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books tagged “20th c” (20th C / 20th c.)
books tagged “20th c”
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The Age of Innocenceby Edith Wharton, Stephen OrgelISBN 0192806629 (0-19-280662-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Age of Innocence'Book summary:Somewhere in this book, Wharton observes that clever liars always come up with good stories to back up their fabrications, but that really clever liars don't bother to explain anything at all. This is the kind of insight that makes The Age of Innocence so indispensable. Wharton's story of the upper classes of Old New York, and Newland Archer's impossible love for the disgraced Countess Olenska, is a perfectly wrought book about an era when upper-class culture in this country was still a mixture of American and European extracts, and when "society" had rules as rigid as any in history. [via]
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The Ambassadorsby Henry James, Harry LevinISBN 0140432337 (0-14-043233-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ambassadors'Book summary:The second of James's three late masterpieces, was, in its author's opinion, "the best, all round, of my productions".
Lambert Strether, a mild middle-aged American of no particular achievements, is dispatched to Paris from the manufacturing empire of Woollett, Massachusetts. The mission conferred on him by his august patron, Mrs. Newsome, is to discover what, or who, is keeping her son Chad in the notorious city of pleasure, and to bring him home. But Strether finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman; and as the Parisian spring advances, he himself succumbs to the allure of the 'vast bright Babylon' and to the mysterious charm of Madame de Vionnet. [via] -
Arrowsmithby Sinclair LewisISBN 0151082162 (0-15-108216-2)
Hardcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arrowsmith'Book summary:As the son and grandson of physicians, Sinclair Lewis had a store of experiences and imparted knowledge to draw upon for Arrowsmith.Published in 1925, after three years of anticipation, the book follows the life of Martin Arrowsmith, a rather ordinary fellow who gets his first taste of medicine at 14 as an assistant to the drunken physician in his home town. It is Leora Tozer who makes Martin's life extraordinary. With vitality and love, she urges him beyond the confines of the mundane to risk answering his true calling as a scientist and researcher. Not even her tragic death can extinguish her spirit or her impact on Martin's life. [via]
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The Beautiful and Damnedby F. Scott FitzgeraldISBN 0141180870 (0-14-118087-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Beautiful and Damned'Book summary:Fitzgerald's ironic epigraph to The Beautiful and the Damned exemplifies his attitude toward the young rootless post-World War I generation. Fitzgerald here once again displays a wariness of the upper classes--"an abiding distrust, and animosity toward the leisure class--not the conviction of a revolutionist but the smoldering hatred of a peasant." [via]
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Belovedby Toni MorrisonISBN 0140283404 (0-14-028340-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beloved'Book summary:Toni Morrison gently reads her own Pulitzer Prize-winning work in the unabridged version of this riveting tale of ex-slave Sethe and the beloved ghost that haunts her. While Morrison makes occasional odd pauses in her reading, what is lost in smoothness is more than made up for in quiet intensity as the author reads words obviously deeply felt. Her intimate knowledge of the characters and their motivations lends this reading an authority that helps the listener sort out the breaks in time and dialogue in this complex story of a woman coming to terms with her enslaved past and the loss of her husband and baby daughter. (Running time: 12 hours, eight cassettes) --Kimberly Heinrichs [via]
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The Big Sleepby Raymond ChandlerISBN 0194242218 (0-19-424221-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Bridget Jonesby Helen FieldingISBN 0140298479 (0-14-029847-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bridget Jones'Book summary:Fans of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary will recall that at the end of that sly and funny version of Pride and Prejudice, singleton heroine Bridget landed her Mr. Darcy at last--Mark Darcy, that is. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason picks up four weeks later, and already the honeymoon is over. In addition to discovering that the man of her dreams votes conservative, left-leaning Bridget is also feeling just a mite uncomfortable with the realities of sharing bed and board with another person:
V. complicated actually having man in house as cannot freely spend requisite amount of time in bathroom or turn into gas chamber as conscious of other person late for work, desperate for pee etc.; also disturbed by Mark folding up underpants at night, rendering it strangely embarrassing now simply to keep all own clothes in pile on floor.
But all of these problems pale to insignificance with the arrival on the scene of Rebecca, a beautiful, man-hunting arch-nemesis with "thighs like a baby giraffe" and absolutely no girlfriend code of ethics when it comes to poaching another woman's man. Before long, Rebecca's manipulations, Bridget's own insecurities, and a string of misunderstandings (starting with a naked Filipino boy in Mark Darcy's bed and ending with a suggestive valentine from Bridget's dry cleaner) result in "128 lbs. (good), alcohol units 0 (excellent), cigarettes 5 (a pleasant, healthy number), no. times driven past Mark Darcy's house 2 (v.g.), no. of times looked up Mark Darcy's name in phone book to prove still exists 18 (v.g.), 1471 calls 12 (better), no. of phone calls from Mark 0 (tragic).Fortunately, Bridget has plenty of other problems to distract her. Her mother has returned from a trip to Kenya with a young Masai in tow--to her father's consternation; her best friends Jude, Shazzer, and Tom are all trapped in dating hell themselves; her apartment is in shambles thanks to a dotty carpenter; an unreliable ex-boyfriend has just reentered her life; and now someone is sending Bridget death threats--could it be Mark Darcy? If Bridget Jones's Diary was a modern riff on Pride and Prejudice, its sequel borrows several themes and devices (not to mention a section heading) from another Austen novel, Persuasion. And as in Austen's fiction, here the journey is the destination. A happy ending for Bridget and her pals is a foregone conclusion; how they get there, however, will have you on the edge of your chair--if you haven't already fallen off of it laughing. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Bridget Jones's Diaryby Helen FieldingISBN 0141000198 (0-14-100019-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bridget Jones's Diary'Book summary:Now a major motion picture starring Renee Zellwegger and Hugh Grant!
"130 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds overnight? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier (repulsive, horrifying notion)); alcohol units 2 (excellent) cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow); number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)?"
This laugh-out-loud chronicle charts a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a single girl on a permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement--in which she resolves to: visit the gym three times a week not merely to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult, and not fall for any of the following: misogynists, megalomaniacs, adulterers, workaholics, chauvinists or perverts. And learn to program the VCR. Caught between her Singleton friends, who are all convinced they will end up dying alone and found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian, and the Smug Marrieds, whose dinner parties offer ever-new opportunities for humiliation, Bridget struggles to keep her life on an even keel (or at least afloat). Through it all, she will have her readers helpless with laughter and shouting, "BRIDGET JONES IS ME!"
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Burmese Daysby George OrwellISBN 0156148501 (0-15-614850-1)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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Cannery Rowby John SteinbeckISBN 014200068X (0-14-200068-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cannery Row'Book summary:Unburdened by the material necessities of the more fortunate, the denizens of Cannery Row discover rewards unknown in more traditional society. Henry the painter sorts through junk lots for pieces of wood to incorporate into the boat he is building, while the girls from Dora Floods bordello venture out now and then to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Lee Chong stocks his grocery with almost anything a man could want, and Doc, a young marine biologist who ministers to sick puppies and unhappy souls, unexpectedly finds true love. Cannery Row is just a few blocks long, but the story it harbors is suffused with warmth, understanding, and a great fund of human values.[via]First published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it isboth the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. John Steinbeck draws on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, and interweaves their stories in this world where only the fittest survivecreating what is at once one of his most humorous and poignant works. In Cannery Row, John Steinbeck returns to the setting of Tortilla Flat to create another evocative portrait of life as it is lived by those who unabashedly put the highest value on the intangibleshuman warmth, camaraderie, and love.
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The Color Purpleby Alice WalkerISBN 0156028352 (0-15-602835-2)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Color Purple'Book summary:Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self. [via]
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Death of a Salesmanby Arthur MillerISBN 0140481346 (0-14-048134-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Death of a Salesman'Book summary:Arthur miller's pulitzer prize-winning play that forever changed the meaning of the american dream and won multiple tony awards for the 2012 broadway production directed by mike nichols and starring philip seymour hoffman as the tragic hero willy loman and andrew garfield as his son biff willy loman, the protagonist of death of a salesman, has spent his life following the american way, living out his belief in salesmanship as a way to reinvent himself. But somehow the riches and respect he covets have eluded him. At age sixty-three, he searches for the moment his life took a wrong turn, the moment of betrayal that undermined his marriage and destroyed his relationship with biff, the son in whom he invested his faith. Willy lives in a fragile world of elaborate excuses and daydreams, conflating past and present in a desperate attempt to make sense of himself and of a world that once promised so much. arthur miller's masterpiece has steadily seen productions all over the world since its 1949 debut. As the noted miller scholar christopher bigsby states in his introduction, "if willy's is an american dream, it is also a dream shared by all those who are aware of the gap between what they might have been and what they are [via]
Delta of Venusby Anais NinISBN 0156029030 (0-15-602903-0)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Delta of Venus'Book summary:Anais Nin's Delta of Venus is a stunning collection of sexual encounters from the queen of literary erotica. From Mathilde's lust-filled Peruvian opium den to the Hungarian baron driven insane by his insatiable desire, the passions and obsessions of this dazzling cast of characters are vivid and unforgettable. Delta of Venus is a deep and sensual world that evokes the very essence of sexuality. [via]
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Die Physikerby Friedrich DurrenmattISBN 0195009088 (0-19-500908-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Die Physiker'Book summary:Contains the complete text of a new satire written in the form of a mystery drama. [via]
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East of Eden: An Easy Guide to Car Maintenance And Repairby John SteinbeckISBN 0142000655 (0-14-200065-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'East of Eden: An Easy Guide to Car Maintenance And Repair'Book summary:when the book club ended a year ago, i said i would bring it back when i found the book that was moving...and this is a great one. I read it for myself for the first time and then i had some friends read it. And we think it might be the best novel we've ever read!" -oprah winfrey in his journal, john steinbeck called east of eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of california's salinas valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families-the trasks and the hamiltons-whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of adam and eve and the poisonous rivalry of cain and abel. Adam trask came to california from the east to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. But the birth of his twins, cal and aron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives, nurtured by the love of all those around him: the other grows up in loneliness, enveloped by a mysterious darkness. First published in 1952, east of eden is the work in which steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of steinbeck's later years, east of eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the book of genesis [via]
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Eroticaby Anais NinISBN 0156074702 (0-15-607470-2)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Erotica'Book summary:Steamy, seductive poetry! [via]
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Finnegans Wakeby James JoyceISBN 0141181265 (0-14-118126-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Finnegans Wake'Book summary:[via]
Having done the longest day in literature with his monumental Ulysses, James Joyce set himself even greater challenges for his next book the night."A nocturnal state...That is what I want to convey: what goes on in a dream, during a dream." The work, which would exhaust two decades of his life and the odd resources of some sixty languages, culminated in the 1939 publication of Joyce's final and most revolutionary masterpiece, Finnegans Wake.
A story with no real beginning or end (it ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence), this "book of Doublends Jined" is as remarkable for its prose as for its circular structure. Written in a fantantic dream language, forged from polyglot puns and portmanteau words, the Wake features some of Joyce's most brilliant inventive work. Sixty years after its original publication, it remains, in Anthony Burgess's words, "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page."
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The Good Soldierby Ford Madox Ford, David BradshawISBN 0141441844 (0-14-144184-4)
Softcover, Penguin Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Soldier'Book summary:"A Tale of Passion," as its subtitle declares, The Good Soldier relates the complex social and sexual relationships between two couples, one English, one American, and the growing awareness by the American narrator John Dowell of the intrigues and passions behind their orderly Edwardian facade. It is the attitude of Dowell, his puzzlement, uncertainty, and the seemingly haphazard manner of his narration that make the book so powerful and mysterious. Despite its catalogue of death, insanity, and despair, the novel has many comic moments, and has inspired the work of several distinguished writers, including Graham Greene. This is the only annotated edition available. [via]
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The Good Soldierby Thomas C. Moser, Ford Madox FordISBN 019283620X (0-19-283620-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Soldier'Book summary:First published in 1915, Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier begins, famously and ominously, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The book then proceeds to confute this pronouncement at every turn, exposing a world less sad than pathetic, and more shot through with hypocrisy and deceit than its incredulous narrator, John Dowell, cares to imagine. Somewhat forgotten as a classic, The Good Soldier has been called everything from the consummate novelist's novel to one of the greatest English works of the century. And although its narrative hook--the philandering of an otherwise noble man--no longer shocks, its unerring cadences and doleful inevitabilities proclaim an enduring appeal.
Ford's novel revolves around two couples: Edward Ashburnham--the title's soldier--and his capable if off-putting wife, Leonora; and long-transplanted Americans John and Florence Dowell. The foursome's ostensible amiability, on display as they pass parts of a dozen pre-World War I summers together in Germany, conceals the fissures in each marriage. John is miserably mismatched with the garrulous, cuckolding Florence; and Edward, dashing and sentimental, can't refrain from falling in love with women whose charms exceed Leonora's. Predictably, Edward and Florence conduct their affair, an indiscretion only John seems not to notice. After the deaths of the two lovers, and after Leonora explains much of the truth to John, he recounts the events of their four lives with an extended inflection of outrage. From his retrospective perch, his recollections simmer with a bitter skepticism even as he expresses amazement at how much he overlooked.
Dowell's resigned narration is flawlessly conversational--haphazard, sprawling, lusting for sympathy. He exudes self-preservation even as he alternately condemns and lionizes Edward: "If I had had the courage and the virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did." Stunningly, Edward's adultery comes to seem not merely excusable, but almost sublime. "Perhaps he could not bear to see a woman and not give her the comfort of his physical attractions," John surmises. Ford's novel deserves its reputation if for no other reason than the elegance with which it divulges hidden lives. --Ben Guterson [via]
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Homage to Cataloniaby George OrwellISBN 0156421178 (0-15-642117-8)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Homage to Catalonia'Book summary:"I wonder what is the appropriate first action when you come from a country at war and set foot on peaceful soil. Mine was to rush to the tobacco-kiosk and buy as many cigars and cigarettes as I could stuff into my pockets." Most war correspondents observe wars and then tell stories about the battles, the soldiers and the civilians. George Orwell--novelist, journalist, sometime socialist--actually traded his press pass for a uniform and fought against Franco's Fascists in the Spanish Civil War during 1936 and 1937. He put his politics and his formidable conscience to the toughest tests during those days in the trenches in the Catalan section of Spain. Then, after nearly getting killed, he went back to England and wrote a gripping account of his experiences, as well as a complex analysis of the political machinations that led to the defeat of the socialist Republicans and the victory of the Fascists. [via]
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Incest: From a Journal of Love The Unexpurgated Diary of Anias Nin, 1932-1934by Anais NinISBN 0156443007 (0-15-644300-7)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Incest: From "a Journal of Love" The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1932-1934'Book summary:This previously unpublished portion of the author's diary includes details of her relationships with Henry Miller and his wife, June; writer and actor Antonin Artaud; and her father. By the author of Little Birds. 15,000 first printing. [via]
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Lord of the Fliesby William Golding, Stephen Coote, G. HanscombeISBN 0140772863 (0-14-077286-3)
Softcover, Penguin Uk
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lord of the Flies'Book summary:In the PENGUIN STUDY NOTES series and originally published in 1986 as GOLDING'S LORD OF THE FLIES, a study guide to the novel, aimed at those preparing for the GCSE examination. It includes character studies, summaries of the plot with examinations of the background and major themes, as well as suggesting topics for discussion. [via]
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Lucky Jimby Kingsley Amis, David LodgeISBN 0142180149 (0-14-218014-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Main Streetby Sinclair LewisISBN 0151555478 (0-15-155547-8)
Hardcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Main Street'Book summary:In this classic satire of small-town America, beautiful young Carol Kennicott comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and culture. But she runs into a wall of bigotry, hypocrisy and complacency. The first popular bestseller to attack conventional ideas about marriage, gender roles, and small town life, Main Street established Lewis as a major American novelist.[via]More editions of Main Street:
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Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the Cityby Italo CalvinoISBN 0156572044 (0-15-657204-4)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the City'Book summary:Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer. Much to the puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams-but the results are never the expected ones. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book[via]More editions of Marcovaldo or the Seasons in the City:
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Master And Margaritaby Mikhail Bulgakov, Richard Pevear, Larissa VolokhonskyISBN 0141180145 (0-14-118014-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'MASTER AND MARGARITA'Book summary:[via]Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. Full of pungency and wit, this luminous work is Bulgakov's crowning achievement, skilfully blending magical and realistic elements, grotesque situations and major ethical concerns. Written during the darkest period of Stalin's repressive reign and a devastating satire of Soviet life, it combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with incident and with historical, imaginary, frightful and wonderful characters. Although completed in 1940, The Master and Margarita was not published until 1966 when the first section appeared in the monthly magazine Moskva. Russians everywhere responded enthusiastically to the novel's artistic and spiritual freedom and it was an immediate and enduring success. This new translation has been made from the complete and unabridged Russian text.
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Midnight's Childrenby Salman RushdieISBN 0140283390 (0-14-028339-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Midnight's Children'Book summary:Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends up establishing squatters' rights to his unlucky hospital mate's luxurious bassinet. Switched babies are standard fare for a Hindi film, and one can't help but feel that Rushdie's world-view--and certainly his sense of the fantastical--has been shaped by the films of his childhood. But whereas the movies, while entertaining, are markedly mediocre, Midnight's Children is a masterpiece, brilliant written, wildly unpredictable, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.
Rushdie's narrator, Saleem Sinai, is the Hindu child raised by wealthy Muslims. Near the beginning of the novel, he informs us that he is falling apart--literally:
I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug--that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.
In light of this unfortunate physical degeneration, Saleem has decided to write his life story, and, incidentally, that of India's, before he crumbles into "(approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust." It seems that within one hour of midnight on India's independence day, 1,001 children were born. All of those children were endowed with special powers: some can travel through time, for example; one can change gender. Saleem's gift is telepathy, and it is via this power that he discovers the truth of his birth: that he is, in fact, the product of the illicit coupling of an Indian mother and an English father, and has usurped another's place. His gift also reveals the identities of all the other children and the fact that it is in his power to gather them for a "midnight parliament" to save the nation. To do so, however, would lay him open to that other child, christened Shiva, who has grown up to be a brutish killer. Saleem's dilemma plays out against the backdrop of the first years of independence: the partition of India and Pakistan, the ascendancy of "The Widow" Indira Gandhi, war, and, eventually, the imposition of martial law.We've seen this mix of magical thinking and political reality before in the works of Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez. What sets Rushdie apart is his mad prose pyrotechnics, the exuberant acrobatics of rhyme and alliteration, pun, wordplay, proper and "Babu" English chasing each other across the page in a dizzying, exhilarating cataract of words. Rushdie can be laugh-out-loud funny, but make no mistake--this is an angry book, and its author's outrage lends his language wings. Midnight's Children is Salman Rushdie's irate, affectionate love song to his native land--not so different from a Bombay talkie, after all. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Misreadingsby Umberto Eco, William WeaverISBN 0156607522 (0-15-660752-2)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Misreadings'Book summary:Satirical essays in which Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, the overacademic, and the overintellectual and makes penetrating comments about our modern mass culture and the elitist avant-garde. A scintillating collection of writings (Los Angeles Times). Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book[via]More editions of Misreadings:
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My Antoniaby Willa Cather, Janet SharistanianISBN 019283200X (0-19-283200-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'My Antonia'Book summary:It seems almost sacrilege to infringe upon a book as soulful and rich as Willa Cather's My Ántonia by offering comment. First published in 1918, and set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land ("not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made") comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden. He is, at the time of their meeting, newly orphaned and arriving at his grandparents' neighboring farm on the same night her family strikes out to make good in their new country. Jim chooses the opening words of his recollections deliberately: "I first heard of Ántonia on what seemed to be an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America," and it seems almost certain that readers of Cather's masterpiece will just as easily pinpoint the first time they heard of Ántonia and her world. It seems equally certain that they, too, will remember that moment as one of great light in an otherwise unremarkable trip through the world.
Ántonia, who, even as a grown woman somewhat downtrodden by circumstance and hard work, "had not lost the fire of life," lies at the center of almost every human condition that Cather's novel effortlessly untangles. She represents immigrant struggles with a foreign land and tongue, the restraints on women of the time (with which Cather was very much concerned), the more general desires for love, family, and companionship, and the great capacity for forbearance that marked the earliest settlers on the frontier.
As if all this humanity weren't enough, Cather paints her descriptions of the vastness of nature--the high, red grass, the road that "ran about like a wild thing," the endless wind on the plains--with strokes so vivid as to make us feel in our bones that we've just come in from a walk on that very terrain ourselves. As the story progresses, Jim goes off to the University in Lincoln to study Latin (later moving on to Harvard and eventually staying put on the East Coast in another neat encompassing of a stage in America's development) and learns Virgil's phrase "Optima dies ... prima fugit" that Cather uses as the novel's epigraph. "The best days are the first to flee"--this could be said equally of childhood and the earliest hours of this country in which the open land, much like My Ántonia, was nothing short of a rhapsody in prairie sky blue. --Melanie Rehak [via]
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Of Mice and Menby John SteinbeckISBN 0142000671 (0-14-200067-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Of Mice and Men'Book summary:They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him. "A thriller, a gripping tale . . . that you will not set down until it is finished. Steinbeck has touched the quick." - The New York Times [via]
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On the Roadby Jack Kerouac, Ann ChartersISBN 0142437255 (0-14-243725-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Road'Book summary:On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture. [via]
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One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nestby Ken KeseyISBN 014028334X (0-14-028334-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest'Book summary:Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphys heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.[via]This edition includes a new foreword by Kesey, a new text introduction by Robert Faggen, and line drawings the author made when writing the book, many never before published.
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Orlando: A Biographyby Virginia Woolf, Mark Hussey, Maria DibattistaISBN 0156031515 (0-15-603151-5)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Orlando: A Biography'Book summary:In 1928, way before everyone else was talking about gender-bending and way, way before the terrific movie with Tilda Swinton, Virginia Woolf wrote her comic masterpiece, a fantastic, fanciful love letter disguised as a biography, to Vita Sackville-West. Orlando enters the book as an Elizabethan nobleman and leaves the book three centuries and one change of gender later as a liberated woman of the 1920s. Along the way this most rambunctious of Woolf's characters engages in sword fights, trades barbs with 18th century wits, has a baby, and drives a car. This is a deliriously written, breathless-making book and a classic both of lesbian literature and the Western canon. [via]
More editions of Orlando: A Biography:
- Orlando: A Biography: ISBN 015670160X (0-15-670160-X)
Softcover, Harcourt - Orlando: A Biography: ISBN 0192834738 (0-19-283473-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr on Demand - Orlando: A Biography: ISBN 0192818252 (0-19-281825-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - Orlando: A Biography: ISBN 0156031515 (0-15-603151-5)
Softcover, Harvest Books
- Orlando: A Biography: ISBN 015670160X (0-15-670160-X)
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Our Man in Havanaby Graham Greene, Christopher HitchensISBN 0142438006 (0-14-243800-6)
Softcover, Penguin Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Man in Havana'Book summary:Graham Greene?s classic Cuban spy story, now with a new package and a new introduction[via]
First published in 1959, Our Man in Havana is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire that still resonates today. Conceived as one of Graham Greene?s ?entertainments,? it tells of MI6?s man in Havana, Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Lamb?s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true.More editions of Our Man in Havana:
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A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Manby James Joyce, Seamus DeaneISBN 0142437344 (0-14-243734-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man'Book summary:James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist is one of the most significant literary works of the twentieth century, and one of the most innovative. Its originality shocked contemporary readers on its publication in 1916 who found its treating of the minutiae of daily life as indecorous, and its central character unappealing. Was it art or was it filth?
The novel charts the intellectual, moral, and sexual development of Stephen Dedalus, from his childhood listening to his father's stories through his schooldays and adolescence to the brink of adulthood and independence, and his awakening as an artist. Growing up in a Catholic family in Dublin in the final years of the nineteenth century, Stephen's consciousness is forged by Irish history and politics, by Catholicism and culture, language and art. Stephen's story mirrors that of Joyce himself, and the novel is both startlingly realistic and brilliantly crafted, not to mention that it is one of the founding texts of Modernism and the precursor of the acclaimed Ulysses.
For this edition Jeri Johnson, an eminent Joyce scholar, has written an introduction and notes which together provide a comprehensive and illuminating appreciation of Joyce's artistry. [via]More editions of A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man:
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The Quiet Americanby Graham GreeneISBN 0142001384 (0-14-200138-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Quiet American'Book summary:While the French Army in Indo-China is grappling with the Vietminh, back in Saigon a young and high-minded American named Pyle begins to channel economic aid to a "Third Force."[via]
Caught between French colonialists and the Vietminh, Fowler, the narrator and seasoned foreign correspondent, observes: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." As young Pyle's policies blunder on into bloodshed, the older man finds it impossible to stand aside as an observer. But Fowler's motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and to himself: for Pyle has robbed him of his Vietnamese mistress. 
The Raphael Affairby Iain PearsISBN 0151789126 (0-15-178912-6)
Hardcover, Harcourt
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Road to Wigan Pierby George OrwellISBN 0156767503 (0-15-676750-3)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Road to Wigan Pier'Book summary:Although George Orwell grew up in the relative comfort of the English middle class, his socialist convictions and general sense of fairness led him to hate his country's deeply ingrained class structure. That perspective permeates this book, but the most striking elements are the quotidian details of life that Orwell observes in his first-person account of the lives of coal miners and others in the poor north of England. Wigan Pier is almost too realistic at times, as Orwell brings his unparalleled powers of observation to portray the wretched conditions of the working class. That Orwell may have slanted his reporting to make things look worse than they were is a question that does not lessen the book's interest. [via]
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Room of Ones' Ownby Virginia Woolf, Susan Gubar, Mark HusseyISBN 0156030411 (0-15-603041-1)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Room of Ones' Own'Book summary:Virginia Woolf's landmark inquiry into women's role in society
In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister-a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. If only she had found the means to create, argues Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay, she takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those who are without. Her message is a simple one: women must have a fixed income and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create. [via]
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A Room With a Viewby Malcolm Bradbury, E. M. ForsterISBN 0141183292 (0-14-118329-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Room With a View'Book summary:This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson--who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist--Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires. Back in England she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor, and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will decide the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion. The enduring delight of this tale of romantic intrigue is rooted in Forster's colorful characters, including outrageous spinsters, pompous clergymen and outspoken patriots. Written in 1908, A Room With A View is one of E.M. Forster's earliest and most celebrated works. [via]
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Seize the Dayby Saul BellowISBN 0142437611 (0-14-243761-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Selected Poemsby T. S. EliotISBN 0156806479 (0-15-680647-9)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Poems'Book summary:Chosen by Eliot himself, the poems in this volume represent the poet's most important work before Four Quartets. Included here is some of the most celebrated verse in modern literature-"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Gerontion," "The Waste Land," "The Hollow Men," and "Ash Wednesday"-as well as many other fine selections from Eliot's early work. [via]
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Selected Prose of T. S. Eliotby T. S. EliotISBN 0156806541 (0-15-680654-1)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot'Book summary:Thirty-one essays-categorized as essays in generalization, appreciations of individual authors, and social and religious criticism - written over a half century. This volume reveals Eliots original ideas, cogent conclusions, and skill and grace in language. Edited and with an Introduction by Frank Kermode; Index. Published jointly with Farrar, Straus & Giroux.[via]More editions of Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot:
The Souls of Black Folkby W. E. B. Du BoisISBN 014039074X (0-14-039074-X)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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To the Lighthouseby Virginia Woolf, Mark HusseyISBN 0156030470 (0-15-603047-0)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To the Lighthouse'Book summary:"Radiant as [To the Lighthouse] is in its beauty, there could never be a mistake about it: here is a novel to the last degree severe and uncompromising. I think that beyond being about the very nature of reality, it is itself a vision of reality."-Eudora Welty, from the Introduction The serene and maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr. Ramsay, and their children and assorted guests are on holiday on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Woolf constructs a remarkable, moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life and the conflict between men and women. [via]
More editions of To the Lighthouse:
- To the Lighthouse: ISBN 0156907399 (0-15-690739-9)
Softcover, Harcourt - To the Lighthouse: ISBN 0151907374 (0-15-190737-4)
Hardcover, Harcourt - To the Lighthouse: ISBN 0192818163 (0-19-281816-3)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr - To the Lighthouse: ISBN 0151907366 (0-15-190736-6)
Hardcover, Harcourt - To the Lighthouse: ISBN 0156030470 (0-15-603047-0)
Softcover, Harvest Books
- To the Lighthouse: ISBN 0156907399 (0-15-690739-9)
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Vinelandby Thomas PynchonISBN 0141180633 (0-14-118063-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vineland'Book summary:A spaced-out story of Zoyd Wheeler's passion for Frenesi Gates finding fulfilment in his love for their daughter, Prairie. It has been described as "a meditation on myth-making - historical, personal, cinematic and televised". By the author of "V", "The Crying of Lot 49" and "Gravity's Rainbow". [via]
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The Voyage Outby Virginia WoolfISBN 0156028050 (0-15-602805-0)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Voyage Out'Book summary:Woolfs first novel is a haunting book, full of light and shadow. It takes Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their niece, Rachel, on a sea voyage from London to a resort on the South american coast. It is a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South americanca not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an americanca whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis (E. M. Forster).[via]More editions of The Voyage Out:
Waiting for the Barbariansby J. M. CoetzeeISBN 0140283358 (0-14-028335-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetryby Cleanth BrooksISBN 0156957051 (0-15-695705-1)
Softcover, Harcourt
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Winesburg, Ohioby Sherwood AndersonISBN 0192839772 (0-19-283977-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Winesburg, Ohio'Book summary:Library Journal praised this edition of Sherwood Anderson's famed short stories as "the finest edition of this seminal work available." Reconstructed to be as close to the original text as possible, Winesburg, Ohio depicts the strange, secret lives of the inhabitants of a small town. In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented by his hands. In "Adventure," lonely Alice Hindman impulsively walks naked into the night rain. Threaded through the stories is the viewpoint of George Willard, the young newspaper reporter who, like his creator, stands witness to the dark and despairing dealings of a community of isolated people. [via]
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Women in Loveby D. H. LawrenceISBN 0140283374 (0-14-028337-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Women in Love'Book summary:Two of D. H. Lawrence's most renowned novels-now with new packages and new introductions[via]
Widely regarded as D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel, Women in Love continues where The Rainbow left off, with the third generation of the Brangwens. Focusing on Ursula Brangwen and her sister Gudrun's relationships-the former with a school inspector and the latter with an industrialist and then a sculptor-Women in Love is a powerful, sexually explicit depiction of the destructiveness of human relations.More editions of Women in Love:
- Women in Love: ISBN 0141441542 (0-14-144154-2)
Softcover, Penguin Classics - Women in Love: ISBN 0192829955 (0-19-282995-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - Women in Love: ISBN 014043156X (0-14-043156-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - Women in Love: ISBN 0140283374 (0-14-028337-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
- Women in Love: ISBN 0141441542 (0-14-144154-2)
Urdu
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stoneby J. K. Rowling, Darakhshanda Asghar KhokharISBN 0195798589 (0-19-579858-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'Book summary:This is the first Urdu translation of J. K. Rowling's immensely successful Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. An Urdu translation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will publish next year. [via]
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