Central Skagit Library District

Beowulf is the foundation of English literature. It celebrates the courage and leadership of the mythical Anglo-Saxon warlord in his battles with supernatural monsters. The Nibelungenlied, in a version rendered by critic and academic Helen M. Mustard, endures as a remarkable fusion of history and poetry that is a vital component of German literature. Goethe maintained that knowledge of the work constituted an integral part of the country's education. Also...

Geoffrey Chaucer's fourteenth-century masterpiece The Canterbury Tales is such a rollicking good read that you'll forget many critics and scholars also regard it as one of the most important literary works in English. A group of pilgrims are traveling together to visit a holy shrine at the Canterbury Cathedral. Along the way, they decide to hold a storytelling contest to pass the time, with the winner to be awarded a lavish feast on the

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At the height of WWII, a quartet of daring American adventurers pits their cunning against a cadre of Nazi S.S. agents seeking to acquire a powerful weapon for the Fuhrer's arsenal; today, as the Nazi specter begins to rear its head once again, the descendants of those long-ago adventurers must unlock the secrets of their forebears' mission in order to save the world from Hitler's resurgent Reich. Now, modern science and ancient Tibetan mythology...

This volume is an absurdist play in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. They claim he's an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him when they do see him. To occupy the time they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide -- anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay". Throughout...

Two Horror classics perfect for a dark and stormy night. In Mary Shelley's tale of bio-engineering gone horribly wrong, Victor Frankenstein uses body parts of the dead to bring a creature to life. When Frankenstein abandons his experiment in horror, the Monster embarks on a quest for ultimate revenge. In Bram Stoker's timeless gothic vampire romance, young solicitor Jonathan Harker must shield his fiancée Mina from the predations of the insatiable...

"As he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were past. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that fate intervened to task Michelangelo with the most ambitious and daunting project of his long creative life. 'Michelangelo, God's...

X was a Pokémon Trainer child prodigy. He hated being in the spotlight, so he took to hiding in his room and avoiding everyone-including his best friend Y. But now a surprise attack has brought X out of hiding!-