* Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak

Summary:  Yuri Zhivago, doctor and poet, lives and loves during the first three decades of 20th-century Russia.
 

The Great Train Robbery 
Michael Crichton

Summary:  In the thriving underworld of London, Edward Pierce, a handsome young man of good breeding believes he can rob a fast moving train carrying the payroll for Crimean War troops .The train safe is supposed to be uncrackable.
 

Hard Times  **
Charles Dickens

Summary:  Raised during the rise of industry, Louisa, whose poor choices in later life result from too practical an upbringing, cares nothing about what happens to her.
 

* Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy

Summary:  Marriage,  the Church of England, and the British university system all come under criticism in a story about  Jude Fawley, an impoverished stonemason who aspires to the ministry and fails to fulfill the opposite expectations of the two women he loves in Victorian society.

 Le Morte d'Arthur  ^
Thomas Malory

Summary:  The standard account of King Arthur and his knights, the story of the dream of the Round Table, knightly honor, and a just earthly government, all dissolved through human frailty.

*The Mist of Avalon 
M. Z. Bradley

Summary:  A re-creation of the Arthurian legend following the clash between Christianity and paganism that led to the demise of Camelot.

Scarlet Pimpernel
Emmuska Orczy

Summary:  During the Reign of Terror, men help condemned Frenchmen escape, and one woman who wants the Scarlet Pimpernel to save her brother does not realize that the Pimpernel is her husband.