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books tagged “20th c” (20th C / 20th c.)
books tagged “20th c”
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1984by George Orwell, Mike DeanISBN 0582777313 (0-582-77731-3)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: '1984'Book summary:Orwell's classic novel tells the story of a world where thoughts and actions are controlled by the all-seeing Big Brother. When Winston Smith rebels and searches for the truth he learns a painful lesson about his world and the people in it. Also a powerful film directed by Michael Radford. [via]
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Animal Farmby Naura HaydenISBN 0582530083 (0-582-53008-3)
Softcover, Longman Group United Kingdom
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Animal Farm'Book summary:Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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Brave New Worldby Aldous HuxleyISBN 0582530334 (0-582-53033-4)
Softcover, Longman Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brave New World'Book summary:"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. [via]
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The Catcher in the Ryeby J. D. SalingerISBN 0553149660 (0-553-14966-0)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Catcher in the Rye'Book summary:Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. [via]
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The Catcher in the Ryeby Not AvailableISBN 055311722X (0-553-11722-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Catcher in the Rye'Book summary:Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. [via]
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The Crying of Lot Forty-Nineby Thomas PynchonISBN 0553236911 (0-553-23691-1)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Crying of Lot Forty-Nine'Book summary:The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge.
[via]More editions of The Crying of Lot Forty-Nine:
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Death in Veniceby Thomas MannISBN 0486287149 (0-486-28714-9)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Death in Venice'Book summary:This superb translation of Death in Venice and six other stories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, deserving to be the definitive text for English-speaking readers. These seven stories represent Manns early writing career and a level of literary quality Mann himself despaired of ever again matching. In these stories he began to grapple with themes that were to recur throughout his work. In Little Herr Friedemann, a characters carefully structured way of life is suddenly threatened by an unexpected sexual passion. In Gladius Dei, puritanical intellect clashes with beauty. In Tristan, Mann presents an ironic and comic account of the tension between an artist and bourgeois society.
All seven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but it is Death in Venice that truly forms the centerpiece of the collection. The themes that Mann weaves through the shorter pieces come to a climax in this stunning novella, one of the most hauntingly magnificent tales of art and self-destruction ever written. [via] -
Fountainheadby Ayn Rand, Peikoff, Leonard (AFT)ISBN 0452286379 (0-452-28637-9)
Softcover, Plume
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fountainhead'Book summary:A special edition hardcover in celebration of Ayn Rands centennial.
When it was first published in 1943, The Fountainhead--containing Ayn Rands daringly original literary vision with the seeds of her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivismwon immediate worldwide acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This centennial edition of The Fountainhead, celebrating the controversial and eduring legacy of its author, features an afterword by Rands literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, offering some of Ayn Rands personal notes on the development of her masterwork. [via]
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The Grapes of Wrathby John SteinbeckISBN 0670347914 (0-670-34791-4)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Grapes of Wrath'Book summary:When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations--the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions--in the Joad family. Then he set them down on a westward-running road, local dialect and all, for the world to acknowledge. For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.
The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency."
The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom--us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on." It's almost as if she's talking about the very novel she inhabits, for Steinbeck's characters, more than most literary creations, do go on. They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon--Rosasharn, as they call her--the eldest Joad daughter, forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. --Melanie Rehak [via]
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The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hana SambrookISBN 0582823102 (0-582-82310-2)
Softcover, Pearson Education, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Gatsby'Book summary:In 1922, F Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple, intricately patterned". That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned and, above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace be comes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties and waits for her to appear. When s he does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbour Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. Perry Freeman, Amazon.com [via]
More editions of The Great Gatsby:
- The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0521402301 (0-521-40230-1)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0521485479 (0-521-48547-9)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0582275156 (0-582-27515-6)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley - Great Gatsby: ISBN 060634117X (0-606-34117-X)
Hardcover, Demco Media - The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0582823102 (0-582-82310-2)
Softcover, Pearson Education, Limited
- The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0521402301 (0-521-40230-1)
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The Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad, Cedric WattsISBN 0460874772 (0-460-87477-2)
Softcover, Everyman
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart of Darkness'Book summary:Dark allegory describes the narrator's journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad's finest, most enigmatic story.[via] -
Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharerby Joseph ConradISBN 0553212141 (0-553-21214-1)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer'Book summary:Heart Of Darkness. The story of the civilized, enlightened Mr. Kurtz who embarks on a harrowing "night journey" into the savage heart of Africa, only to find his dark and evil soul. The Secret Sharer. The saga of a young, inexperienced skipper forced to decide the fate of a fugitive sailor who killed a man in self-defense. As he faces his first moral test the skipper discovers a terrifying truth -- and comes face to face with the secret itself. Heart Of Darkness and The Secret Sharer draw on actual events and people that Conrad met or heard about during his many far-flung travels. In portraying men whose incredible journeys on land and at sea are also symbolic voyages into their own mysterious depths, these two masterful works give credence to Conrad's acclaim as a major psychological writer. [via]
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The Hobbitby J.R.R. TolkienISBN 0618002219 (0-618-00221-9)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hobbit'Book summary:"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.
The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of The Hobbit:
- The Hobbit: ISBN 061815082X (0-618-15082-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Hobbit: ISBN 0618260307 (0-618-26030-7)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Hobbit: ISBN 061382735X (0-613-82735-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - The Hobbit: ISBN 0613881656 (0-613-88165-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - The Hobbit: ISBN 0618162216 (0-618-16221-6)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Hobbit: ISBN 0618002219 (0-618-00221-9)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
- The Hobbit: ISBN 061815082X (0-618-15082-X)
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The House of Mirthby Edith WhartonISBN 0486420493 (0-486-42049-3)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The House of Mirth'Book summary:"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth," warns Ecclesiastes 7:4, and so does the novel by Edith Wharton that takes its title from this call to heed. New York at the turn of the century was a time of opulence and frivolity for those who could afford it. But for those who couldn't and yet wanted desperately to keep up with the whirlwind, like Wharton's charming Lily Bart, it was something else altogether: a gilded cage rather than the Gilded Age.
One of Wharton's earliest descriptions of her heroine, in the library of her bachelor friend and sometime suitor Lawrence Selden, indicates that she appears "as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing room." Indeed, herein lies Lily's problem. She has, we're told, "been brought up to be ornamental," and yet her spirit is larger than what this ancillary role requires. By today's standards she would be nothing more than a mild rebel, but in the era into which Wharton drops her unmercifully, this tiny spark of character, combined with numerous assaults by vicious society women and bad luck, ultimately renders Lily persona non grata. Her own ambivalence about her position serves to open the door to disaster: several times she is on the verge of "good" marriage and squanders it at the last moment, unwilling to play by the rules of a society that produces, as she calls them, "poor, miserable, marriageable girls.
Lily's rather violent tumble down the social ladder provides a thumbnail sketch of the general injustices of the upper classes (which, incidentally, Wharton never quite manages to condemn entirely, clearly believing that such life is cruel but without alternative). From her start as a beautiful woman at the height of her powers to her sad finale as a recently fired milliner's assistant addicted to sleeping drugs, Lily Bart is heroic, not least for her final admission of her own role in her downfall. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance to escape from my life and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward," she tells Selden as the book draws to a close. All manner of hideous socialite beasts--some of whose treatment by Wharton, such as the token social-climbing Jew, Simon Rosedale, date the book unfortunately--wander through the novel while Lily plummets. As her tale winds down to nothing more than the remnants of social grace and cold hard cash, it's hard not to agree with Lily's own assessment of herself: "I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else." Nevertheless, it's even harder not to believe that she deserved better, which is why The House of Mirth remains so timely and so vital in spite of its crushing end and its unflattering portrait of what life offers up. --Melanie Rehak [via]
In Cold Bloodby Truman CapoteISBN 0606207201 (0-606-20720-1)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journeyby Salman RushdieISBN 0670817570 (0-670-81757-0)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey'Book summary:In this timeless, haunting portrait of the people and the politics of Nicaragua, Rushdie brings to life the palpable human facts of a country in the midst of a revolution. [via]
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James Joyce : Dubliners, a Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, Chamber Musicby James JoyceISBN 051708239X (0-517-08239-X)
Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'James Joyce : Dubliners, a Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, Chamber Music'Book summary:An eclectic volume of works by one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century includes a short story collection, his most famous novel, and an early sequence of poems. [via]
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Lady Chatterley's Loverby D. H. LawrenceISBN 0486452344 (0-486-45234-4)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'Book summary:Perhaps the most famous of Lawrence's novels, the 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover is no longer distinguished for the once-shockingly explicit treatment of its subject matter--the adulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-class married woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned by her wheelchaired husband. Now that we're used to reading about sex, and seeing it in the movies, it's apparent that the novel is memorable for better reasons: namely, that Lawrence was a masterful and lyrical writer, whose story takes us bodily into the world of its characters. [via]
More editions of Lady Chatterley's Lover:
- Lady Chatterley's Lover: ISBN 0553212621 (0-553-21262-1)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept - Lady Chatterley's Lover: ISBN 0517385872 (0-517-38587-2)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub - Lady Chatterley's Lover: ISBN 0517436264 (0-517-43626-4)
Hardcover, Chatham River Press - Lady Chatterley's Lover: ISBN 0521222664 (0-521-22266-4)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Lady Chatterley's Lover: ISBN 0486452344 (0-486-45234-4)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
- Lady Chatterley's Lover: ISBN 0553212621 (0-553-21262-1)
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Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'by Michael Squires, D. H. Lawrence, M. H. Black, James T. Boulton, Lindeth VaseyISBN 0521007178 (0-521-00717-8)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover''Book summary:Perhaps the most famous of Lawrence's novels, the 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover is no longer distinguished for the once-shockingly explicit treatment of its subject matter--the adulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-class married woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned by her wheelchaired husband. Now that we're used to reading about sex, and seeing it in the movies, it's apparent that the novel is memorable for better reasons: namely, that Lawrence was a masterful and lyrical writer, whose story takes us bodily into the world of its characters. [via]
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Lawrence : Sons and Loversby Michael H. Black, J. P. SternISBN 052136924X (0-521-36924-X)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lawrence : Sons and Lovers'Book summary:This is the first critical study of Sons and Lovers to engage with the new Cambridge edition, which prints for the first time the whole text that Lawrence wrote, restoring the sustantial cuts made by the first editor. Michael Black gives special attention to the genesis of the book--the writing and editing processes, where Jessie Chambers and then Edward Garnett made decisive interventions. He analyzes Sons and Lovers in detail, relates it to Lawrence's other works, and traces the history of its reception. Historical context and a guide to further reading are also provided. [via]
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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King/Two Towers/Fellowship of the Ringby Alan Lee, J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0618260587 (0-618-26058-7)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King/Two Towers/Fellowship of the Ring'Book summary:Three-volume boxed set edition lavishly illustrated in full color by Alan Lee[via]
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth still it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell, by chance, into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.
From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.
On his eleventy-first birthday, Bilbo dissapeared bequeathing to his young cousin, Frodo, the Ruling Ring, and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the wizard, the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.More editions of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King/Two Towers/Fellowship of the Ring:
Matar UN Ruisenor/to Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper LeeISBN 0613054490 (0-613-05449-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Matar UN Ruisenor/to Kill a Mockingbird'More editions of Matar UN Ruisenor/to Kill a Mockingbird:
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Mrs Dallowayby Virginia WoolfISBN 0613706226 (0-613-70622-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mrs Dalloway'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. [via]
The Name of the Roseby Umberto EcoISBN 0517448424 (0-517-44842-4)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub
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Of Human Bondageby W. Somerset MaughamISBN 055321392X (0-553-21392-X)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Of Human Bondage'Book summary:A young man struggling for self-realization is caught up in a destructive love affair. [via]
One Hundred Years of Solitudeby Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gregory RabassaISBN 0606203419 (0-606-20341-9)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'Book summary:"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:
A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."
With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of One Hundred Years of Solitude:
- One Hundred Years of Solitude: ISBN 060630052X (0-606-30052-X)
Hardcover, Demco Media - One Hundred Years of Solitude: ISBN 0606349154 (0-606-34915-4)
Hardcover, Demco Media - One Hundred Years of Solitude: ISBN 0613174186 (0-613-17418-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - One Hundred Years of Solitude: ISBN 0606203419 (0-606-20341-9)
Hardcover, Demco Media
- One Hundred Years of Solitude: ISBN 060630052X (0-606-30052-X)
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A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Manby James JoyceISBN 0486280500 (0-486-28050-0)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man'Book summary:Perhaps Joyce's most personal work, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man depicts the intellectual awakening of one of literature's most memorable young heroes, Stephen Dedalus. Through a series of brilliant epiphanies that parallel the development of his own aesthetic consciousness, Joyce evokes Stephen's youth, from his impressionable years as the youngest student at the Clongowed Wood school to the deep religious conflict he experiences at a day school in Dublin, and finally to his college studies where he challenges the conventions of his upbringing and his understanding of faith and intellectual freedom. James Joyce's highly autobiographical novel was first published in the United States in 1916 to immediate acclaim. Ezra Pound accurately predicted that Joyce's book would "remain a permanent part of English literature," while H.G. Wells dubbed it "by far the most important living and convincing picture that exists of an Irish Catholic upbringing." A remarkably rich study of a developing young mind, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man made an indelible mark on literature and confirmed Joyce's reputation as one of the world's greatest and lasting writers. [via]
More editions of A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man:
- A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: ISBN 0553214047 (0-553-21404-7)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept - A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: ISBN 0586044752 (0-586-04475-2)
Hardcover, Triad - A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: ISBN 0670566829 (0-670-56682-9)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA - A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: ISBN 0486280500 (0-486-28050-0)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
- A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man: ISBN 0553214047 (0-553-21404-7)
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce)by James Joyce, Christopher HansonISBN 0631978100 (0-631-97810-0)
Hardcover, Blackwell
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce)'Book summary:FAST SHIPPING out in 1 business day!!! Email sent when book ships with confirmation # [via]
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Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man Text and Criticismby James JoyceISBN 0670566489 (0-670-56648-9)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man Text and Criticism'Book summary:Autobiographical novel by James Joyce, published serially in The Egoist in 1914-15 and in book form in 1916; considered by many the greatest bildungsroman in the English language. The novel portrays the early years of Stephen Dedalus, who later reappeared as one of the main characters in Joyce's Ulysses (1922). Each of the novel's five sections is written in a third-person voice that reflects the age and emotional state of its protagonist, from the first childhood memories written in simple, childlike language to Stephen's final decision to leave Dublin for Paris to devote his life to art, written in abstruse, Latin-sprinkled, stream-of-consciousness prose. The novel's rich, symbolic language and brilliant use of stream-of-consciousness foreshadowed Joyce's later work. The work is a drastic revision of an earlier version entitled Stephen Hero and is the second part of Joyce's cycle of works chronicling the spiritual history of humans from Adam's Fall through the Redemption. The cycle began with the short-story collection Dubliners (1914) and continued with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake (1939). [via]
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Rachel Papersby Martin AmisISBN 0517567776 (0-517-56777-6)
Softcover, Harmony Books
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Ragtimeby E.L. DoctorowISBN 0553257366 (0-553-25736-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ragtime'Book summary:Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.
The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.
The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torch-bearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices. [via] -
The Return of the Kingby J. R. R. Tolkien, Alan LeeISBN 0618002243 (0-618-00224-3)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Return of the King'Book summary:The third volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings[via]
"An extraordinary work -- pure excitement." -- New York Times Book Review
"A triumphant close...a grand piece of work, grand in both conception and execution. An astonishing imaginative tour de force." -- Daily Telegraph
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them
As the Shadow of Mordor grows across the land, the Companions of the Ring have become involved in separate adventures. Aragorn, revealed as the hidden heir of the ancient Kings of the West, has joined with the Riders of Rohan against the forces of Isengard, and took part in the desperate victory of the Hornburg. Merry and Pippin, captured by Orcs, escaped into Fangorn Forest and there encountered the Ents. Gandalf has miraculously returned and defeated the evil wizard, Saruman. Sam has left his master for dead after a battle with the giant spider, Shelob; but Frodo is still alive -- now in the foul hands of the Orcs. And all the while the armies of the Dark Lord are massing as the One Ring draws ever nearer to the Cracks of Doom.More editions of The Return of the King:
- The Return of the King: ISBN 0618346279 (0-618-34627-9)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Return of the King: ISBN 0618574972 (0-618-57497-2)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Return of the King: ISBN 0618154000 (0-618-15400-0)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Return of the King: ISBN 0618260552 (0-618-26055-2)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Return of the King: ISBN 0618129111 (0-618-12911-1)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Return of the King: ISBN 0618260285 (0-618-26028-5)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - The Return of the King: ISBN 0618002243 (0-618-00224-3)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
- The Return of the King: ISBN 0618346279 (0-618-34627-9)
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Sons and Loversby D. H. LawrenceISBN 048642121X (0-486-42121-X)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sons and Lovers'Book summary:Sons and Lovers was the first modern portrayal of a phenomenon that later, thanks to Freud, became easily recognizable as the Oedipus complex. Never was a son more indentured to his mother's love and full of hatred for his father than Paul Morel, D.H. Lawrence's young protagonist. Never, that is, except perhaps Lawrence himself. In his 1913 novel he grappled with the discordant loves that haunted him all his life--for his spiritual childhood sweetheart, here called Miriam, and for his mother, whom he transformed into Mrs. Morel. It is, by Lawrence's own account, a book aimed at depicting this woman's grasp: "as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers--first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother--urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives."
Of course, Mrs. Morel takes neither of her two elder sons (the first of whom dies early, which further intensifies her grip on Paul) as a literal lover, but nonetheless her psychological snare is immense. She loathes Paul's Miriam from the start, understanding that the girl's deep love of her son will oust her: "She's not like an ordinary woman, who can leave me my share in him. She wants to absorb him." Meanwhile, Paul plays his part with equal fervor, incapable of committing himself in either direction: "Why did his mother sit at home and suffer?... And why did he hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the thought of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering, then he hated her--and he easily hated her." Soon thereafter he even confesses to his mother: "I really don't love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you."
The result of all this is that Paul throws Miriam over for a married suffragette, Clara Dawes, who fulfills the sexual component of his ascent to manhood but leaves him, as ever, without a complete relationship to challenge his love for his mother. As Paul voyages from the working-class mining world to the spheres of commerce and art (he has fair success as a painter), he accepts that his own achievements must be equally his mother's. "There was so much to come out of him. Life for her was rich with promise. She was to see herself fulfilled... All his work was hers."
The cycles of Paul's relationships with these three women are terrifying at times, and Lawrence does nothing to dim their intensity. Nor does he shirk in his vivid, sensuous descriptions of the landscape that offers up its blossoms and beasts and "shimmeriness" to Paul's sensitive spirit. Sons and Lovers lays fully bare the souls of men and earth. Few books tell such whole, complicated truths about the permutations of love as resolutely without resolution. It's nothing short of searing to be brushed by humanity in this manner. --Melanie Rehak [via]
More editions of Sons and Lovers:
- Sons and Lovers: ISBN 0553211927 (0-553-21192-7)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept - Sons and Lovers: ISBN 0582416965 (0-582-41696-5)
Softcover, Longman Pub Group - Sons and Lovers: ISBN 067001804X (0-670-01804-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - Sons and Lovers: ISBN 0521242762 (0-521-24276-2)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Sons and Lovers: ISBN 0521432219 (0-521-43221-9)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Sons and Lovers: ISBN 0670657646 (0-670-65764-6)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA - Sons and Lovers: ISBN 048642121X (0-486-42121-X)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
- Sons and Lovers: ISBN 0553211927 (0-553-21192-7)
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This Side of Paradiseby F. Scott FitzgeraldISBN 0486289990 (0-486-28999-0)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'This Side of Paradise'Book summary:F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise is the opening statement of his literary career. Published originally in 1920, the novel captures the rhythm and feel of the gaudy decade that was to follow in America. This Side of Paradise made Fitzgerald simultaneously famous and infamous: famous for the stylish exuberance of his writing and infamous for the errors--in spelling, fact, grammar, and chronology--that peppered his text. This new edition, prepared with the most recent techniques of modern scholarly editing, brings into being an accurate, fully annotated text based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. [via]
More editions of This Side of Paradise:
- This Side of Paradise: ISBN 0521402344 (0-521-40234-4)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - This Side of Paradise: ISBN 0553214535 (0-553-21453-5)
Softcover, Bantam Books - This Side of Paradise: ISBN 051714882X (0-517-14882-X)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub - This Side of Paradise: ISBN 0486289990 (0-486-28999-0)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
- This Side of Paradise: ISBN 0521402344 (0-521-40234-4)
To Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper LeeISBN 0606297758 (0-606-29775-8)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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To the Lighthouseby Virginia WoolfISBN 0582097142 (0-582-09714-2)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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Tropic of Cancerby Henry MillerISBN 0613706196 (0-613-70619-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tropic of Cancer'Book summary:No punches are pulled in Henry Miller's most famous work. Still pretty rough going for even our jaded sensibilities, but Tropic of Cancer is an unforgettable novel of self-confession. Maybe the most honest book ever written, this autobiographical fiction about Miller's life as an expatriate American in Paris was deemed obscene and banned from publication in this country for years. When you read this, you see immediately how much modern writers owe Miller. [via]
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Two Towersby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0618002235 (0-618-00223-5)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Two Towers'Book summary:The second volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings[via]
"Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron." -- C. S. Lewis
"Among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century. The book presents us with the richest profusion of new lands and new creatures, from the beauty of Lothlorien to the horror of Mordor, adventures to hold us spell-bound, and words of beauty and evocation to bring all vividly before us." --Sunday Telegraph
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them
Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape the rest of the company were attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin -- alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.More editions of Two Towers:
- Two Towers: ISBN 0618346260 (0-618-34626-0)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - Two Towers: ISBN 0618574956 (0-618-57495-6)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - Two Towers: ISBN 0618153993 (0-618-15399-3)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin - Two Towers: ISBN 0618260595 (0-618-26059-5)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin - Two Towers: ISBN 0618129081 (0-618-12908-1)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - Two Towers: ISBN 0618260277 (0-618-26027-7)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin - Two Towers: ISBN 0618002235 (0-618-00223-5)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
- Two Towers: ISBN 0618346260 (0-618-34626-0)
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Ulyssesby James JoyceISBN 0486424448 (0-486-42444-8)
Softcover, Dover Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ulysses'Book summary:Regarded today as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Ulysses remained banned in the United States until 1933. Drawing upon a complex network of symbolic parallels from mythology, history, and literature, the novel employs experimental narrative techniques to chronicle an ordinary day in the lives of three Dubliners. [via]
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The Unbearable Lightness of Beingby Milan KunderaISBN 057113209X (0-571-13209-X)
Hardcover, Faber and Faber
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'Book summary:A novel of irreconcilable loves and infidelities, which embraces all aspects of human existence, and addresses the nature of twentieth-century 'Being'. [via]
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