La fille du magnat américain Theodore Racksole veut un steak et une bière, mais un palace d'un si haut standing que le Grand Hôtel Babylon ne saurait s'abaisser à des mets aussi vulgaires. Qu'à cela ne tienne : Racksole rachète donc l'hôtel. Mais le milliardaire ne s'attendait pas à ce que la gestion hôtelière soit semée de tant d'embûches : la réceptionniste disparaît, le maître d'hôtel démissionne, un jeune diplomate est trouvé mort et son corps est subtilisé.Et que devient donc le prince Eugène, qui devait descendre au Grand Hôtel Babylon et dont personne n'a de nouvelles ? Les énigmes s'accumulent et des machinations internationales semblent s'ourdir dans les corridors chics du palace.

Le Grand hôtel Babylon

Why does not some mental efficiency specialist come forward and show us how to make our minds do the work which our minds are certainly capable of doing? I do not mean a quack. All the physical efficiency specialists who advertise largely are not quacks. Some of them achieve very genuine results. If a course of treatment can be devised for the body, a course of treatment can be devised for the mind. Thus we might realize some of the ambitions which all of us cherish in regard to the utilization in our spare time of that magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums. We have the desire to perfect ourselves, to round off our careers with the graces of knowledge and taste. How many people would not gladly undertake some branch of serious study, so that they might not die under the reproach of having lived and died without ever really having known anything about anything! It is not the absence of desire that prevents them. It is, first, the absence of will-power-not the will to begin, but the will to continue; and, second, a mental apparatus which is out of condition, "puffy, " "weedy, " through sheer neglect. The remedy, then, divides itself into two parts, the cultivation of will-power, and the getting into condition of the mental apparatus. And these two branches of the cure must be worked concurrently

How to Increase your Mental Efficiency

The old wives' tale

Riceyman Steps is a novel by British novelist Arnold Bennett, first published in 1923 and winner of that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. It follows a year in the life of Henry Earlforward, a miserly second-hand bookshop owner in the Clerkenwell area of London. (from wikipedia.org)

Riceyman Steps

La fille du magnat américain Theodore Racksole veut un steak et une bière, mais un palace d'un si haut standing que le Grand hôtel Babylon ne saurait s'abaisser à des mets aussi vulgaires. Qu'à cela ne tienne : Racksole rachète donc l'hôtel.

Mais le milliardaire ne s'attendait pas à ce que la gestion hôtelière soit semée de tant d'embûches : la réceptionniste disparaît, le maître d'hôtel démissionne, un jeune diplomate est trouvé mort et son corps est subtilisé. Et que devient donc le prince Eugène, qui devait descendre au Grand hôtel Babylon et dont personne n'a de nouvelles ? Les énigmes s'accumulent et des machinations internationales semblent s'ourdir dans les corridors chics du palace.

Le grand hôtel Babylon

This   carefully crafted ebook: "Hilda Lessways (Unabridged)" is formatted for your   eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
The book is the second book of The Clayhanger Family series by Arnold   Bennett, which paralleled Edwin Clayhanger's story from the point of view of his eventual wife, Hilda. It tells the story of her coming of age, her   working experiences as a shorthand clerk and keeper of a lodging house in   London and Brighton, her relationship with George Cannon that ends in her   disastrous bigamous marriage and pregnancy, and finally her reconciliation   with Edwin Clayhanger.
Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 - 27 March 1931) was an English writer. He is   best known as a novelist, but he also worked in other fields such as journalism,   propaganda and film.
In his early life, Bennett was employed by his father but the working   relationship failed. Bennett found himself doing jobs such as rent-collecting   which were uncongenial. He also resented the low pay; it is no accident that   the theme of parental miserliness is important in his novels. In his spare   time he was able to do a little journalism, but his breakthrough as a writer   came after he had moved from the Potteries. His most famous works are the  The Clayhanger Family, (the complete   trilogy consisting of Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain) and The   Old Wives' Tale. These books draw on his experience of life in the Potteries,   as did most of his best work.
Content:
Book I. Her Start in Life
1. An Event in Mr. Skellorn's Life
2. The End of the Scene
3. Mr. Cannon
4. Domesticity Invaded
5. Mrs. Lessways' Shrewdness
6. Victor Hugo and Isaac Pitman
7. The Editorial Secretary
8. Janet Orgreave
9. In the Street
10. Miss Gailey in Declension
11. Disillusion
12. The Telegram
13. Hilda's World
14. To London
Book II. Her Recovery
1. Sin
2. The Little Room
3. Journey to Bleakridge
4. With the Orgreaves
5. Edwin Clayhanger
6. In the Garden
7. The Next Meeting
Book III. Her Burden
1. Hilda Indispensable
2. Sarah's Benefactor
3. At Brighton
4. The Sea
Book IV. Her Fall
1. The Going Concern
2. The Unknown Adventure
3. Florrie Again
Book V. Her Deliverance
1. Louisa Uncontrolled
2. Some Secret History
Book VI. Her Punishment
1. Evening at Bleakridge
2. A Rendezvous
3. At the Works
4. The Call from Brighton
5. Thursday Afternoon
6. Mischance

Hilda Lessways (Unabridged)

Priam Frall, peintre de génie, a choisi d'échapper au fardeau de la gloire. Il se réfugie dans un sombre appartement londonien en compagnie de son majordome.
Un jour, ce dernier meurt inopinément. C'est l'occasion rêvé pour Priam Frall de disparaître à tout jamais... Il revêt les habits du cadavre et endosse son identité.
Le voilà condamné à jouer le rôle d'un homme dont il ne savait rien, à assister à ses propres funérailles, et à supporter un passé qui ne lui appartient pas...

Satire du monde artistique, comédie de moeurs et humour noir, ce roman possède tous les ingrédients qui ont fait de Arnold Bennett un auteur d'exception. 



Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) est un écrivain britannique. D'abord journaliste, son premier livre « L'Homme du Nord » connaît un succès retentissant. Il devient éditeur en chef de son magazine, et rédige lui-même les feuilletons qu'il y propose : ainsi paraît « The Grand Babylon Hotel ». Il décide alors de se consacrer à la littérature. Il s'installe à Paris où il est influencé par Maupassant. Il deviendra connu pour « Enterré vivant ».

Enterré Vivant

"Yes, he's one of those men that don't know how to manage. Good situation. Regular income. Quite enough for luxuries as well as needs. Not really extravagant. And yet the fellow's always in difficulties. Somehow he gets nothing out of his money. Excellent flat-half empty! Always looks as if he'd had the brokers in. New suit-old hat! Magnificent necktie-baggy trousers! Asks you to dinner: cut glass-bad mutton, or Turkish coffee-cracked cup! He can't understand it. Explanation simply is that he fritters his income away. Wish I had the half of it! I'd show him-"

So we have most of us criticised, at one time or another, in our superior way.

We are nearly all chancellors of the exchequer: it is the pride of the moment. Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on such-and-such a sum, and these articles provoke a correspondence whose violence proves the interest they excite. Recently, in a daily organ, a battle raged round the question whether a woman can exist nicely in the country on L85 a year. I have seen an essay, "How to live on eight shillings a week." But I have never seen an essay, "How to live on twenty-four hours a day." Yet it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain money-usually. But though you have the wealth of a cloak-room attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have, or the cat by the fire has.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

This carefully crafted ebook: "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (A Classic Guide to Self-Improvement)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
The book, written by Arnold Bennett in 1910, is part of a larger work entitled How to Live. In this volume, he offers practical advice on how one might live (as opposed to just existing) within the confines of 24 hours a day.
Content:
- The Daily Miracle
- The Desire to Exceed One's Programme
- Precautions Before Beginning
- The Cause of the Trouble
- Tennis and the Immortal Soul
- Remember Human Nature
- Controlling the Mind
- The Reflective Mood
- Interest in the Arts
- Nothing in Life is Humdrum
- Serious Reading
- Dangers to Avoid
Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was an English journalist, novelist, and writer. After working as a rent collector and solicitor's clerk, Bennett won a writing contest which convinced him to become a journalist and an author.

Le Grand hôtel Babylon

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