« I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”

The storming of the Bastille, the drop of the guillotine blade―this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in the novel A Tale of Two Cities.

It was the era of suppressed people rising for their rights, overthrowing centuries of corrupt regime; for them the wounds and blood was sweet as it was tinged with the air of liberation.

With compassion and empathy, Dickens writes some unforgettable scenes and memorable characters: the sinister Madame Defarge, knitting her patterns of death; the gentle Lucie Manette, unswerving in her devotion to her broken father; Charles Darnay, the lover with a secret past, and Sydney Carton, whose unlikely heroism gives his life meaning.

In Dicken’s enigmatic world of treachery and heroism, explore the bravest and weakest corners of human nature, and the redemptive power of love and sacrifice.

“It happens that I want you, and so I just haven’t room for any other desires.”

The most glittering orbs have the sharpest edges, and the most shinning lives the darkest truths.

Anthony Patch is a Harvard-educated, aspiring socialite. Gloria Gilbert is a beautiful but narcissistic dancer living in New York. Stunned by Gloria’s beauty, Anthony falls in love with her; and they are soon married. Gloria is a reveller who wants the fine life, and Anthony a spoilt brat who doesn’t want to work in life.

The passionate and glamorous couple await Anthony’s inheritance, till they run out of money and the joy in each other’s company. What happens as their marriage begins to fail in the face of reality? Will they be able to make the life they want or their laziness will be the crux of their falling.

Fitzgerald weaves a reminder of the follies of human ambition set against lots of glamor, jazz music, cigars and glittery gowns. This story is a grown-up fairy-tale with realities of the hustle looming nearby.

“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.”

A story told through letters, Dracula is the first novel set against the fantasy of vampires. The story that gave popular culture the tropes of vampire teeth, bites on the neck and their aversions to sun retold time and again.

Set in the wilderness of Transylvania, the Castle Dracula becomes a dark hole where visitors become confined to the prisoners of the castle. Count Dracula, the lord of the castle, is trying to move from Transylvania to England, but is unable to because every person who arrives becomes a victim of his uncontrollable vampire seductions.

A thrilling tale of survival of both the victims and victimizer; the Count’s desperate measures to escape a lonely existence. The horrifying twists and turns make it a gripping read and the spooky settings leaves the reader wide eyed.