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The Plastic Age (1924) is a novel by Percy Marks, which tells the story of co-eds at a fictional college called Sanford. With contents that covered or implied hazing, partying, and petting, the book sold well enough to be the second best-selling novel of 1924. The following year, it was adapted into a film of the same name, starring Clara Bow....

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Fiction

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Parnassus on Wheels is about a fictional traveling book-selling business. The original owner of the business, Roger Mifflin, sells it to 39-year-old Helen McGill, who is tired of taking care of her ailing older brother, Andrew. (summary from wikipedia)...

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Best known for his literary work The Blue Lagoon , which has been made into film several times over, H. De Vere Stacpoole’s first publication was a book titled The Intended in 1894. Stacpoole was disappointed at its lack of commercial success, and felt the story was too good to let go. He eventually re-worked the book, culminating in The Man Who Lost Himself , a light-hearted story of a luckless American visiting London on yet another of his failed business ventures, when he happens upon a gentleman of status and wealth, who also just happens to be his exact look-alike. (Summary by Roger Melin)...

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Fiction

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This is the final volume in the trilogy following the smart, stylish, divorced and independent businesswoman Emma McChesney in her career from stenographer, then drummer (traveling salesman) to owner of her own company. (The first was Roast Beef, Medium and the second Personality Plus both in the catalog). Edna Ferber first gained success with these stories and later went on to write Show Boat, Giant and other well known books. First published in 1915, Emma's son, Jock, has moved to Chicago with his new wife. Emma decides to sell in South America and proves she has not lost her magic touch. Emma gets involved in romance, saving a business and many other things. Emma symbolizes the ideal woman at the dawn of the twentieth century: sharp, capable, charming, and progressive. ( Summary by Phil Chenevert)...

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Fiction

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The Harbor was written in 1915 by Ernest Poole. The novel is considered by many to be one of Poole’s best efforts even though his book, The Family won a Pulitzer Prize. The Harbor is a fictional account of life on a Brooklyn waterfront through the eyes of Billy as he is growing up. The novel starts with Billy the child, living on the harbor with his father, mother, and sister, Sue. During this time he also meets Eleanor who, at that time, he considers to be strange. She later becomes an important character in the novel. His father owns a shipping business, is hard-working, and can think of little else. As a young man, Billy begins to detest the harbor and longs for escape to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a writer and avoiding his father’s business. With his mother’s blessing, he takes flight to Paris to hone his trade. While in Paris, he meets Joe Kramer (J.K.) and a sometimes stormy relationship begins. J.K. forces him to confront human situations that Billy would prefer to close his eyes to. Billy eventually returns to the harbor after some years and recognizes changes are taking place in the harbor, and in his life. The h...

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Fiction

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Harold Bindloss, while born in England, based most of his novels in western Canada, and The Protector is based primarily in and around Vancouver and Victoria. There is often danger involved in the mining and timber industries north of Vancouver, and there is also danger in the trust given to people who own and operate these mines and timber lands. And finding one's way in locating them can be equally as difficult as well. Wallace Vane and his trusted friend Carroll seemed to encounter these dangers in a seemingly endless journey both for business purposes and for adventure in their search for adequate timber land which they had inadvertently heard of. What is the driving force behind Wallace Vane? Did he regret leaving his home country and the people he knew when he left England, therefore had something to prove, but didn't even realize it himself? Was it simply a secret joy that he received whenever he observed the beauty of his adopted country with its mountains, forests, and crystal clear water? Perhaps it was his reasonable success in the lumber industry? Or was it something deeper within him? Something, perhaps, that he didn't ...

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Fiction

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Burning Daylight, Jack London's fictional novel published in 1910, was one of the best selling books of that year and it was his best selling book in his lifetime. The novel takes place in the Yukon Territory in 1893. The main character, nicknamed Burning Daylight was the most successful entrepreneur of the Alaskan Gold Rush. The story of the main character was partially based upon the life of Oakland entrepreneur Borax Smith. (Wikipedia)...

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Adventure, Fiction

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At thirty-four Mr. Wrenn was the sales-entry clerk of the Souvenir Company. He was always bending over bills and columns of figures at a desk behind the stock-room. He was a meek little bachelor--a person of inconspicuous blue ready-made suits, and a small unsuccessful mustache. Mr. Wrenn, however has a rich inner life embellished by his own imagination. When he comes into a modest inheritance, he feels he ought to learn to get out and wander a bit, and then his education begins. He finds life more interesting, perhaps than he had imagined. . . (Introduction by Don Jenkins)...

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Fiction, Comedy

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If Winter Comes, was in many aspects ahead of its time, dealing with an unhappy marriage, eventual divorce, and an unwed mother who commits suicide. According to the New York Times, If Winter Comes was the best-selling book in the United States for all of 1922. ( Summary by Wikipedia )...

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Fiction, Romance

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Years ago, a manufacturer built a great dock, jutting out from and then turning parallel to the shore of a northern Michigan town. The factory was abandoned, and following the habits of small towns, the space between the dock and the shore became The Cinder Pond. Jean started life in the colony of squatters that came to live in the shanties on the dock, but fortune, heroism, and a mystery combine to change her fortunes and those of her friends near the Cinder Pond. (Advertising material from the publisher, 1915)More than one girl who reads this story will envy Jeanne her queer little home out on the end of the old dock in Lake Superior. It must indeed have been a fascinating place to live, but Jeanne's father, a gentleman himself, wanted her to grow up to be a lady, so she was sent away to be trained and educated among strangers. They were her own relatives, but they could never be anything but strangers to her, for they had no love in their hearts for the little girl who had come to make a home with them. Only her grandfather learned to love her, for she filled a bright place in his lonely life, and the story tells how he showed hi...

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Children, Fiction

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Ruth and Alice DeVere and their father Hosmer struggle to make ends meet in New York City - times are hard, even for a talented actor like Mr. DeVere. Just as he successfully auditions for a new play, an old voice affliction renders him terribly hoarse and he loses the role. Despite voice rest and medical treatment, Mr. DeVere's voice fails to improve, and it is impossible to find theatre work. A friend and neighbour in their apartment building suggests that Mr. DeVere tries acting in the moving pictures (which being silent, would not need him to speak at all) but Mr. DeVere considers that business to be common and cheap. However, when they receive an eviction notice, and local shops refuse to extend credit, Mr. DeVere may have no choice ... and where he goes, his daughters will follow. Summary by Cori Samuel....

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Teen/Young adult, Fiction

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This short story by Anna Katharine Green revolves around a plot to steal some goods secured safely within an impenetrable vault within the confines of Mr. Stoughton's business concern. Nobody seems to have any clue as to how the vault can be accessed, and yet access is gained once a day by person or persons unknown, by a means not known to anyone, apparently Mr. Stoughton himself included! Every clerk in the office is suspect, as the devious plot to plunder the vault's contents unfolds. (Introduction by Roger Melin)...

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Mystery, Fiction

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Zombie stories from thirty-two of your favorite female authors in this Bestselling Zombie Anthology Featuring stories and excerpts from - Tamara Rose Blodgett Vanessa Booke Chantal Boudreau Laura Bretz Tonia Brown Catt Dahman Mia Darien CM Doporto Jacqueline Druga Dana Fredsti Belinda Frisch April Grey Michelle Kilmer Rebecca Hansen Lori R. Lopez Suzi M. Tara Maya Shannon Mayer Lyra McKen Cynthia Melton Kristen Middleton Chrissy Peebles Jeannie Rae Suzanne Robb Julianne Snow Rebecca Snow Anna Taborska Ally Thomas C,A, Verstraete A.R. Von Annie Walls Jen Wilde With over 325,000 words and featuring some of Amazon's Best Selling Female Authors of Horror, this is certainly not your typical anthology book! Sit back as your favorite authors of zombie lit take you on a wild, horrifying ride that will leave you breathless. Come and meet the women who love to entertain you with their own unique versions of the zombie apocalypse....

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Bart Steele, Space Academy graduate, is on his way home to his father's business - he runs a fleet of spaceships for interstellar travel. The secret for fast interstellar travel though is still tightly kept by the alien race Lhari. An agreement between humans and Lhari has been made that permits humans only to travel in cold sleep as passengers aboard Lhari vessels as to not reveal the secret.Some humans – the Mentorians - have had a slight genetic shift which enhanced their vision to withstand the light levels that the aliens Lhari use and live in. Mentorians perceive a wider optical spectrum than ordinary humans – some can see the ‘eighth color’. Mentorians act as translators, middleman and interpreters between the two races. But their ability sets them apart from the rest of humanity. Bart, half Mentorian, has this ability.Bart, surgically altering his appearance to hire as a Lhari on a homeworld bound Lhari vessel, attempts to steal the secret of the Warp Drive - an attempt on which countless humans spies have failed before. (Summary by Stephan Möbius)...

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Science fiction

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Roger Mifflin is the somewhat eccentric proprietor of The Haunted Bookshop , a second-hand bookstore in Brooklyn that is haunted by the ghosts of all great literature. Beginning with the arrival of a young advertising man and the mysterious disappearance of a certain volume from the shelves of the bookshop, a lively and often humorous tale of intrigue unfolds, generously sprinkled with liberal doses of Roger's unique philosophy on literature and book selling. (Summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

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Mystery

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“Max Brand, the most used pseudonym of Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944), is best known today for his western fiction. Faust began in the early twentieth century selling his stories to the pulp magazines, writing in many genres under numerous pseudonyms. He is probably best known as the creator of the character Destry. His novel Destry Rides Again has been filmed several times, most notably the 1939 version starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. Also his character Dr. Kildare which was popularized in film and on television earned him a fortune. Faust’s novel The Untamed, the first of three novels featuring the classic western hero Dan Barry was filmed in 1920, starring Tom Mix. Faust became a front line war correspondent and died of wounds received while traveling with American soldiers in Italy, May 12, 1944. Trailin’ (1919) tells the story of Anthony Bard, a young aristocract from the east with a hunger for adventure, who sees his father murdered in the yard of their home. This starts young Anthony on a trail of vengeance that leads him to the far west. Here, Anthony, a tenderfoot with a knack for survival must track down...

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Westerns

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Tom Swift, that prolific youthful inventor, is engaged in trying to help the Allies win WWI. After reading newspaper accounts of the British tanks, Tom takes a sheet of paper and sets out to design a better one from scratch. And fortunately, he can throw the whole family business behind his venture. He has two problems: First, his friends and acquaintances are questioning his patriotism because he hasn't enlisted as a rifleman for the front lines. Even his girl is worried his blood isn't true-blue. But that's because he is developing his tank in secret, and they don't know he's concentrating on winning the war the American way, with machines. The second problem is that the German spies have penetrated the secret of what is being built in the high-security shop on the Swift property. And they will stop at nothing to steal its design - not kidnapping Tom, and not kidnapping the tank itself, complete with crew. Tom and his buddies had better work fast, or the American riflemen are going to find the Kaiser's soldiers using American-designed tanks against them! (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

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Fiction, Teen/Young adult, Adventure

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman opens a window of history through which we can see a small part of the determined efforts made by women to elevate the circumstances of women in the early 20th century.Diantha Bell is a normal young woman desiring marriage and a home, but also a challenging career in a new territory which raises many eyebrows and sets malicious tongues wagging. Her effort to elevate housework and cooking to a regulated and even scientific business, for the relief of homemakers, is a depiction of the late 19th century movement to promote Domestic Science, or Home Economics, as a means of providing more healthful home life, as well as career paths for women.Diantha's business prospers as she shows her excellent gifts of administration, organization and homemaking. She grows an empire, and brings happiness and wholesomeness to every area of endeavor which she carefully attempts.The improvements in women's opportunities have not been available very long, indeed.This is a good reminder....

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Literature, Fiction, Cookery

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The Flying Inn is a novel first published in 1914 by G.K. Chesterton. It is set in a future England where a bizarre form of Progressive Islam has triumphed and largely dominates the political and social life of the country. Because of this, alcohol sales are effectively prohibited. The plot centers around the adventures of Humphrey Pump and Captain Patrick Dalroy, who roam the country in their cart with a barrel of rum in an attempt to evade Prohibition, exploiting loopholes in the law to temporarily prevent the police taking action against them. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Fiction, Fantasy

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Trent's Last Case (US title The Woman in Black ) is actually the first novel in which gentleman sleuth Philip Trent appears. The novel is a whodunit whose unique place in the history of detective fiction is because it is at the same time the first major send-up of that very genre: Not only does Trent fall in love with one of the primary suspects — usually considered a no-no — he also, after painstakingly collecting all the evidence, draws all the wrong conclusions. Convinced that he has tracked down the murderer of a business tycoon who was shot in his mansion, he is told by the real perpetrator over dinner what mistakes in the logical deduction of the solution of the crime he has made. On hearing what really happened, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Mystery, Fiction