotal!' Ma said. 'It's a libel. Whatever will people think? What's he going to say when anybody asks him to have one?' No, said Dr Conner. And so after a mild heart-attack - Pop Larkin finds himself off the booze. While Ma tries to find ways around 'doctor's orders', young Primrose is finding her own way round a flustered - Mr Candy.

The Bride Comes to Evensford, a novella first published in 1943, follows a woman from her arrival in a small town (modelled on Bates's native Rushden) to her work for a draper, her marriage to him, her increasing command over the business and the household, and finally to her infatuation with a young man as a widow in her fifties. Written and published in the midst of Bates's work for the Air Ministry, but hearkening back in style and subject matter to his pre-war stories, this is a beautiful study of one woman's life, her hopes and disappointments. Philip Toynbee stated that it had “a fine elegant shape, covering with formidable skill a period of thirty years in only twice as many pages...Mr. Bates is a master of restraint...in a period of over-exuberance."

H E Bates; Mary Bowen; Truman Capote; Dylan Thomas; Saki; Liam O'Flaherty; Graham Greene; Ernest Hemingway; James Thurber; Ray Bardbury

Autor je svetoznámy románopisec a majster modernej poviedky. Poviedky v tejto knihe sú akousi pestrofarebnou paletou ľudských osudov z rôznych tematických okruhov - detstvo, staroba, rodičovská láska, no najčastejšie sa predsa len autor vracia ku vzťahu muža a ženy