Author: Victor Hugo
Summary
In Les Misérables, set in France in the nineteenth century, there are different stories intertwined and bound together by the life story of its main character, Jean Valjean,
a former convict who seeks social redemption by means of good deeds, but is haunted by his past.
Level: advanced.
Source: PENGUIN READERS, Teacher Support Programme.
Author: Charles Dickens
Summary
Oliver Twist’s mother dies shortly after giving birth to him in a workhouse. At nine years old he goes to live with an undertaker where he is cruelly treated. He then runs away to London, where he becomes involved with a gang of child thieves, controlled by the evil Fagin. After a street robbery goes wrong, Oliver is cared for by the kindly Mr Brownlow but he soon ends up back in the grips of Fagin and his accomplice Bill Sikes.
Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Summary
Crime and Punishment begins with the double murder of an elderly pawnbroker, Alena Ivanovna, and her younger sister, Elizabeth, by a young law student called Raskolnikoff.
Author: Aldous Huxley
Summary
Set far in the future, in the twenty-sixth century, it depicts a society in which people’s lives are completely controlled by world government. Foetuses are created by artificial fertilization in test tubes and ‘parents’ are unknown. Society is divided into different levels, with each level performing different functions, and children are given whispered messages in their sleep that teach them to be content with their place in society.
Plot
Eight months before the film opens, seven British pensioners travelled to what they thought was going to be a glamorous resort in Jaipur, India, where they planned to spend their retirement years in the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”. Things, however, were not as they expected…
Now, eight months later, we return to see how they are progressing, Muriel, once a bitter xenophobe, is now helping the young hotel owner, Sonny, to manage the business.
Plot
Violet Weston lives with her alcoholic husband, Beverly, a writer and academic, and her daughter Ivy. She has been a drug addict for many years. She is also suffering from cancer of the mouth, and one day Beverly hires a girl, Johnna, to look after her.
Plot
1985. Zubrowa’s greatest author is reminiscing about the writing of his last book. He goes back to 1968, when he went to stay at The Grand Budapest Hotel. While there he met the owner, Zero Mustapha, once the richest man in the country.
Plot
Los Angeles, 1998. Maria Altman attends her sister’s funeral. As young women they were forced to flee their country when the Nazi persecution of the Jews began. Among her papers are references to a painting belonging to their aunt which is now in the Belvedere in Vienna. She decides to consult an old friend’s son, Randol Schoenberg, who is a lawyer. The painting is no less than Klimt’s Woman in Gold, which was stolen by the Nazis during the war. There is a committee dealing with claims for the return of works of art and Maria would like to pursue the matter further.
Plot
Riggan Thomson is an ex-Hollywood star now down on his luck. He had been famous years before playing a superhero called Birdman. He constantly hears the voice of Birdman, which mocks and criticizes him for quitting the role. He is trying to revive his career by appearing in a play on Broadway, which he is also writing and directing. The lay also stars his girlfriend, Laura, a first-time Broadway actress, Lesley, and an unconvincing actor called Ralph.