All Graded Readers

Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 6 A Passage To India

E. M. Forster

STAGE 6 - Classics

A mysterious incident at the Marabar Caves, involving Adela Quested, newly arrived from England, and Dr Aziz, an Indian doctor, leads to a drama that divides the British and Indian communities in anger, distrust, and fear.
Forsters great novel brings to life all the dangers and misunderstandings of colonialism but, as Forster himself wrote, the story is about something wider than politics, about the search of the human race for a more lasting home, about the universe as embodied in the Indian earth and the Indian sky, about the horror lurking in the Marabar Caves...

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Heat and Dust

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - Human Interest

Heat and dust - these simple, terrible words describe the Indian summer. Year after year, endlessly, it is the same. And everyone who experiences this heat and dust is changed for ever.

We often say, in these modern times, that sexual relationships have changed, for better or for worse. But in this book we see that things have not changed. Whether we look back sixty years, or a hundred and sixty, we see that it is not things that change, but people. And, in the heat and dust of an Indian summer, even people are not very different after all.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 The Riddle of the Sands

Erskine Childers
Retold by Peter Hawkins

STAGE 5 - Thriller & Adventure

When Carruthers joins his friend Arthur Davies on his yacht Dulcibella, he is expecting a pleasant sailing holiday in the Baltic Sea. But the holiday turns into an adventure of a different kind. He and Davies soon find themselves sailing in the stormy waters of the North Sea, exploring the channels and sandbanks around the German Frisian Islands, and looking for a secret - a secret that could mean great danger for England.

Erskine Childers' novel, published in 1903, was the first great modern spy story, and is still as exciting to read today as it was a hundred years ago.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Treading on Dreams: Stories from Ireland

Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - World Stories

'At home we started with an innocent life. Walking home from village dances across pale wet fields, looking at birds on the moonlit lake, playing a tune across the water in the early morning with no other sound in the clear cold air.'

Innocence and experience, loss and longing, humour and sadness run hand in hand through these stories.

The stories in this volume of World Stories are by Irish writers Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, Lorcan Byrne, Frank O'Connor, Claire Keegan, Eamonn Sweeney, and Somerville & Ross.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 6 Decline and Fall

Evelyn Waugh
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 6 - Human Interest

After a wild, drunken party, Paul Pennyfeather is forced to leave Oxford and begin a new life out in the wide world. His experiences take him from a boys' private school in Wales, where he meets some rather strange people, to a life of luxury in a grand country house and the Ritz Hotel, and then to seven years' hard labour in prison. Where will it all end?

The black humour of this story about English society in the 1920s is as fresh today as it was when the novel was first written.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 Jeeves and Friends - Short Stories

P.G. Wodehouse
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - Human Interest

What on earth would Bertie Wooster do without Jeeves, his valet? Jeeves is calm, tactful, resourceful, and has the answer to every problem. Bertie, a pleasant young man but a bit short of brains, turns to Jeeves every time he gets into trouble. And Bertie is always in trouble.

These six stories include the most famous of P. G. Wodehouse's memorable characters. There are three stories about Bertie and Jeeves, and three about Lord Emsworth, who, like Bertie, is often in trouble, battling with his fierce sister Lady Constance, and his even fiercer Scottish gardener, the red-bearded Angus McAllister . . .

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 David Copperfield Audio CD Pack

Charles Dickens
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - Classics

'Please, Mr Murdstone! Don't beat me! I've tried to learn my lessons, really I have, sir!' sobs David.

Although he is only eight years old, Mr Murdstone does beat him, and David is so frightened that he bites his cruel stepfather's hand. For that, he is kept locked in his room for five days and nights, and nobody is allowed to speak to him.

As David grows up, he learns that life is full of trouble and misery and cruelty. But he also finds laughter and kindness, trust and friendship . . . and love.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 The Bride Price

Buchi Emecheta
Retold by Rosemary Border

STAGE 5 - Human Interest

When her father dies, Aku-nna and her young brother have no one to look after them. They are welcomed by their uncle because of Aku-nna's 'bride price' - the money that her future husband will pay for her.

In her new, strange home one man is kind to her and teaches her to become a woman. Soon they are in love, although everyone says he is not a suitable husband for her. The more the world tries to separate them, the more they are drawn together - until, finally, something has to break.

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Oxford Bookworms Library Stage 5 The Dead of Jericho

Colin Dexter
Retold by Clare West

STAGE 5 - Crime & Mystery

Chief Inspector Morse is drinking a pint of beer. He is thinking about an attractive woman who lives not far away. The woman he is thinking of is hanging, dead, from the ceiling of her kitchen. On the floor lies a chair, almost two metres away from the woman's feet.

Chief Inspector Morse finishes his pint, and orders another. Perhaps he will visit Anne, after all. But he is in no particular hurry.

Meanwhile, Anne is still hanging in her kitchen, waiting for the police to come and cut her down. She is in no hurry, either.

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