Pre-intermediate

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he's not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy's tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time. Classics

Arnold Bennett is famous for his stories about the Five Towns and the people who live there. They look and sound just like other people, and, like all of us, sometimes they do some very strange things. There's Sir Jee, who is a rich businessman. So why is he making a plan with a burglar? Then there is Toby Hall. Why does he decide to visit Number 11 Child Row, and who does he find there? And then there are the Hessian brothers and Annie Emery - and the little problem of twelve thousand pounds. Human Interest

In English-speaking countries around the world people celebrate Easter, Valentine's Day, Christmas, and other special days. Some celebrations are new, like Remembrance Day and Mother's Day; others, like the summer solstice, go back thousands of years. What happens on these special days? What do people eat, where do they go, what do they do? Why is there a special day for eating pancakes? Who is the 'guy' that children take onto the streets in November? And where do many people like to spend the shortest night of the year in England? Come on a journey through a year of celebrations, from New Year's Eve to Christmas.

Factfiles

In English-speaking countries around the world people celebrate Easter, Valentine's Day, Christmas, and other special days. Some celebrations are new, like Remembrance Day and Mother's Day; others, like the summer solstice, go back thousands of years. What happens on these special days? What do people eat, where do they go, what do they do? Why is there a special day for eating pancakes? Who is the 'guy' that children take onto the streets in November? And where do many people like to spend the shortest night of the year in England? Come on a journey through a year of celebrations, from New Year's Eve to Christmas. Factfiles

As they walk through a park in the distant future, Harl and Ellen talk about their work and their lives. But they will never have a life together because their work as scientists is more important to them than their love. Harl plans to leave Earth, on a long and dangerous journey through space. Ellen plans to stay on Earth, to change the way the human mind works. When Harl returns to Earth, Ellen will be long dead ...and the world will be a very different place.

Fantasy Horror

Deep rivers, tall trees, strange animals, beautiful flowers - this is the rainforest. Burning trees, thick smoke, new roads and cities, dead animals, people without homes - this is the rainforest too. To some people the rainforests mean beautiful places that you can visit; to others they mean trees that they can cut down and sell. Between 1950 and 2000 half of the world's rainforests disappeared. While you read these words, somewhere in the world people are cutting down rainforest trees. What are these wonderful places that we call rainforests - and is it too late to save them?

Factfiles

Deep rivers, tall trees, strange animals, beautiful flowers - this is the rainforest. Burning trees, thick smoke, new roads and cities, dead animals, people without homes - this is the rainforest too. To some people the rainforests mean beautiful places that you can visit; to others they mean trees that they can cut down and sell. Between 1950 and 2000 half of the world's rainforests disappeared. While you read these words, somewhere in the world people are cutting down rainforest trees. What are these wonderful places that we call rainforests - and is it too late to save them? Factfiles

Everybody has bad dreams. Horrible things move towards you in the dark, things you can hear but not see. Then you wake up, in your own warm bed, and turn over to go back to sleep. But imagine that you wake up on a hard floor, in a darkness blacker than the blackest night. You listen to the silence, and smell a wet dead smell. Death is all around you, waiting ...In these stories by Edgar Allan Poe, death whispers at you from every dark corner, and fear can send you mad ... Fantasy Horror