Once more a new month has begun, and it’s no joke that once again we present 10 gems from our catalog.

Hopefully it’s not too late to prepare for April Fool’s Day! Our recording of Pathological Lying, Accusation and Swindling by William and Mary Healy tells you all there is to know about liars, so you will not be taken advantage of.

To avoid exactly that is the aim of rich Mr. Brewster, when his daughter appears with a brand new husband in the novel by P. G. Wodehouse. Will The Indiscretions of Archie be too much to bear for the unsuspecting father-in-law?

John Kendrick Bangs’ protagonist The Idiot proves to be quite trying company in Mrs. Smith-Pedagog’s boarding house. His table talk vexes all other guests, but is he really such a fool as everyone assumes?

Fools are certainly those who do not learn from history. The genocide on the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 is denied, condemned, or seen as part of normal warfare. Read about Martyred Armenia in Fa’iz El-Ghusein’s autobiographical account of a Turk condemned to spectator.

While we can vow “never again” faced with human atrocities, we can only prepare for the worst and hope for the best when it comes to natural disasters. On April 18, 1906, The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire happened. Charles Morris interviewed eyewitnesses for a first hand account of the catastrophe.

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen also profess to be first hand accounts of real events, but who has already heard of the baron will take the stories in Rudolf Erich Raspe’s book with a grain of salt.

The same should young Vivie do in George Bernard Shaw’s play, after she excerts a promise from her mother to end her questionable business. But Mrs. Warren’s Profession is a profitable one, and luxuries are hard to give up…

Instead of giving up, what if somebody could take over your life for a while? Unfortunately the stand-in for John Chilcote turns out to be the better him. Find out if the politician is getting his life back in The Masquerader by Katherine Thurston.

Undercover agents are used to slip into the skin of other people, hopefully to protect the innocent. But even as Gabriel Syme turns into The Man Who was Thursday, it is still difficult to find out who needs protection in the story by G. K. Chesterton.

This year April ends with a long holiday weekend. Celebrate Easter with a selection of poems From The Temple on various religious topics by the Anglican priest George Herbert.

Enjoy – and don’t get fooled!

2011 has just begun, and we have an exciting clean slate in front of us. Let’s fill it with 10 gems straight from our catalog:

The New Year ususally comes with champagne and the resolution to make the New Year also a Better one. Find out if the tolling of The Chimes in Charles Dickens’ novel really does improve things. This recording is also available in Dutch.

A New Year’s tradition in parts of the English speaking world is to sing “Auld Lang Syne” by the scotsman Robert Burns, whose 250th birthday was celebrated on January 25 2009. Listen to poems by and about him in our 250th anniversary collection dedicated to him.

Learning new subjects, languages or skills is a popular resolution. However, going (back) to school and finding new friends can be very daunting for people of all ages. This is certainly what Grace Harlowe has to find out in her First Year at Overton College, a novel for young and old by Jessie Graham Flower.

Or is your new year’s resolution “a new job”? So it is for Christie in Louisa M. Alcott’s novel Work: A Story of Experience. It was written in a time when a woman – especially of the higher classes – working for a living was something extraordinary and usually frowned upon. How times have changed!

If doing the biddings of a boss does not really appeal to you, get creative: How about becoming an inventor? For inspiration, check out the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, born on 17. January 1706, polymath, inventor, writer, … and Founding Father of the USA.

Watkin Tench is not seen as a Founding Father of Sydney, despite him being on the First Fleet that brought British convicts to the Australian shores. Read about his journey and the time after the landing on 20. January 1788 in his work A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany-Bay.

However easy travelling has become these days, moving is still a major undertaking for all concerned. Everyone who ever had to uproot himself will be sympathetic of the numerous moves of Frances Roe, described in Army Letters from an Officers Wife 1871-1888.

While humans often come to accept change quite fast, any disruption in the routine of an animal can be disastrous. Jack London heartrendingly describes this in his famous novel White Fang, the story of a half-wolf half-dog on his way from the wilderness to civilization.

You want to get married this year? Congratulations! Old Mr. Campbell has the same intentions, after all he has been courting the widow Summers for a long time. Pity she can’t stand him. Maybe a cup of Five O’Clock Tea will change her mind in William Dean Howells’ short story.

It does not need a new job, marriage or move to effect a change in us. Sometimes simply accepting who we are marks the biggest beginning of them all. Follow Kurt Gray in Richard Meeker’s novel Better Angel as he finally embraces his homosexuality.

Enjoy – and Happy New Year!