Nick Lortz is sitting outside a café in Whistler, a village in the Canadian mountains, when a stranger comes and sits next to him. She’s young, pretty, and has a beautiful smile. Nick is happy to sit and talk with her. But why does she call Nick ‘Mr Hollywood’? Why does she give him a big kiss when she leaves? And who is the man at the next table – the man with short white hair? Nick learns the answers to these questions three long days later – in a police station on Vancouver Island.

Some sisters are good friends, some are not. Sometimes there is more hate in a family than there is love. Karin is beautiful and has lots of men friends, but she can be very unkind to her sister Marcia. Perhaps when they were small, there was love between them, but that was a long time ago. They say that everybody has one crime in them. Perhaps they only take an umbrella that does not belong to them. Perhaps they steal from a shop, perhaps they get angry and hit someone, perhaps they kill ...

When Jake Stevens goes to work for some months in Ireland, he feels happy. He loves travelling, and talking about his job – making computer games for BananaTech in America. ‘Your new game’s going to be the best thing at the Irish Computer Exhibition!’ people at BananaTech Ireland tell him. But living with a noisy parrot isn’t easy, and when Jake asks the most beautiful girl at work out to dinner, she says ‘no’. Then someone steals Jake’s game the night before the show. Who – or what – can ...

Written for Learners of English by John EscottWhat does the name Agatha Christie mean? To many people, it means a book about a murder mystery a whodunnit. Im reading an Agatha Christie, people say. Im not sure who the murderer is I think its . . . But they are usually wrong, because it is not easy to guess the murderers name before the end of the book.But who was Agatha Christie? What was she like? Was her life quiet and unexciting, or was it full of interest and adventure? W...

The men and the women in this book – William Tell, Tom Blood, Lord Bao, King Matthias, Johnny Appleseed, and Lady Godiva – are all real people from history. But every time someone tells an old story, they change things in it, to make them bigger, better, and more exciting. So what is true in this book and what is not? Read all six of the stories, and see what you think.

A level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. This version includes an audio book: listen to the story as you read. Written for Learners of English by John Escott. Nick Lortz is sitting outside a café in Whistler, a village in the Canadian mountains, when a stranger comes and sits next to him. She’s young, pretty, and has a beautiful smile. Nick is happy to sit and talk with her. But why does she call Nick ‘Mr Hollywood’? Why does she give him a big kiss when she leaves? And who is the...

The Cat steals things from houses in Hollywood. He steals from movie stars and nobody can stop him. Or can they? Natalie is a movie star. Nathan is her stand-in. Nathan does all Natalie’s stunts in the movie. But when Natalie and Nathan see The Cat driving away from Zak Wakeman’s Hollywood home, they both go after him. Natalie drives fast. ‘Be careful,’ Nathan tells her. ‘You have a movie to finish!’

Greg is a porter at the Shepton Hotel in New York. When a girl with beautiful green eyes asks him for help, Greg can’t say no. The girl’s name is Cassie, and she says she is an artist. She tells Greg that her stepfather has her sketchbooks, and now she wants them back. Cassie also says her stepfather is staying at Greg’s hotel . . . so what could go wrong?

Zoe Baker works in a bookstore. She also likes acting, and she has a part in the play Romeo and Juliet. Mike Morrison writes about the play for the newspaper. What does he write about Zoe? Is Zoe a good actress . . . or is she just ‘a pretty face’? What does Zoe think when she reads the newspaper? What does she do?

‘Give me the money,’ says the robber to the Los Angeles security guard. The guard looks at the gun and hands over the money. The robber has long blond hair and rides a motorcycle – and a girl with long blond hair arrives at Kenny’s motel – on a motorcycle. Is she the robber?

‘Bring me something new and exciting. Bring me a BIG story!’ says Rosie’s editor at The Record newspaper. And, when she leaves the office, Rosie does find a story. A story that is bigger than she expects. A story that takes her across Europe, into a dangerous world of art and art thieves.

Life is hard and dangerous for both people and animals in the frozen Canadian North. For a wolf like White Fang it is a continuous fight to find food - a fight in which many animals die. When White Fang meets the people of the North - first Indians and then White Men - he learns to live with them like a dog. But some men are cruel to their dogs and others are kind. Will White Fang's life be any easier now?