Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. In sixteenth-century Venice - a city of wealthy merchants and bankers - money is all-important. Bassanio is penniless, but his great friend Antonio offers to help him by borrowing the money that he needs. To do this, though, Antonio must make an arrangement with an old enemy that puts his life in danger... The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, and it has been performed all over the world. It is retold in this Bookworm not as a play, but as a story. CEFR B2 Word count 25,189

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. It is 1866, and there is trouble in the world's oceans. What is the extraordinary thing that people have seen there, travelling faster than a whale and cutting holes in the bottom of the strongest ships? Dr Aronnax joins the search for the 'monster', hoping for an exciting adventure. But when he meets the mysterious Captain Nemo, his adventure becomes more extraordinary than he had ever imagined, and he discovers a new underwater world, full of wonders, but of strange dangers too... CEFR B1-B2 Word count 15,748

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. What do you find in these two countries at the end of the world? One is an enormous island, where only twenty million people live - and the other is two long, narrow islands, with ten sheep for every person. One country has the biggest rock in all the world, and a town where everybody lives under the ground; the other has a beach where you can sit beside the sea in a pool of hot water, and lakes that are bright yellow, green, and blue. Open this book and start your journey - to two countries where something beautiful or surprising waits around every corner. CEFR B1 Word count 10,270

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. About a quarter of the people in the world today speak or use English. In homes and schools, offices and meeting rooms, ships and airports, people are speaking English... How has this happened? How did English begin, and what will become of it? The history of English is a journey through space and time, from thousands of years ago to today and beyond, and to all parts of the world. Come on that journey and meet the monks and soldiers, the kings and scientists, the printers, poets, and travellers who have helped to make the English of today. CEFR B1-B2 Word count 16,753

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses - if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man's world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives... CEFR B2 Word count 24,490

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. 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. CEFR B2 Word count 24,770

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. Sometimes the Dashwood girls do not seem like sisters. Elinor is all calmness and reason, and can be relied upon for practical, common sense opinions. Marianne, on the other hand, is all sensibility, full of passionate and romantic feeling. She has no time for dull common sense - or for middle-aged men of thirty-five, long past the age of marriage. True love can only be felt by the young, of course. And if your heart is broken at the age of seventeen, how can you ever expect to recover from the passionate misery that fills your life, waking and sleeping? CEFR B2 Word count 24,345

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. When a handsome young man begins to court Catherine Sloper, she feels she is very lucky. She is a quiet, gentle girl, but neither beautiful nor clever; no one had ever admired her before, or come to the front parlour of her home in Washington Square to whisper soft words of love to her. But in New York in the 1840s young ladies are not free to marry where they please. Catherine must have her father's permission, and Dr Sloper is a rich man. One day Catherine will have a fortune of 30,000 dollars a year... CEFR B1-B2 Word count 15,490

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. Arthur Clennam is back in England after many years abroad. He finds his mother as cold and hard as ever, but his father's recent death has thrown up a mystery, and he is determined to get to the bottom of it. Could it have anything to do with Little Dorrit, the quiet, kind girl who sews for his mother and goes back at night to her home in the Marshalsea Prison? As Arthur gets to know the Dorrit family, he is too busy looking for the truth about his mother's secret to notice that he has perhaps found the answer to his own happiness... CEFR B2 Word count 25,189

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. One day, a farmer tells a farm boy to take everything out of an old building and throw it away. 'It's all rubbish,' he says. In the middle of all the rubbish, the boy finds a beautiful old piano. He has never played before, but now, when his fingers touch the piano, he begins to play. He closes his eyes and the music comes to him - and the music moves his fingers. When he opens his eyes again, he knows that his life is changed for ever... CEFR A2-B1 Word count 6,070

From out of the sky, from under the earth, from far out at sea - disaster comes. We build and invent new things - and sometimes bring disaster on ourselves. Today television and the Internet mean that we can watch disasters as they happen, and see their terrible results. From Pompeii to the Asian Tsunami, from the Great Fire of London to Chernobyl, the stories of disasters are frightening, but they have much to tell us. Disasters bring stories of fear, pain, loss, and death - but also of people whose extraordinary bravery and feeling for others will touch your heart.

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe... or if you are a child from the wrong social class... or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair. CEFR B2 Word count 22,665

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. The wind is strong on the Yorkshire moors. There are few trees, and fewer houses, to block its path. There is one house, however, that does not hide from the wind. It stands out from the hill and challenges the wind to do its worst. The house is called Wuthering Heights. When Mr Earnshaw brings a strange, small, dark child back home to Wuthering Heights, it seems he has opened his doors to trouble. He has invited in something that, like the wind, is safer kept out of the house. CEFR B2 Word count 23,180

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. Into the narrow social world of New York in the 1870s comes Countess Ellen Olenska, surrounded by shocked whispers about her failed marriage to a rich Polish Count. A woman who leaves her husband can never be accepted in polite society. Newland Archer is engaged to young May Welland, but the beautiful and mysterious Countess needs his help. He becomes her friend and defender, but friendship with an unhappy, lonely woman is a dangerous path for a young man to follow - especially a young man who is soon to be married. CEFR B2 Word count 24,820

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. John Duncan was an honest man, but he needed money. He had children to look after. He was ready to do anything, and his bosses knew it. They gave him the job because he couldn't say no; he couldn't afford to be honest. And the job was like a poison inside him. It changed him and blinded him, so that he couldn't see the real poison - until it was too late. CEFR B1 Word count 10,385

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck Finn go to the graveyard to look for ghosts. They don't see any ghosts that night. They see something worse than a ghost - much, much worse... CEFR A1-A2 Word count 5,825

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. It's an exciting life - full of fast cars, money, and travel. The names of Formula One champions are known all over the world. And everywhere young drivers dream of success one day in Monaco, Melbourne, Monza... But it is a difficult life too. Drivers need strong bodies - and minds. They need to think quickly, drive hard, and sometimes look death in the face. This is the dangerous, exciting world of Formula One - where the world's best drivers have only seconds to win or lose a race. CEFR B1 Word count 10,645

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. The murder plan seems so neat, so clever. How can it possibly fail? And when Sonia's stupid, boring little husband is dead, she will be free to marry her handsome lover. But perhaps the boring little husband is not so stupid after all... Murder plans that go wrong, a burglar who makes a bad mistake, a famous jewel thief who meets a very unusual detective... These five stories from the golden age of crime writing are full of mystery and surprises. CEFR B1 Word count 9,600

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. 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. CEFR B2 Word count 22,885

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner the linen-weaver keeps his gold. Every day he works hard at his weaving, and every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. The villagers are afraid of him and he has no family, no friends. Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living. But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away? What will Silas do then? What could possibly comfort him for the loss of his only friend? CEFR B1-B2 Word count 16,065

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. In a city in Arabia there lives a boy called Aladdin. He is poor and often hungry, but one day he finds an old lamp. When he rubs the lamp, smoke comes out of it, and then out of the smoke comes a magical jinnee. With the jinnee's help, Aladdin is soon rich, with gold and jewels and many fine things. But can he win the love of the Sultan's daughter, the beautiful Princess Badr-al-Budur? CEFR A1-A2 Word count 5,240

In 1918 in the peaceful province of Transkei, South Africa, the Mandela family gave their new baby son the name Rolihlahla - 'troublemaker'. But the young boy's early years were happy ones, and he grew up to be a good student and an enthusiastic sportsman.

Bookworms Club offers five collections of adapted short stories, selected from existing Bookworms, with resources for use with Reading Circles. The resources are available as a Teacher's Handbook. Reading Circles are groups of students who meet in the classroom to disucss stories, having prepared their reading circle role. Bookworms Club provides all that is needed for running successful Reading Circles: Stories at a range of abilities drawn form the respected Bookworms series, specially chosen for use with Reading Circles classes; Story introductions, author information, and activities for each stories; detailed information and support for running Reading Circles; resources include photocopiable Role Sheets and Role Badges, Reading Circles Schedule chart, and Expansion Activities.