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books tagged “Drama” (drama)
books tagged “Drama”
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12 Angry Menby Reginald RoseISBN 0573040125 (0-573-04012-5)
Softcover, Dramatic Pub Co
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1943 True Westby Sam ShepardISBN 0573617287 (0-573-61728-7)
Softcover, Samuel French Inc Plays
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› Find signed collectible books: '1943 True West'Book summary:Comedy / 3m, 1f / Int. Recently revived at New York's Circle in the Square, where Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly alternated playing the roles of the brothers, this American classic explores alternatives that might spring from the demented terrain of the California landscape. Sons of a desert dwelling alcoholic and a suburban wanderer clash over a film script. Austin, the achiever, is working on a script he has sold to producer Sal Kimmer when Lee, a demented petty thief, drops in. He pitches his own idea for a movie to Kimmer, who then wants Austin to junk his bleak, modern love story and write Lee's trashy Western tale. "Shepard's masterwork.... It tells us a truth, as glimpsed by a 37 year old genius." - New York Post "It's clear, funny, naturalistic. It's also opaque, terrifying, surrealistic. If that sounds contradictory, you're on to one aspect of Shepard's winning genius; the ability to make you think you're watching one thing while at the same time he's presenting another." - San Francisco Chronicle [via]
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Acting: Onstage And Offby Robert BartonISBN 0534637086 (0-534-63708-6)
Hardcover, Wadsworth Pub Co
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The Aeneid of Virgilby VirgilISBN 0553210416 (0-553-21041-6)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Aeneid of Virgil'Book summary:Aeneas flees the ashes of Troy to found the city of Rome and change forever the course of the Western world--as literature as well. Virgil's Aeneid is as eternal as Rome itself, a sweeping epic of arms and heroism--the searching portrait of a man caught between love and duty, human feeling and the force of fate--that has influenced writers for over 2,000 years. Filled with drama, passion, and the universal pathos that only a masterpiece can express. The Aeneid is a book for all the time and all people. [via]
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Alan Bennett: Plays 2 Kafka's Dick, the Insurance Man, the Old Country, an Englishman Abroad, a Question of Attributionby Alan BennettISBN 0571194427 (0-571-19442-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alan Bennett: Plays 2 Kafka's Dick, the Insurance Man, the Old Country, an Englishman Abroad, a Question of Attribution'More editions of Alan Bennett: Plays 2 Kafka's Dick, the Insurance Man, the Old Country, an Englishman Abroad, a Question of Attribution:
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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girlby Anne Frank, Eleanor Roosevelt, B. M. Mooyaart-DoubledayISBN 0553296981 (0-553-29698-1)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl'Book summary:A beloved classic since its initial publication in 1947, this vivid, insightful journal is a fitting memorial to the gifted Jewish teenager who died at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Born in 1929, Anne Frank received a blank diary on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her marvelously detailed, engagingly personal entries chronicle 25 trying months of claustrophobic, quarrelsome intimacy with her parents, sister, a second family, and a middle-aged dentist who has little tolerance for Anne's vivacity. The diary's universal appeal stems from its riveting blend of the grubby particulars of life during wartime (scant, bad food; shabby, outgrown clothes that can't be replaced; constant fear of discovery) and candid discussion of emotions familiar to every adolescent (everyone criticizes me, no one sees my real nature, when will I be loved?). Yet Frank was no ordinary teen: the later entries reveal a sense of compassion and a spiritual depth remarkable in a girl barely 15. Her death epitomizes the madness of the Holocaust, but for the millions who meet Anne through her diary, it is also a very individual loss. --Wendy Smith [via]
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Bach at Leipzig: A Playby Tom Stoppard, Itamar MosesISBN 0571211119 (0-571-21111-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bach at Leipzig: A Play'Book summary:Leipzig, Germany, 1722: Johann Kuhnau, revered organist of the Thomaskirche, suddenly dies, leaving his post vacant. In order to fill the position, the city council invites a small number of musicians to audition for the appointment, including Johann Sebastian Bach. This, however, is not his story. Based on actual events, Bach at Leipzig imagines with uncommon intelligence and wit how six little-known musicians resorted to bribery, blackmail, and betrayal in an attempt to secure the most coveted musical post in all of Europe.[via]
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The Breath of Lifeby David HareISBN 0571215939 (0-571-21593-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedyby P. E. EasterlingISBN 0521423511 (0-521-42351-1)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Taleby Geoffrey Chaucer, Maurice HusseyISBN 0521046238 (0-521-04623-8)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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Canterbury Talesby Geoffrey Chaucer, Winthrop WetherbeeISBN 0521311594 (0-521-31159-4)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Canterbury Tales'Book summary:They set off on an April morning with the rain dripping from the branches. Even with the rain, they were glad to be on their way--priests, nuns, tradesmen, men from the city, all pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.
To pass the long journey they told each other stories: of magic and trickery, of animals with blazing eyes, of people with their pants on fire, of two thousand men battling before smoking walls, stories of love and death and the devil. There were written down by Geoffrey Chaucer, and he called them The Canterbury Tales.
Geraldine McCaughrean retells The Canterbury Tales for children in a lively and humorous style which captures the original flair of Chaucer himself. She introduces us to the characters who told these tales: the shy, battle-hardened Knight, the Summoner whose breath smells of onions, the angry Miller with his read beard, and the Widow of Bath who likes a happy ending.
The stories and the characters are vividly brought to life by Victor Ambrus, with pictures of wild chases, exciting battles, and the April countryside through which the pilgrims travel. [via] -
Casinoby Martin Scorsese, Nicholas PileggiISBN 0571179924 (0-571-17992-4)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Casino'Book summary:The author of the best-selling Wiseguy gives us this true and brilliantly-told story of love, marriage, adultery, murder, revenge, and how it led to the Mafia's finally losing its stranglehold on the Las Vegas casinos. [via]
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Cat's Eyeby Margaret AtwoodISBN 0553282476 (0-553-28247-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cat's Eye'Book summary:Controversial painter Elaine Risley returns from Vancouver for a retrospective of her work. Here, in Toronto, the city of her youth, she confronts the submerged layers of her past her unconventional family, her eccentric and brilliant brother, the self-righteous Mrs. Smeath, and the two men Elaine later came to love in diverse and sometimes disastrous ways. But it is the enigmatic Cordelia, once her tormentor, then her best friend, whose elusive yet powerful presence in her life Elaine finally comes to understand. The realm of childhood and growing up, with its secrecies, cruelties, betrayals, and terrors, has never been so brilliantly evoked. By turns disquieting, humorous, compassionate, haunting and mordant, Cats Eye is vintage Atwood.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]-
The Chairsby Eugene Ionesco, Martin Crimp, Theatre De Complicite (Theatrical Troupe), Royal Court TheatreISBN 0571194516 (0-571-19451-6)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Chairs'Book summary:[ THE CHAIRS BY IONESCO, EUGENE](AUTHOR)PAPERBACK [via]
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Comediansby Trevor GriffithsISBN 0571049869 (0-571-04986-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Communicating Doorsby Alan AyckbournISBN 0573626847 (0-573-62684-7)
Softcover, Samuel French Inc Plays
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Communicating Doors'Book summary:How Ms. Poopay Dayseer, a twenty-first century Specialist Sexual Consultant, while peddling her 'services' to an elderly hotel room client unexpectedly finds herself running for her life. How her flight through a communicating door brings her face to face with her own past and with Ruella who apparently died under suspicious circumstances twenty years earlier. And how Poopay's gradual friendship with that remarkable woman changes the future for both of them...[via]
A time-travelling comedy thriller, Communicating Doors is published to coincide with the West End opening in 1995.-
Crime and Punishmentby Fyodor DostoevskyISBN 0553211757 (0-553-21175-7)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crime and Punishment'Book summary:A desperate young man plans the perfect crime -- the murder of a despicable pawnbroker, an old women no one loves and no one will mourn. Is it not just, he reasons, for a man of genius to commit such a crime, to transgress moral law -- if it will ultimately benefit humanity? so begins one of the greatest novels ever written: a powerful psychological study, a terrifying murder mystery, a fascinating detective thriller infused with philosophical, religious and social commentary. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in a garret in the gloomy slums of st. Petersburg, carries out his grotesque scheme and plunges into a hell of persecution, madness and terror. Crime and punishment takes the reader on a journey into the darkest recesses of the criminal and depraved mind, and exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil ... A man who cannot escape his own conscience [via]
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David Hare: Plays 1 Slag, Teeth 'N' Smiles, Knuckle, Licking Hitler, and Plentyby David HareISBN 0571177417 (0-571-17741-7)
Softcover, Faber & Faber
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The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Editionby Anne FrankISBN 0553577123 (0-553-57712-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition'Book summary:Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. Restored in this Definitive Edition are diary entries that were omitted from the original edition. These passages, which constitute 30 percent more material, reinforce the fact that Anne was first and foremost a teenage girl, not a remote and flawless symbol. She fretted about and tried to cope with her own sexuality. Like many young girls, she often found herself in disagreements with her mother. And like any teenager, she veered between the carefree nature of a child and the full-fledged sorrow of an adult. Anne emerges more human, more vulnerable and more vital than ever. Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse for two years. She was thirteen when she went into the Secret Annex with her family. [via]
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 055321277X (0-553-21277-X)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'Book summary:From the Back Cover: "Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' as a 'shilling shocker.' He then burned the draft, and, upon his wife's advice, rewrote it as the darkly complex tale it is today. Stark, skillfully woven, this fascinating novel explores the curious turnings of human character through the strange case of Dr. Jekyll, a kindly scientist who by night takes on his stunted evil self. Mr. Hyde. Anticipating modern psychology, 'Jekyll and Hyde' is a brilliantly original study of man's dual nature - as well as an immortal tale of suspense and terror..." [via]
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Emmaby Jane AustenISBN 0553212737 (0-553-21273-7)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Emma'Book summary:Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennet has more wit and sparkle; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey more imagination; and Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood certainly more sense--but Emma is lovable precisely because she is so imperfect. Austen only completed six novels in her lifetime, of which five feature young women whose chances for making a good marriage depend greatly on financial issues, and whose prospects if they fail are rather grim. Emma is the exception: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." One may be tempted to wonder what Austen could possibly find to say about so fortunate a character. The answer is, quite a lot.
For Emma, raised to think well of herself, has such a high opinion of her own worth that it blinds her to the opinions of others. The story revolves around a comedy of errors: Emma befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, and attempts to remake her in her own image. Ignoring the gaping difference in their respective fortunes and stations in life, Emma convinces herself and her friend that Harriet should look as high as Emma herself might for a husband--and she zeroes in on an ambitious vicar as the perfect match. At the same time, she reads too much into a flirtation with Frank Churchill, the newly arrived son of family friends, and thoughtlessly starts a rumor about poor but beautiful Jane Fairfax, the beloved niece of two genteelly impoverished elderly ladies in the village. As Emma's fantastically misguided schemes threaten to surge out of control, the voice of reason is provided by Mr. Knightly, the Woodhouse's longtime friend and neighbor. Though Austen herself described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," she endowed her creation with enough charm to see her through her most egregious behavior, and the saving grace of being able to learn from her mistakes. By the end of the novel Harriet, Frank, and Jane are all properly accounted for, Emma is wiser (though certainly not sadder), and the reader has had the satisfaction of enjoying Jane Austen at the height of her powers. --Alix Wilber [via]
The Feverby Wallace ShawnISBN 0571161952 (0-571-16195-2)
Hardcover, Faber and Faber
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A Flea in Her Earby Georges FeydeauISBN 0573011486 (0-573-01148-6)
Hardcover, French
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Four Films of Woody Allenby Woody AllenISBN 0571118240 (0-571-11824-0)
Hardcover, Faber and Faber
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The General Prologue to the Canterbury Talesby Geoffrey Chaucer, James Winny, Maurice Hussey, A. C. Spearing, J. E. SpearingISBN 0521046297 (0-521-04629-7)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales'Book summary:A well-established and respected series. Texts are in the original Middle English, and each has an introduction, detailed notes and a glossary. Selected titles are also available as CD recordings. [via]
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Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Talesby Winthrop WetherbeeISBN 0521323312 (0-521-32331-2)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales'Book summary:On a spring day in April--sometime in the waning years of the 14th century--29 travelers set out for Canterbury on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. Among them is a knight, a monk, a prioress, a plowman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an oft-widowed wife from Bath. Travel is arduous and wearing; to maintain their spirits, this band of pilgrims entertains each other with a series of tall tales that span the spectrum of literary genres. Five hundred years later, people are still reading Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. If you haven't yet made the acquaintance of the Franklin, the Pardoner, or the Squire because you never learned Middle English, take heart: this edition of the Tales has been translated into modern idiom.
From the heroic romance of "The Knight's Tale" to the low farce embodied in the stories of the Miller, the Reeve, and the Merchant, Chaucer treated such universal subjects as love, sex, and death in poetry that is simultaneously witty, insightful, and poignant. The Canterbury Tales is a grand tour of 14th-century English mores and morals--one that modern-day readers will enjoy. [via]
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Girl with a Pearl Earringby Tracy ChevalierISBN 052594527X (0-525-94527-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'Book summary:With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meager facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.
Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist.
Throughout, Chevalier cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style, whose exactitude is an effective homage to the painter himself. Even Griet's most humdrum duties take on a high if unobtrusive gloss:
I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary--bones, white lead, madder, massicot--to see how bright and pure I could get the colors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper the color. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and, mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colors was magical.
In assembling such quotidian particulars, the author acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study The Embarrassment of Riches. Her novel also joins a crop of recent, painterly fictions, including Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever and Susan Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Can novelists extract much more from the Dutch golden age? The question is an open one--but in the meantime, Girl with a Pearl Earring remains a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, and an appealingly new take on an old master. --Jerry Brotton [via]More editions of Girl with a Pearl Earring:
The Glory of Living: A Playby Rebecca GilmanISBN 0571199984 (0-571-19998-4)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Godby Woody AllenISBN 0573622019 (0-573-62201-9)
Hardcover, S. French
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The Heart is a Lonely Hunterby Carson McCullersISBN 0553239112 (0-553-23911-2)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter'Book summary:When she was only twenty-three, Carson McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She was very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal. The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. [via]
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The Hotel New Hampshireby John IrvingISBN 052512800X (0-525-12800-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hotel New Hampshire'Book summary:The first of my fathers illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels. So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they dream on in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Prayer for Owen Meany and Last Night in Twisted River.
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Howards Endby E. M. ForsterISBN 0553212087 (0-553-21208-7)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Howards End'Book summary:Howards End [Paperback] E.M. Forster (Author) [via]
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The Hunchback of Notre Dameby Tim Wynne-Jones, Victor Hugo, Bill SlavinISBN 0531300552 (0-531-30055-2)
Hardcover, Scholastic
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'Book summary:A retelling of the tale, set in medieval Paris, of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, and his struggles to save the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmaralda from being unjustly executed. [via]
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The Hunchback of Notre Dameby Victor HugoISBN 0553213709 (0-553-21370-9)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'Book summary:fine paperback [via]
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The Madness of George IIIby Alan BennettISBN 0571167497 (0-571-16749-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Marina Carr Plays 1: Low in the Dark, the Mai, Portia Coughlan, by the Bog of Catsby Marina CarrISBN 0571200117 (0-571-20011-7)
Softcover, Faber & Faber
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The Martian Chroniclesby Ray BradburyISBN 0553278223 (0-553-27822-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Martian Chronicles'Book summary:From "Rocket Summer" to "The Million-Year Picnic," Ray Bradbury's stories of the colonization of Mars form an eerie mesh of past and future. Written in the 1940s, the chronicles drip with nostalgic atmosphere--shady porches with tinkling pitchers of lemonade, grandfather clocks, chintz-covered sofas. But longing for this comfortable past proves dangerous in every way to Bradbury's characters--the golden-eyed Martians as well as the humans. Starting in the far-flung future of 1999, expedition after expedition leaves Earth to investigate Mars. The Martians guard their mysteries well, but they are decimated by the diseases that arrive with the rockets. Colonists appear, most with ideas no more lofty than starting a hot-dog stand, and with no respect for the culture they've displaced.
Bradbury's quiet exploration of a future that looks so much like the past is sprinkled with lighter material. In "The Silent Towns," the last man on Mars hears the phone ring and ends up on a comical blind date. But in most of these stories, Bradbury holds up a mirror to humanity that reflects a shameful treatment of "the other," yielding, time after time, a harvest of loneliness and isolation. Yet the collection ends with hope for renewal, as a colonist family turns away from the demise of the Earth towards a new future on Mars. Bradbury is a master fantasist and The Martian Chronicles are an unforgettable work of art. --Blaise Selby [via]
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The Mayor of Casterbridgeby Thomas HardyISBN 0553210246 (0-553-21024-6)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'Book summary:From its spectacular opening-the astonishing scene in which drunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a passing sailor at a county fair-to the breathtaking series of discoveries at its conclusion, The Mayor of Casterbridge claims a unique place among Thomas Hardy's finest and most powerful novels.Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story build into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power-only to suffer a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim...his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction. [via]
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Midnight Forest and Other Poemsby Judith NichollsISBN 0571148875 (0-571-14887-5)
Softcover, Faber & Faber
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Midnight Forest and Other Poems'Book summary:A collection of poetry for children which discusses: What does a frog prince miss most, why did the teacher disappear and who wonders the midnight forest? [via]
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Moll Flandersby Daniel DefoeISBN 0553213288 (0-553-21328-8)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Moll Flanders'Book summary:The recent adaptation of Moll Flanders for Masterpiece Theater is a book-lover's dream: the dialogue and scene arrangement are close enough to allow the viewer to follow along in the book. The liberties taken with the tale are few (some years of childhood between the gypsies and the wealthy family are elided; Moll is Moll throughout the tale, rather than Mrs. Betty; Robert becomes Rowland, etc.) and the sets avoid the careless anachronism of the movie version released earlier this year.
The breasts, raised skirts, tumbling hair and heavy breathing on the small screen might catch you by surprise if you don't read the book carefully (as might Moll's abandonment of her children on more than one occasion). Unlike his near-contemporary John Cleland (_Fanny Hill_), Defoe was trying to keep out of jail, and so didn't dwell on the details of "correspondence" between Moll and her varied lovers. But on the page and on the screen, Moll comes across quite clearly as a woman who might bend, but refuses to break, and who is intent on having as good a life as she can get.
E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel considers Moll and her creator's art in some detail. While he finds much to criticize in Defoe's ability to plot (where did those last two children go, anyway?), he is as besotted with Moll as I am. Immoral? Sure -- but immortal, and never, ever dull. We hope at least a few of the viewers of the recent adaptation take a couple hours to discover the original, inimitable Moll Flanders. [via]
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Murmuring Judgesby David HareISBN 0571172199 (0-571-17219-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Murmuring Judges'Book summary:A young lawyer's involvement in her first case leads her through the criminal justice system, which is cracking at the seams. The text of this play was extensively revised by the author for the National Theatre's revival of the play and performance of the entire trilogy in Autumn 1993. [via]
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My Antoniaby Willa CatherISBN 0553214187 (0-553-21418-7)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'My Antonia'Book summary:"The best thing I've done is My Antonia ," recalled Willa Cather. "I feel I've made a contribution to American letters with that book." Ántonia Shimerda returns to Black Hawk, Nebraska, to make a fresh start after eloping with a railway conductor following the tragic death of her father. Accustomed to living in a sod house and toiling alongside the men in the fields, she is unprepared for the lecherous reaction her lush sensuality provokes when she moves to the city. Despite betrayal and crushing opposition, Ántonia steadfastly pursues her quest for happiness-a moving struggle that mirrors the quiet drama of the American landscape. [via]
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Narcissus and Goldmundby Hermann HesseISBN 0553275860 (0-553-27586-0)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Narcissus and Goldmund'Book summary:Hesse's novel of two medieval men, one quietly content with his religion and monastic life, the other in fervent search of more worldly salvation. This conflict between flesh and spirit, between emotional and contemplative man, was a life study for Hesse. It is a theme that transcends all time. The Hesse Phenomenon "has turned into a vogue, the vogue into a torrent. . .He has appealed both to. . . an underground and to an establishment. . .and to the disenchanted young sharing his contempt for our industrial civilization."-- The New York Times Book Review [via]
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Plato, Symposiumby K.J. DoverISBN 0521295238 (0-521-29523-8)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Plato, Symposium'Book summary:Plato's Symposium is the most literary of all his works and one which all students of classics are likely to want to read whether or not they are studying Plato's philosophy. But the reader does need help in appreciating both the artistry and the arguments, and in comprehending the social and cultural background against which the 'praise of love' is delivered. Sir Kenneth Dover provides here a sympathetic and modern edition of the kind that is long overdue. It consists of an introduction, the Greek text accompanied by a very abbreviated critical apparatus, and a commentary on the text which is intended to elucidate the Greek, to make the philosophical argument intelligible, and to relate the content of what is said to the concepts and assumptions of contemporary morality and society. An edition for students of Greek in universities and the upper forms of schools. [via]
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Plays Threeby Harold PinterISBN 0571193838 (0-571-19383-8)
Softcover, Faber and Faber
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The Playwright's Guidebookby Stuart SpencerISBN 0571199917 (0-571-19991-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Playwright's Guidebook'Book summary:An accessible, contemporary guide to the art of dramatic writing[via]
During the ten years that Stuart Spencer has taught playwriting, he has struggled to find an effective playwriting handbook for his courses. Although most of the currently popular handbooks have good ideas in them, they all suffer from the same problems: they're poorly organized; are composed mostly of quirky, idiosyncratic advice on how specific playwrights have gone about writing their own work; and are full of abstract theorizing on the nature of art. As a result, they fail to offer any concrete information on how to construct a well-written play or any useful guidelines and exercises. Moreover, few of these books are actually written by working playwrights. Out of frustration, Spencer wrote his own book. The result, The Playwright's Guidebook, is a clear, concise, and engaging handbook. Spencer addresses the important principles of structure, includes insightful writing exercises that build upon one another, explores the creative process, and troubleshoots recurrent problems that playwrights actually face.More editions of The Playwright's Guidebook:
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Pride and Prejudiceby Jane AustenISBN 0553213105 (0-553-21310-5)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pride and Prejudice'Book summary:"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.
Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Pride and Prejudice:
- Pride And Prejudice: ISBN 0521825148 (0-521-82514-8)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Pride And Prejudice: ISBN 0531169944 (0-531-16994-4)
Hardcover, Franklin Watts - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0563371900 (0-563-37190-0)
Hardcover, Bbc Pubns - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0521576547 (0-521-57654-7)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0525183817 (0-525-18381-7)
Hardcover, Penguin USA - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0553213105 (0-553-21310-5)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
- Pride And Prejudice: ISBN 0521825148 (0-521-82514-8)
Racing Demonby David HareISBN 0571161065 (0-571-16106-5)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Racing Demon: A Playby David HareISBN 0573113696 (0-573-11369-6)
Softcover, French
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The Red Badge of Courageby Stephen CraneISBN 0553210114 (0-553-21011-4)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Red Badge of Courage'Book summary:First published in 1895, America's greatest novel of the Civil War was written before 21-year-old Stephen Crane had "smelled even the powder of a sham battle." But this powerful psychological study of a young soldier's struggle with the horrors, both within and without, that war strikes the reader with its undeniable realism and with its masterful descriptions of the moment-by-moment riot of emotions felt by me under fire. Ernest Hemingway called the novel an American classic, and Crane's genius is as much apparent in his sharp, colorful prose as in his ironic portrayal of an episode of war so intense, so immediate, so real that the terror of battle becomes our own ... in a masterpiece so unique that many believe modern American fiction began with Stephen Crane. [via]
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The Robber Brideby Margaret AtwoodISBN 0553569058 (0-553-56905-8)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Robber Bride'Book summary:Exploring the paradox of female villainy, this tale of three fascinating women is another peerless display of literary virtuosity by the supremely gifted author of Cat's Eye and The Handmaid's Tale. Roz, Charis and Tony all share a wound, and her name is Zenia. Beautiful, smart and hungry, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless, Zenia is the turbulent center of her own neverending saga. She entered their lives in the sixties, when they were in college. Over the three decades since, she has damaged each of them badly, ensnaring their sympathy, betraying their trust, and treating their men as loot. Then Zenia dies, or at any rate the three women -- with much relief -- attend her funeral. But as The Robber Bride begins, Roz, Charis and Tony have come together at a trendy restaraunt for their monthly lunch when in walks the seemingly resurrected Zenia... In this consistently entertaining and profound new novel, Margaret Atwood reports from the farthest reaches of the war between the sexes with her characteristic well-crafted prose, rich and devious humor, and compassion. [via]
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Seneca's Oedipusby Ted HughesISBN 0571092233 (0-571-09223-3)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Seven Guitarsby August WilsonISBN 0525941967 (0-525-94196-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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Shakespeare Storiesby William Shakespeare, Leon Garfield, Michael ForemanISBN 057503095X (0-575-03095-X)
Hardcover, V. Gollancz
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The Shape Of Thingsby Neil LabuteISBN 0571212468 (0-571-21246-8)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Shape Of Things'Book summary:A startling dissection of cruelty and artistic creation from the author of In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors[via]
In a modern version of Adam's seduction by Eve, The Shape of Things pits gentle, awkward, overweight Adam against experienced, analytical, amoral Evelyn, a graduate student in art. After a chance meeting at a museum, Evelyn and Adam embark on an intense relationship that causes shy and principled Adam to go to extraordinary lengths, including cosmetic surgery, and a betrayal of his best friend, to improve his appearance and character. In the process, Evelyn's subtle and insistent coaching results in a reconstruction of Adam's fundamental moral character. Only in a final and shocking exhibition does Evelyn reveal the nature of her interest in Adam, of her detached artist's perspective and sense of authority--to her, Adam is no more than "flesh.... one of the most perfect materials on earth. Natural, beautiful, and malleable." Labute's latest work is an intense and disturbing study not only of the uses of power within human relationships, but also of the ethics involved in the relationship of art and life. To what extent is an artist licensed to shape and change her medium or to alter the work of another artist? What is acceptable artistic material? At what point does creation become manipulation, and at what point does creation destroy? Or, is the new Adam, handsome and confident if heart broken, an admirable result of the most challenging artistic endeavor? The Shape of Things challenges society's most deeply entrenched ideas about art, manipulation, and love.More editions of The Shape Of Things:
Spinning into Butterby Rebecca GilmanISBN 0571199844 (0-571-19984-4)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Squaring the Circleby Tom StoppardISBN 0571125387 (0-571-12538-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Squaring the Circle ; With, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour ; And, Professional Foulby Tom StoppardISBN 057113095X (0-571-13095-X)
Softcover, Faber
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Steppenwolfby Hermann HesseISBN 0553279904 (0-553-27990-4)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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Stoppardby Tom StoppardISBN 0571172091 (0-571-17209-1)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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![[???]: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0582084849.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg "[???]: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde")
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. HydeISBN 0582084849 (0-582-08484-9)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd
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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0531002853 (0-531-00285-3)
Hardcover, Scholastic Library Pub
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Stuff Happensby David HareISBN 057122606X (0-571-22606-X)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Symposiumby Plato, K. J. DoverISBN 0521200814 (0-521-20081-4)
Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Symposium'Book summary:Plato's Symposium is the most literary of all his works and one which all students of classics are likely to want to read whether or not they are studying Plato's philosophy. But the reader does need help in appreciating both the artistry and the arguments, and in comprehending the social and cultural background against which the 'praise of love' is delivered. Sir Kenneth Dover provides here a sympathetic and modern edition of the kind that is long overdue. It consists of an introduction, the Greek text accompanied by a very abbreviated critical apparatus, and a commentary on the text which is intended to elucidate the Greek, to make the philosophical argument intelligible, and to relate the content of what is said to the concepts and assumptions of contemporary morality and society. An edition for students of Greek in universities and the upper forms of schools. [via]
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The Symposium of Platoby Plato, Peter Forster, Tom GriffithISBN 0520066952 (0-520-06695-2)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr on Demand
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Symposium of Plato'Book summary:A superb example of the bookmaker's and translator's art, this new edition of Plato's Symposium exhibits aesthetic, literary, and intellectual excellences rarely found together in a single volume.[via]
Tom Griffith's translation of this foundation work of Western culture is unsurpassed for the balance it achieves between readability and fidelity to Plato's Greek. For felicity of phrasing, freshness, care to match the sense of the Greek rather than its wording, and for its idiomatic rendering of the spoken word, it has no peer.
Originally published in a limited edition with facing Greek and color wood engravings, Griffith's translation is here presented in reduced format that retains the aesthetic quality of the original version at an affordable price.More editions of The Symposium of Plato:
![Plato: Symposium of Plato: [Platonos Symposion]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0520066944.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg "Plato: Symposium of Plato: [Platonos Symposion]")
Symposium of Plato: [Platonos Symposion]by Plato, Tom Griffith, Peter ForsterISBN 0520066944 (0-520-06694-4)
Hardcover, University of California Press
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Take Me Out: A Playby Richard GreenbergISBN 0571211186 (0-571-21118-6)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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A Thousand Clownsby Herb GardnerISBN 0573616574 (0-573-61657-4)
Softcover, Varsitybooks.Com
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Three Early Comediesby William Shakespeare, David M. Bevington, David Scott Kastan, Robert Kean Turner, James HammersmithISBN 0553212826 (0-553-21282-6)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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The Time of Your Lifeby William SaroyanISBN 0573616736 (0-573-61673-6)
Softcover, Samuel French Inc Plays
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Tom Stoppard: Plays Two The Dissolution of Dominic Boot, 'M' If for Moon Among Other Things, If You're Glad I'll Be Frank, Albert's Bridge, Where Are They Now?, aby Tom StoppardISBN 0571190081 (0-571-19008-1)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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The Tragedy of Mariam the Fair Queen of Jewry: With the Lady Falkland Her Lifeby Barry Weller, Margaret W. Ferguson, Elizabeth CaryISBN 0520079698 (0-520-07969-8)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr
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The Unseen Hand and Other Playsby Sam ShepardISBN 0553342630 (0-553-34263-0)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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The Valley of the Dollsby Jacqueline SusannISBN 0553242865 (0-553-24286-5)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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Where the Red Fern Growsby Wilson RawlsISBN 0553274295 (0-553-27429-5)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Where the Red Fern Grows'Book summary:Author Wilson Rawls spent his boyhood much like the character of this book, Billy Colman, roaming the Ozarks of northeastern Oklahoma with his bluetick hound. A straightforward, shoot-from-the-hip storyteller with a searingly honest voice, Rawls is well-loved for this powerful 1961 classic and the award-winning novel Summer of the Monkeys. In Where the Red Fern Grows, Billy and his precious coonhound pups romp relentlessly through the Ozarks, trying to "tree" the elusive raccoon. In time, the inseparable trio wins the coveted gold cup in the annual coon-hunt contest, captures the wily ghost coon, and bravely fights with a mountain lion. When the victory over the mountain lion turns to tragedy, Billy grieves, but learns the beautiful old Native American legend of the sacred red fern that grows over the graves of his dogs. This unforgettable classic belongs on every child's bookshelf. (Ages 9 and up) [via]
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Winesburg, Ohioby Sherwood AndersonISBN 055321439X (0-553-21439-X)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Winesburg, Ohio'Book summary:Published in 1919, Winesburg, Ohio is Sherwood Anderson's masterpiece, a work in which he achieved the goal to which he believed all true writers should aspire: to see and feel "all of life within." In a perfectly imagined world, an archetypal small American town, he reveals the hidden passions that turn ordinary lives into unforgettable ones. Unified by the recurring presence of young George Willard, and played out against the backdrop of Winesburg, Anderson's loosely connected chapters, or stories, coalesce into a powerful novel.In such tales as "Hands," the portrayal of a rural berry picker still haunted by the accusations of homosexuality that ended his teaching career, Anderson's vision is as acute today as it was over eighty-five years ago. His intuitive ability to home in on examples of timeless, human conflicts-a workingman deciding if he should marry the woman who is to bear his child, an unhappy housewife who seeks love from the town's doctor, an unmarried high school teacher sexually attracted to a pupil-makes this book not only immensely readable but also deeply meaningful. An important influence on Faulkner, Hemingway, and others who were drawn to Anderson's innovative format and psychological insights, Winesburg, Ohio deserves a place among the front ranks of our nation's finest literary achievements. [via]
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The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, and Other Playsby Ray BradburyISBN 0552672971 (0-552-67297-1)
Hardcover, Bantam
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The World According to Garpby John IrvingISBN 0525237704 (0-525-23770-4)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The World According to Garp'Book summary:"Garp was a natural storyteller," says the narrator of John Irving's incandescent novel, referring to the book's hero, the novelist Garp, who has much in common with Irving himself. "He could make things up one right after the other, and they seemed to fit."
Irving packs wild characters and weird events into his classic--officially recognized as such in a Modern Library edition with a new introduction by the author--while amazingly maintaining the rough feel of realism in every scene and the pulse of life in every heart. Many novelists of his time might have populated a novel with a novelist protagonist whose life and books comment on each other and the novel we're reading. Transsexual football players, ball turret gunners lobotomized in battle, multiple adultery, unicycling bears, mad feminists who amputate their tongues in sympathy with the celebrated victim of a horrifying rape--Irving made them all people. Even the bear is a fitting character.
In a crucial episode, Garp's wife's seduction of a young man coincidentally occurs at the moment when Garp is delighting their young sons with a reckless car trick (one of the few scenes beautifully, eerily, heartbreakingly captured in the film version as well). Many authors would have been content with the harsh comedy of the scene, but Irving respects its integrity, and he builds the rest of the book on the consequences of the event. How does he get away with his killer cocktail of slapstick and horror? Because it's simply what we all face daily, rearranged into soul-satisfying art. "Life is an X-rated soap opera," according to Garp, and who can contradict him?
Rereading Garp 20 years later, one is struck by how elegantly Irving structures his bizarre and complex story. Take the two most celebrated bits in the book, the Under Toad and Garp's story "The Pension Grillparzer," which shimmers like an exquisite Kafkaesque insect in the amber of the novel. When Garp warns his son about the "undertow" at the beach, the boy imagines a monster out of Beowulf who lurks beneath the waves to suck you under: the "Under Toad." It's funny at first, but we soon find that the Under Toad is a metaphor with teeth--he connects with a prophetic dream of death in "The Pension Grillparzer," set in Vienna. Garp's son's last words are, "It's like a dream!" And as Irving--who studied at the University of Vienna--can certainly tell you, the German word for "death" sounds precisely like the English word "toad."
All that death, and yet Garp is mainly exuberant. This story is, as Garp's stuttering writing teacher puts it, "rich with lu-lu-lunacy and sorrow." It enriches literature, and our lives. --Tim Appelo [via]
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