James Hilton

The winter of our discontent / John Steinbeck The agony and the ecstasy / Irving Stone The making of the president: 1960 / Theodore H. White A lodging for the emperor / Oliver Statler Goodbye, Mr. Chips / James Hilton.

A shell-shocked veteran suffers from amnesia after World War 1. As he carries on with his life, he tries to remember his past.

*Was It Murder?* deals with the phenomenon of coincidence by posing the question of how likely it is that two brothers attending the same boarding school meet with two separate accidental deaths — and curious ones at that — within the same school year. In the manner typical of the Golden Age whodunnit, the solution is only presented in the final pages of the novel. Throughout the book, an amateur sleuth and a Scotland Yard detective vie with each other to solve the riddle, with only one of them successful in the end.

Following a plane crash, Conway, a British consul; his deputy; a missionary; and an American financier find themselves in the enigmatic snow-capped mountains of uncharted Tibet. Here they discover a seemingly perfect hidden community where they are welcomed with gracious hospitality. Intrigued by its mystery, the travellers set about discovering the secret hidden at the shimmering heart of Shangri-La.

Mr Chipping is a quiet, unassuming teacher, who never veers from his established routines. Then he meets Katherine, who charms him and his students and teaches Mr Chipping that education is about more than just the hours spent in the schoolroom.