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books tagged “American literature” (american literature / American Literature)
books tagged “American literature”
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An American Dreamby Norman MailerISBN 0375700706 (0-375-70070-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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The American Tradition in Literatureby Sculley Bradley, George B. PerkinsISBN 0394340728 (0-394-34072-8)
Softcover, Random House
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The American Tradition in Literatureby George B. PerkinsISBN 0394340752 (0-394-34075-2)
Hardcover, Random House
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Another Countryby James BaldwinISBN 0440302005 (0-440-30200-5)
Hardcover, Dell
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Autobiography, and Other Writingsby Benjamin FranklinISBN 0395051304 (0-395-05130-4)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin College Div
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Autobiography, and Other Writings'Book summary:Franklin's writings span a long and distinguished career of literary, scientific, and political inquiry--the work of a man whose life lasted for nearly all of the 18th century, and whose achievements ranged from inventing the lightning rod to publishing Poor Richard's Almanac to signing the Declaration of Independence. In his own lifetime, Franklin knew prominence not only in America but also in Britain and France. Here was a cosmopolitan statesman, public servant, inventor, and editor with a distinctly Yankee sensibility; here was a moral philosopher who divided his faith between the natural sciences and the American experiment.
This volume includes Franklin's reflections on such diverse issues as reason and religion, social status, electricity, America's national character and characters, war, and the societal status of women. Also included is a new transcription of his 1726 journal, and several pieces that have only recently been identified as Franklin's work.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. [via]More editions of Autobiography, and Other Writings:
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Back When We Were Grownupsby Anne TylerISBN 0345446860 (0-345-44686-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Back When We Were Grownups'Book summary:"A WONDERFUL NOVEL . . . Tyler's eye and ear for familial give and take is unerring, her humanity irresistible. You'll want to turn back to the first chapter the moment you finish the last."
-People (Page-Turner of the Week)
"STUNNING . . . 'Once upon a time,' the story begins, 'there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.' . . . With Rebecca Davitch, Tyler has created a character who is brave enough to look back on her life and to imagine herself making different kinds of choices. Brave enough to wonder what honesty looks like, whether there is ever really a single distillation of self that is unshakable and true. . . . Anne Tyler has a talent for spinning out characters . . . who go on living long after their stories end."
-The Baltimore Sun
"Her characters endear themselves to the reader with their candor and their wit and their simple decency. . . . The charm of an Anne Tyler novel lies in the clarity of her prose and the wisdom of her observations."
-The Washington Post Book World
"RESEMBLES JANE AUSTEN'S PERSUASION IN THAT IT'S A NOVEL ABOUT SECOND CHANCES . . . The tension that keeps the narrative alive is our desire for Rebecca to get the recognition and respect that we know she deserves from her family, and from herself. It's always good to have a character to root for."
-San Jose Mercury News
"Maybe there's something glorious to be said, after all, for companionship, common cause, and sanctuary. And what there is to say, Anne Tyler has been saying for decades, with gravity and grace."
-The New York Times Book Review
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Burrby Gore VidalISBN 0375708731 (0-375-70873-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Burr'Book summary:"An extraordinarily intelligent and entertaining novel!"
NEWSWEEK
Brilliantly realized, enormously readable, Gore Vidal's #1 best seller paints a fascinating portrait of Aaron Burr, who lived out his long life partly as a suspected traitor and partly as one of the most heroic and colorful of the founding fathers.
A fictional memoir based on actual facts, BURR describes the early struggles and endless intrigues of the United States. Vidal writes with so much drama and vigor that history comes alive, and the concerns of a new nation read like today's headlines. [via] 
Charlotte's Temple: A Tale of Truthby Susanna RowsonISBN 0403019842 (0-403-01984-2)
Hardcover, Native Amer Books Distributor
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The Complete Poems, 1927-1979by Elizabeth BishopISBN 0374518173 (0-374-51817-3)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Poems, 1927-1979'Book summary:Elizabeth Bishop was vehement about her art--a perfectionist who didn't want to be seen as a "woman poet." In 1977, two years before her death she wrote, "art is art and to separate writings, paintings, musical compositions, etc., into two sexes is to emphasize values in them that are not art." She also deeply distrusted the dominant mode of modern poetry, one practiced with such detached passion by her friend Robert Lowell, the confessional.
Bishop was unforgiving of fashion and limited ways of seeing and feeling, but cast an even more trenchant eye on her own work. One wishes this volume were thicker, though the perfections within mark the rightness of her approach. The poems are sublimely controlled, fraught with word play, fierce moral vision (see her caustic ballad on Ezra Pound, "Visits to St. Elizabeths"), and reticence. From the surreal sorrow of the early "Man-Moth" (leaping off from a typo she had come across for "mammoth"), about a lonely monster who rarely emerges from "the pale subways of cement he calls his home," to the beauty of her villanelle "One Art" (with its repeated "the art of losing isn't hard to master"), the poet wittily explores distance and desolation, separation and sorrow. [via]
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A Confederate General from Big Surby Richard BrautiganISBN 0440516935 (0-440-51693-5)
Softcover, Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Confederate General from Big Sur'Book summary:The year is 1957 in a California that was a preview of things to come in America -- the dawn of lifestyles that were eventually to have a profound and disturbing effect on our culture. This was Brautigan's first novel, written when he was 28. It was originally published in 1965. [via]
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A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon, and The Hawkline Monsterby Richard BrautiganISBN 0395547032 (0-395-54703-2)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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Couplesby John UpdikeISBN 044991190X (0-449-91190-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Couples'Book summary:The provocative novel about sex in suburbia, striking in its complete sexual frankness and rightly praised as an artful, seductive, savagely graphic portrayal of love, marriage and adultery in America.
From the Paperback edition. [via]-
The Crossingby Cormac McCarthyISBN 0394574753 (0-394-57475-3)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Crossing'Book summary:The opening section of The Crossing, book two of the Border Trilogy, features perhaps the most perfectly realized storytelling of Cormac McCarthy's celebrated career. Like All the Pretty Horses, this volume opens with a teenager's decision to slip away from his family's ranch into Mexico. In this case, the boy is Billy Parham, and the catalyst for his trip is a wolf he and his father have trapped, but that Billy finds himself unwilling to shoot. His plan is to set the animal loose down south instead.
This is a McCarthy novel, not Old Yeller, and so Billy's trek inevitably becomes more ominous than sweet. It boasts some chilling meditations on the simple ferocity McCarthy sees as necessary for all creatures who aim to continue living. But Billy is McCarthy's most loving--and therefore damageable--character, and his story has its own haunted melancholy.
Billy eventually returns to his ranch. Then, finding himself and his world changed, he returns to Mexico with his younger brother, and the book begins meandering. Though full of hypnotically barren landscapes and McCarthy's trademark western-gothic imagery (like the soldier who sucks eyes from sockets), these latter stages become tedious at times, thanks partly to the female characters, who exist solely as ghosts to haunt the men.
But that opening is glorious, and the whole book finally transcends its shortcomings to achieve a grim and poignant grandeur. --Glen Hirshberg [via]
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Deadeye Dickby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0385334176 (0-385-33417-6)
Softcover, Delta
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- Deadeye Dick: ISBN 0440117658 (0-440-11765-8)
Softcover, Dell Publishing - Deadeye Dick: ISBN 0440517680 (0-440-51768-0)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group - Deadeye Dick: ISBN 0440017807 (0-440-01780-7)
Hardcover, Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence - Deadeye Dick: ISBN 044001834X (0-440-01834-X)
Hardcover, Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence - Deadeye Dick: ISBN 0385334176 (0-385-33417-6)
Softcover, Delta
- Deadeye Dick: ISBN 0440117658 (0-440-11765-8)
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The Dying Animalby Philip RothISBN 037571412X (0-375-71412-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Dying Animal'Book summary:No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, youre not superior to sex. With these words our most unflaggingly energetic and morally serious novelist launches perhaps his fiercest book. The speaker is David Kepesh, white-haired and over sixty, an eminent cultural critic and star lecturer at a New York collegeas well as an articulate propagandist of the sexual revolution. For years he has made a practice of sleeping with adventurous female students while maintaining an aesthetes critical distance. But now that distance has been annihilated.
The agency of Kepeshs undoing is Consuela Castillo, the decorous and humblingly beautiful 24-year-old daughter of Cuban exiles. When he becomes involved with her, Kepesh finds himself draggedhelplessly, bitterly, furiouslyinto the quagmire of sexual jealousy and loss. In chronicling this descent, Philip Roth performs a breathtaking set of variations on the themes of eros and mortality, license and repression, selfishness and sacrifice. The Dying Animal is a burning coal of a book, filled with intellectual heat and not a little danger. [via]More editions of The Dying Animal:
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Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafeby Fannie FlaggISBN 0449911357 (0-449-91135-7)
Softcover, Fawcett Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'Book summary:Shes one of Americas fairest and funniest ladies. Actress and screenwriter, director and comedienne, Fannie Flagg is also a most accomplished and high-spirited author. Said Kirkus of her first book, Coming Attractions: Its subtitled A wonderful novel and thats exactly what it is. Here is her second. Get ready, because its going to make you laugh (a lot), cry (a little), and care (forever).
What is it? Its first the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two womenof the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruthwho back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.
And as the past unfolds, the presentfor Evelyn and for uswill never quite be the same.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, with humor and dramaand with an ending that would fill with smiling tears the Whistle Stop Lake...if they only had a lake.... [via]More editions of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe:
- Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: ISBN 0375508414 (0-375-50841-4)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: ISBN 039456152X (0-394-56152-X)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: ISBN 0449911357 (0-449-91135-7)
Softcover, Fawcett Books
- Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: ISBN 0375508414 (0-375-50841-4)
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Giles Goat Boyby John BarthISBN 0449235246 (0-449-23524-6)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Giles Goat-Boy, Or, the Revised New Syllabusby John BarthISBN 0385240864 (0-385-24086-4)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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Good Earthby Pearl S. BuckISBN 0381980332 (0-381-98033-2)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Good Earth'Book summary:The story begins on the wedding day of farmer Wang Lung and follows his simple, often one-sided view of the Chinese culture, times, and his connection with the land. The land is a recurring theme throughout the novel, seemingly nurtured by the apparent protagonists, rejected and ruined by the antagonists. The author uses the House of Hwang, a nearby house of nobles, to contrast and predict their rise and fall. As the House of Hwang meets its slow and desperate end, Wang Lung rises.
However, as the weather turns disastrous for farming, Wang Lung's family has to flee to the city to scrape out a meager living. Upon returning home, the family fares better. Wang Lung eventually becomes a prosperous man, his rise contrasting with the downfall of the Hwang family, who lose their connection to the land. At the end of the novel, when Wang Lung is an old man, he overhears his sons plotting to sell some of the land, thus showing the end of the cycle of wealth and downfall. [via]
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Great American Short Storiesby Wallace Stegner, Mary StegnerISBN 0440330602 (0-440-33060-2)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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Hell's Angelsby Hunter S. ThompsonISBN 0345410084 (0-345-41008-4)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hell's Angels'Book summary:"California, Labor Day weekend . . . early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur. . . The Menace is loose again." Thus begins Hunter S. Thompson's vivid account of his experiences with California's most no-torious motorcycle gang, the Hell's Angels. In the mid-1960s, Thompson spent almost two years living with the controversial An-gels, cycling up and down the coast, reveling in the anarchic spirit of their clan, and, as befits their name, raising hell. His book successfully captures a singular moment in American history, when the biker lifestyle was first defined, and when such countercultural movements were electrifying and horrifying America. Thompson, the creator of Gonzo journalism, writes with his usual bravado, energy, and brutal honesty, and with a nuanced and incisive eye; as The New Yorker pointed out, "For all its uninhibited and sardonic humor, Thompson's book is a thoughtful piece of work." As illuminating now as when originally published in 1967, Hell's Angels is a gripping portrait, and the best account we have of the truth behind an American legend.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]More editions of Hell's Angels:
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Hocus Pocusby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0425130215 (0-425-13021-5)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hocus Pocus'Book summary:Hocus Pocus is the fictional autobiography of a West Point graduate who was in charge of the humiliating evacuation of U.S. personnel from the Saigon rooftops at the close of the Vietnam War. Returning home from the war, he unknowingly fathered an illegitimate son. In 2001, the son begins a search for his father and catches up with him just in time to see him arrested for masterminding the prison break of 10,000 convicts.
Using his famous brand of satire and wit, Vonnegut captures twenty-first century America as only he could foresee it. In Hocus Pocus, listeners will find a fresh novel, as fascinating and brilliantly offbeat as anything he's written. [via]More editions of Hocus Pocus:
- Hocus Pocus: ISBN 0425161293 (0-425-16129-3)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group - Hocus Pocus: ISBN 0399135243 (0-399-13524-3)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated - Hocus Pocus: ISBN 0399135499 (0-399-13549-9)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group - Hocus Pocus: ISBN 0425130215 (0-425-13021-5)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
- Hocus Pocus: ISBN 0425161293 (0-425-16129-3)
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The Journals of Sylvia Plathby Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Frances Monson McCulloughISBN 0385493916 (0-385-49391-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Journals of Sylvia Plath'Book summary:No other major contemporary American writer has inspired such intense curiosity about her life as Sylvia Plath. Now the intimate and eloquent personal diaries of the twentieth century's most important female poet reveal for the first time the true story behind "The Bell Jar" and her tragic suicide at thirty. They paint, as well, a revealing portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose stature has seldom been equalled.
"A revelation." The New York Times [via]More editions of The Journals of Sylvia Plath:
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The Last Gentlemanby Walker PercyISBN 0380377969 (0-380-37796-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Gentleman'Book summary:Fictional Novel, Literary Fiction [via]
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The Left Hand of Darknessby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0441007317 (0-441-00731-7)
Softcover, Ace Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Left Hand of Darkness'Book summary:Genly Ai is an emissary from the human galaxy to Winter, a lost, stray world. His mission is to bring the planet back into the fold of an evolving galactic civilization, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own culture and prejudices and those that he encounters. On a planet where people are of no gender--or both--this is a broad gulf indeed. The inventiveness and delicacy with which Le Guin portrays her alien world are not only unusual and inspiring, they are fundamental to almost all decent science fiction that has been written since. In fact, reading Le Guin again may cause the eye to narrow somewhat disapprovingly at the younger generation: what new ground are they breaking that is not already explored here with greater skill and acumen? It cannot be said, however, that this is a rollicking good story. Le Guin takes a lot of time to explore her characters, the world of her creation, and the philosophical themes that arise.
If there were a canon of classic science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness would be included without debate. Certainly, no science fiction bookshelf may be said to be complete without it. But the real question: is it fun to read? It is science fiction of an earlier time, a time that has not worn particularly well in the genre. The Left Hand of Darkness was a groundbreaking book in 1969, a time when, like the rest of the arts, science fiction was awakening to new dimensions in both society and literature. But the first excursions out of the pulp tradition are sometimes difficult to reread with much enjoyment. Rereading The Left Hand of Darkness, decades after its publication, one feels that those who chose it for the Hugo and Nebula awards were right to do so, for it truly does stand out as one of the great books of that era. It is immensely rich in timeless wisdom and insight.
The Left Hand of Darkness is science fiction for the thinking reader, and should be read attentively in order to properly savor the depth of insight and the subtleties of plot and character. It is one of those pleasures that requires a little investment at the beginning, but pays back tenfold with the joy of raw imagination that resonates through the subsequent 30 years of science fiction storytelling. Not only is the bookshelf incomplete without owning it, so is the reader without having read it. --L. Blunt Jackson [via]
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Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boysby Louisa May AlcottISBN 0316031062 (0-316-03106-2)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys'Book summary:The story of the four sisters in "Little Women", and the telling of the remarkable school that Jo and Professor Bhaer founded at Plumfield in "Little Men" is included in this wonderful boxed set. In "Jo's Boys" the boys and girls of Plumfield have grown up, facing problems and seeking happiness in life. [via]
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Lord of the Fliesby William Golding, E. L. EpsteinISBN 0399501487 (0-399-50148-7)
Softcover, Perigee
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lord of the Flies'Book summary:William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. At first, the stranded boys cooperate, attempting to gather food, make shelters, and maintain signal fires. Overseeing their efforts are Ralph, "the boy with fair hair," and Piggy, Ralph's chubby, wisdom-dispensing sidekick whose thick spectacles come in handy for lighting fires. Although Ralph tries to impose order and delegate responsibility, there are many in their number who would rather swim, play, or hunt the island's wild pig population. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored or challenged outright. His fiercest antagonist is Jack, the redheaded leader of the pig hunters, who manages to lure away many of the boys to join his band of painted savages. The situation deteriorates as the trappings of civilization continue to fall away, until Ralph discovers that instead of being hunters, he and Piggy have become the hunted: "He forgot his words, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet." Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct, all on the brutal playing field of adolescent competition. --Jennifer Hubert [via]
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Love in the Ruinsby Walker PercyISBN 0374193029 (0-374-19302-9)
Hardcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Love in the Ruins'Book summary:[via]A great adventure . . . So outrageous and so real, one is left speechless. Chicago Sun TimesIn Walker Percys future America, the country is on the brink of disaster. With citizens violently polarized along racial, political, and social lines, and a fifteen-year war still raging abroad, America is crumbling quickly into ruin. The countrys one remaining hope is Dr. Thomas More, whose lapsometer is capable of diagnosing the spiritual afflictionsanxiety, depression, alienationdriving everyones destructive and disastrous behavior.But such a potent machine has its pitfalls. As Dr. More soon learns, in the wrong hands, the powerful lapsometer could lead to open warfare, pushing America into anarchy at full-speed.More editions of Love in the Ruins:
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A Man in Full Pt. 1: A Novelby Tom WolfeISBN 0374270325 (0-374-27032-5)
Hardcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Man in Full Pt. 1: A Novel'Book summary:Man in Full, A: A Novel, by Wolfe, Tom [via]
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The Mansionby William FaulknerISBN 0394702824 (0-394-70282-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mansion'Book summary:This completes the great trilogy of the Snopes family in Yoknapatawpha and traces the downfall of this indomitable post-bellum family. [via]
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Memoirs of a Geishaby Arthur GoldenISBN 0375400117 (0-375-40011-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Memoirs of a Geisha'Book summary:The first thing you notice about the audio version of Memoirs of a Geisha is that Arthur Golden's 428-page novel has been reduced to a scant two cassettes. But dismay quickly gives way to mounting pleasure as Elaina Erika Davis (Contact, As the World Turns) begins her delicate rendering of geisha culture in the years before World War II. Davis reads the abbreviated story of Sayuri with an authentic-sounding Japanese accent--one mixed with a magical combination of Asian reserve and theatrical energy. As Sayuri ages from a 9-year-old peasant girl to a popular geisha in her late 20s, Davis directs her voice gently away from curious youth to a tone that reflects Sayuri's uphill life.
From start to finish, the listener is absorbed in the elegant spirit of Davis's performance, eager to hear the next chapter of Sayuri's transformation into one of the most famous geishas of the century. How unfortunate, then, to learn that book readers not only get the basic story, but a fascinating look at the intricate rules and rituals of geisha culture. Here, for example, is one of the many revelations omitted from the cassette: "Japanese men, as a rule, feel about a woman's neck and throat the same way that men in the West might feel about a woman's legs.... In fact, a geisha leaves a tiny margin of skin bare all around the hairline, causing her makeup to look even more artificial.... When a man sits beside her, he becomes that much more aware of the bare skin beneath."
We're also denied several subplots--the aborted friendship between Sayuri and a geisha named Pumpkin, for example, or much of the story involving the man Sayuri is secretly in love with. But what remains is as precious as a traditional Japanese kimono--at once artistic, suggestive, and moving. --Ann Senechal [via]
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Music for Chameleonsby Truman CapoteISBN 0394508262 (0-394-50826-2)
Hardcover, Random House
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Music for Chameleons'Book summary:In these gems of reportage Truman Capote takes true stories and real people and renders them with the stylistic brio we expect from great fiction. Here we encounter an exquisitely preserved Creole aristocrat sipping absinthe in her Martinique salon; an enigmatic killer who sends his victims announcements of their forthcoming demise; and a proper Connecticut householder with a ruinous obsession for a twelve-year-old he has never met. And we meet Capote himself, who, whether he is smoking with his cleaning lady or trading sexual gossip with Marilyn Monroe, remains one of the most elegant, malicious, yet compassionate writers to train his eye on the social fauna of his time.
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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucketby Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Rachman, Jeffrey MeyersISBN 0375760075 (0-375-76007-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Norton Anthology of American Literatureby Nina BaymISBN 0393978990 (0-393-97899-0)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Norton Anthology of American Literature'Book summary:The Norton Anthology of American Literature is the classic survey of American literature from its sixteenth-century origins to its flourishing present. This volumeVolume Ccovers American literature from 1865 to 1914. [via]
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Old New Yorkby Edith WhartonISBN 0425046125 (0-425-04612-5)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Old New York'Book summary:Edith Wharton (1862-1937), the grande dame of American literature, was also a subtle and spirited critic of its society. These novellas, set in the New York of the mid-1800s are united by Edith Wharton's compassionate and ironic vision. From Lewis Raycie, son of complacent plutocrats, who returns from his Grand Tour with Renaissance masterpieces only to be ridiculed and disinherited, to Lizzie Hazeldean, seen leaving a hotel with a man who is not her husband - honourable but unconventional people are sacrificed to the constraints of a society where appearances count for more than genuine goodness. Here is a fascinating insight into the world from which Edith Wharton came. [via]
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An Old-fashioned Girlby Louisa May Alcott, Jane DyerISBN 0316037753 (0-316-03775-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Old-fashioned Girl'Book summary:AS a preface is the only place where an author can with propriety explain a purpose or apologize for shortcomings, I venture to avail myself of the privilege to make a statement for the benefit of my readers. As the first part of An Old-Fashioned Girl was written in 1869, the demand for a sequel, in beseeching little letters that made refusal impossible, rendered it necessary to carry my heroine boldly forward some six or seven years into the future. [via]
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The Ox-Bow Incidentby Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Wallace Earle StegnerISBN 0375757023 (0-375-75702-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ox-Bow Incident'Book summary:Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community, justice and human nature. As Wallace Stegner writes, [Clark's] theme was civilization, and he recorded, indelibly, its first steps in a new country. [via]
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Pigeon Feathers and Other Storiesby John UpdikeISBN 0449912256 (0-449-91225-6)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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The Poorhouse Fairby John UpdikeISBN 0394410505 (0-394-41050-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Poorhouse Fair'Book summary:The hero of John Updikes first novel, published when the author was twenty-six, is ninety-four-year-old John Hook, a dying man who yet refuses to be dominated. His world is a poorhousea county home for the aged and infirmoverseen by Stephen Conner, a righteous young man who considers it his duty to know what is best for others. The action of the novel unfolds over a single summers day, the day of the poorhouses annual fair, a day of escalating tensions between Conner and the rebellious Hook. Its climax is a contest between progress and tradition, benevolence and pride, reason and faith. [via]
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The Queen of the Damnedby Anne RiceISBN 0345351525 (0-345-35152-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Queen of the Damned'Book summary:Did you ever wonder where all those mischievous vampires roaming the globe in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles came from? In this, the third book in the series, we find out. That raucous rock-star vampire Lestat interrupts the 6,000-year slumber of the mama of all bloodsuckers, Akasha, Queen of the Damned.
Akasha was once the queen of the Nile (she has a bit in common with the Egyptian goddess Isis), and it's unwise to rile her now that she's had 60 centuries of practice being undead. She is so peeved about male violence that she might just have to kill most of them. And she has her eye on handsome Lestat with other ideas as well.
If you felt that the previous books in the series weren't gory and erotic enough, this one should quench your thirst (though it may cause you to omit organ meats from your diet). It also boasts God's plenty of absorbing lore that enriches the tale that went before, including the back-story of the boy in Interview with the Vampire and the ancient fellowship of the Talamasca, which snoops on paranormal phenomena. Mostly, the book spins the complex yarn of Akasha's eerie, brooding brood and her nemeses, the terrifying sisters Maharet and Mekare. In one sense, Queen of the Damned is the ultimate multigenerational saga. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Rabbit Reduxby John UpdikeISBN 0449911934 (0-449-91193-4)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rabbit Redux'Book summary:"A triumph."
NEWSDAY
The assumptions and obsessions that control our daily lives are explored in tantalizing detail by master novelist John Updike in this wise, witty, and sexy story. Harry Angstrom--known to all as Rabbit, one of America's most famous literary characters--finds his dreary life shattered by the infidelity of his wife, Janice. How he resolves or further complicates his problems makes for a novel of the first order.
From the Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Rabbit Redux:
A Raisin in the Sunby Lorraine HansberryISBN 0375508333 (0-375-50833-3)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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A Raisin in the Sun; A Drama in Three Actsby Lorraine HansberryISBN 0394406885 (0-394-40688-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Raisin in the Sun; A Drama in Three Acts'Book summary:"Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.
Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun."
"The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic." This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff. [via]More editions of A Raisin in the Sun; A Drama in Three Acts:
Rose in Bloomby Louisa May AlcottISBN 0440475880 (0-440-47588-0)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rose in Bloom'Book summary:The further adventures of Rose Campbell, first introduced in Eight Cousins, as she grows into womanhood. [via]
Sapphira and the Slave Girlby Willa CatherISBN 0394714342 (0-394-71434-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Second Comingby Walker PercyISBN 0374256748 (0-374-25674-8)
Hardcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Second Coming'Book summary:[MP3CD audiobook format in vinyl case.]
[Read by David Hilder]
Will Barrett of Linwood, North Carolina, is a depressed widower with a peculiar tendency to fall down in strange places. Allison, the girl in the greenhouse, has just escaped from a mental institution and is working hard to make a new life for herself. When their paths cross in a most unusual manner, a relationship begins that will help restore two struggling outcasts to new life.
What follows is by turns touching and zany, tragic and comic, as Will undertakes his own Pascalian wager in search of proof of the existence of God. Leaving his comfortable home atop a pleasant Carolina mountain and descending deep into the bowels of the long-unused Lost Cove cave, he is prepared to wait for a sign -- which may, of course, be death. What he is not prepared for is what actually happens. [via]More editions of The Second Coming:
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Selected Poetry of Emily Dickinsonby Emily Dickinson, Billy CollinsISBN 0345472411 (0-345-47241-1)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson'Book summary:The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Archibald MacLeish has noted the "curious energy" which pervades Emily Dickinson's work. She, along with Walt Whitman, helps make up the very foundation of American poetry. This Modern Library edition from Random House is an excellent overview of Dickinson's work, divided by theme, including "Life," "Nature," "Love," and so forth. This volume of selected poems is a must for any serious reader of American poetry. [via]
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Speak, Memoryby Vladimir Nabokov, Brian BoydISBN 0375405534 (0-375-40553-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Speak, Memory'Book summary:Even if you already own Nabokov's earthy, otherworldly account of his astounding life, you must buy this 1999 edition. And if you've never read Speak, Memory, you must do so at once. This volume is essential because it includes the unpublished last chapter, a pseudo-review comparing Speak, Memory with another, nonexistent memoir called When Lilacs Last. (That title refers to Whitman's poem on Lincoln's assassination and to the lilacs of Nabokov's childhood home) Chapter 16 is a key to what the imaginary reviewer accurately calls a "unique freak as autobiographies go," revealing its novel-like nature and unifying themes and images (chess, puzzles, spirals, jewels, rainbows, exile, the stained-glass shadow patterns that the future casts on the present). Maybe Nabokov thought he gave too much away, and one sees the formal superiority of ending the book with chapter 15. But the added essay is a gem that dazzles and illuminates.
You have to consult biographies like Brian Boyd's for the full, remarkable facts of Nabokov's life. A millionaire at 17 (his sister danced in Diaghilev gowns with Fabergé gems at the Winter Palace), repeatedly exiled, forced to bust out of one chrysalis after another into new lives, the writer retained only the infinite wealth of his memory and art. This book is a mosaic shaped by a mind so metaphorical that, as a babe, Nabokov perceived letters as colors, the alphabet as a rainbow.
The loss of his father is at Speak, Memory's core. This memoir is worth owning for a single paragraph alone, about the sight of Nabokov senior being tossed aloft by grateful peasants he'd been generous to--a dozen or so with locked arms flinging him up in a hip-hip-hooray ritual.
There, for an instant, the figure of my father in his wind-rippled white summer suit would be displayed, gloriously sprawled in midair.... Thrice, to the mighty heave-ho of his invisible tossers, he would fly up ... and then there he would be, on his last and loftiest flight, reclining, as if for good, against the cobalt blue of the summer noon, like one of those paradisiac personages who comfortably soar, with such a wealth of folds in their garments, on the vaulted ceiling of a church while below, one by one, the wax tapers in mortal hands light up to make a swarm of minute flames in the mist of incense, and the priest chants of eternal repose, and funeral lilies conceal the face of whoever lies there, among the swimming lights, in the open coffin.
Nabokov recaptures the paradise of his youth, and acquits himself of the coldness of which some accuse him. He plays literary games, but he plays for keeps. --Tim Appelo [via]More editions of Speak, Memory:
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Specimen Daysby Michael CunninghamISBN 0374299625 (0-374-29962-5)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Specimen Days'Book summary:Book Description: In each section of Michael Cunningham's bold new novel, his first since The Hours, we encounter the same group of characters: a young boy, an older man, and a young woman. "In the Machine" is a ghost story that takes place at the height of the industrial revolution, as human beings confront the alienating realities of the new machine age. "The Children's Crusade," set in the early twenty-first century, plays with the conventions of the noir thriller as it tracks the pursuit of a terrorist band that is detonating bombs, seemingly at random, around the city. The third part, "Like Beauty," evokes a New York 150 years into the future, when the city is all but overwhelmed by refugees from the first inhabited planet to be contacted by the people of Earth.
Presiding over each episode of this interrelated whole is the prophetic figure of the poet Walt Whitman, who promised his future readers, "It avails not, neither time or place ... I am with you, and know how it is." Specimen Days is a genre-bending, haunting, and transformative ode to life in our greatest city and a meditation on the direction and meaning of America's destiny. It is a work of surpassing power and beauty by one of the most original and daring writers at work today.
More from Michael Cunningham 
The Hours
A Home at the End of the World
Flesh and BloodWhitman Sampler 
The Portable Walt Whitman
Specimen Days & Collect
Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose
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Timequakeby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0425164349 (0-425-16434-9)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Timequake'Book summary:Think of Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut's 19th and last novel (or so he says), as a victory lap. It's a confident final trot 'round the track by one of the greats of postwar American literature. After 40 years of practice, Vonnegut's got his schtick down cold, and it's a pleasure--if a slightly tame one--to watch him go through his paces one more time.
Timequake's a mongrel; it is half novel, half memoir, the project of a decade's worth of writer's block, a book "that didn't want to be written." The premise is standard-issue Vonnegut: "...a timequake, a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum, made everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during past decades, for good or ill, a second time..." Simultaneously, the author's favorite tricks are on display--frequent visits with the shopworn science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a Hitchcockian appearance by the author at the book's end, and frequent authorial opining on love, war, and society. [via]
More editions of Timequake:
- Timequake: ISBN 0425165965 (0-425-16596-5)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group - Timequake: ISBN 0399137378 (0-399-13737-8)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group - Timequake: ISBN 0399138986 (0-399-13898-6)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated - Timequake: ISBN 0425164349 (0-425-16434-9)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
The Townby William FaulknerISBN 0394424522 (0-394-42452-2)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Town'Book summary:This is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South.
Like its predecessor The Hamlet and its successor The Mansion, The Town is completely self-contained, but it gains resonance from being read with the other two. The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, the book is rich in typically Faulknerian episodes of humor and of profundity.
From the Paperback edition. [via]More editions of The Town:
A Walk on the Wild Sideby Nelson AlgrenISBN 0374525323 (0-374-52532-3)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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The Waste Land and Other Writingsby T. S. EliotISBN 0375759344 (0-375-75934-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Waste Land and Other Writings'Book summary:Also includes Prufrock and Other Observations, Poems (1920), and The Sacred Wood
Introduction by Mary Karr
First published in 1922, The Waste Land, T. S. Eliots masterpiece, is not only one of the key works of modernism but also one of the greatest poetic achievements of the twentieth century. A richly allusive pilgrimage of spiritual and psychological torment and redemption, Eliots poem exerted a revolutionary influence on his contemporaries, summoning forth a potent new poetic language. As Kenneth Rexroth wrote, Eliot articulated the mind of an epoch in words that seemed its most natural expression. As commanding as his verse, Eliots criticism also transformed twentieth-century letters, and this Modern Library edition includes a selection of Eliots most important essays. [via]More editions of The Waste Land and Other Writings:
The Waterworksby E. L. DoctorowISBN 0394587545 (0-394-58754-5)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Wild Palmsby William FaulknerISBN 039470262X (0-394-70262-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wild Palms'Book summary:Harry Wilbourne and his lover Charlotte escape from the snare of Chicago and the security that the city holds after he has performed an abortion on her. But the shades of the prison house, of death, seem to close around them as they turn their backs on life to conserve their love. [via]
William Golding's Lord of the Fliesby William GoldingISBN 0399506438 (0-399-50643-8)
Softcover, Perigee
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› Find signed collectible books: 'William Golding's Lord of the Flies'Book summary:Lord of the Flies , William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island, is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. At first, the stranded boys cooperate, attempting to gather food, make shelters, and maintain signal fires. Overseeing their efforts are Ralph, "the boy with fair hair," and Piggy, Ralph's chubby, wisdom-dispensing sidekick whose thick spectacles come in handy for lighting fires. Although Ralph tries to impose order and delegate responsibility, there are many in their number who would rather swim, play, or hunt the island's wild pig population. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored or challenged outright. His fiercest antagonist is Jack, the redheaded leader of the pig hunters, who manages to lure away many of the boys to join his band of painted savages. The situation deteriorates as the trappings of civilization continue to fall away, until Ralph discovers that instead of being hunters, he and Piggy have become the hunted: "He forgot his words, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet." Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct, all on the brutal playing field of adolescent competition. --Jennifer Hubert [via]
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