building

The Civil War is tearing apart the North American United States. The Union Fleet blocked the Confederate seacoast, interrupting all sea trade, and European merchants suffer big losses from this. One of Glasgow’s trading houses is building a high-speed ship capable of breaking through the blockade and bringing unheard of profits. But on board the ship, not only those seeking benefits will set sail.

„The U. P. Trail” takes place in the late 1860’s during the building of the Union Pacific Railroad, the first to connect the east coast to the west. Our protagonist is Warren Neale, a civil engineer on the railroad. His girlfriend, Allie Lee, seems to be always in need of recusing. One of the most interesting characters is Neale’s best friend Larry „"Red"” King, a rough gun toting Texan cowboy. The...

Zane Grey evokes the atmosphere, hardships and possibilities of the Old West like nobody else. Leaving Missouri with no knowledge of cattle ranching, Jim Traft of Missouri is put in charge of building one hundred miles of fence on his uncle’s western ranch to prevent cattle from drifting. The job puts him in conflict with the local community and he must find a balance. There’s also the lovely Molly...

This novel demonstrates Dickens experimenting with building his own voice. The Pickwick Papers is a series of linear adventures, unlike the convoluted plots of Dickens’s later novels. In other words, we follow our heroes from one stop to the next and meet interesting characters, rather than unraveling a mystery. The novel is a late example of the picaresque, a style of story in which we follow a rough,...