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books tagged “epic”
books tagged “epic”
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Absolution Gapby Alastair ReynoldsISBN 0575074353 (0-575-07435-3)
Softcover, Gollancz
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Absolution Gap'Book summary:A further awe-inspiring leap into the darkly imagined future of REVELATION SPACE. With his first novel Reynolds laid the foundations of a galaxy-spanning future for mankind; with each novel he takes us further into that galaxy, revealing another aspect of a future that has few boundaries. Look further into the dark heart of mankind: awe-inspiring doomsday weapons, vicious AIs, cities overwhelmed by plagues that twist and meld man and machine: the further we go into this future, the more it is revealed to be the creation of a uniquely talented writer who is making a massive impact on world SF. [via]
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Absolution Gapby Kate JacobyISBN 0575075570 (0-575-07557-0)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Absolution Gap'Book summary:Mankind has endured centuries of horrific plague and a particularly brutal interstellar war ...but there is still no time for peace and quiet. Stirred from aeons of sleep, the Inhibitors - ancient alien killing machines - have begun the process of ridding the galaxy of its latest emergent intelligence: mankind. As a ragtag bag of refugees fleeing the first wave of the cull head towards an apparently insignificant moon light-years away, they discover an avenging angel, a girl born in ice. She has the power to lead mankind to safety, and the ability to draw down their darkest enemy. And on a planet where vast travelling cathedrals crawl towards the treacherous fissure known as Absolution Gap, an unsettling truth becomes apparent: to beat one enemy, it may be necessary to forge an alliance with something much, much worse ... [via]
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The Amber Spyglassby Philip PullmanISBN 0613719271 (0-613-71927-1)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Amber Spyglass'Book summary:From the very start of its very first scene, The Amber Spyglass will set hearts fluttering and minds racing. All we'll say here is that we immediately discover who captured Lyra at the end of The Subtle Knife, though we've yet to discern whether this individual's intent is good, evil, or somewhere in between. We also learn that Will still possesses the blade that allows him to cut between worlds, and has been joined by two winged companions who are determined to escort him to Lord Asriel's mountain redoubt. The boy, however, has only one goal in mind--to rescue his friend and return to her the alethiometer, an instrument that has revealed so much to her and to readers of The Golden Compass and its follow-up. Within a short time, too, we get to experience the "tingle of the starlight" on Serafina Pekkala's skin as she seeks out a famished Iorek Byrnison and enlists him in Lord Asriel's crusade:
A complex web of thoughts was weaving itself in the bear king's mind, with more strands in it than hunger and satisfaction. There was the memory of the little girl Lyra, whom he had named Silvertongue, and whom he had last seen crossing the fragile snow bridge across a crevasse in his own island of Svalbard. Then there was the agitation among the witches, the rumors of pacts and alliances and war; and then there was the surpassingly strange fact of this new world itself, and the witch's insistence that there were many more such worlds, and that the fate of them all hung somehow on the fate of the child.
Meanwhile, two factions of the Church are vying to reach Lyra first. One is even prepared to give a priest "preemptive absolution" should he succeed in committing mortal sin. For these tyrants, killing this girl is no less than "a sacred task."In the final installment of his trilogy, Philip Pullman has set himself the highest hurdles. He must match its predecessors in terms of sheer action and originality and resolve the enigmas he already created. The good news is that there is no critical bad news--not that The Amber Spyglass doesn't contain standoffs and close calls galore. (Who would have it otherwise?) But Pullman brings his audacious revision of Paradise Lost to a conclusion that is both serene and devastating. In prose that is transparent yet lyrical and 3-D, the author weaves in and out of his principals' thoughts. He also offers up several additional worlds. In one, Dr. Mary Malone is welcomed into an apparently simple society. The environment of the mulefa (again, we'll reveal nothing more) makes them rich in consciousness while their lives possess a slow and stately rhythm. These strange creatures can, however, be very fast on their feet (or on other things entirely) when necessary. Alas, they are on the verge of dying as Dust streams out of their idyllic landscape. Will the Oxford dark-matter researcher see her way to saving them, or does this require our young heroes? And while Mary is puzzling out a cure, Will and Lyra undertake a pilgrimage to a realm devoid of all light and hope, after having been forced into the cruelest of sacrifices--or betrayals.
Throughout his galvanizing epic, Pullman sustains scenes of fierce beauty and tenderness. He also allows us a moment or two of comic respite. At one point, for instance, Lyra's mother bullies a series of ecclesiastical underlings: "The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The guard behind her blew out his cheeks with relief." Needless to say, Mrs. Coulter is as intoxicating and fluid as ever. And can it be that we will come to admire her as she plays out her desperate endgame? In this respect, as in many others, The Amber Spyglass is truly a book of revelations, moving from darkness visible to radiant truth. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Apuleiusby Apuleius, J. Arthur HansonISBN 0674994981 (0-674-99498-1)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Apuleius'Book summary:In the Metamorphoses of ApuleiusThe Golden Ass, we have the only Latin novel which survives entire. It is truly enchanting: a delightful romance combining realism and magic.
The hero, Lucius, eager to experience the sensations of a bird, resorts to witchcraft but by an unfortunate pharmaceutical error finds himself transformed into an ass. He knows he can revert to his own body by eating rose-petals, but these prove singularly elusive; and the bulk of the work describes his adventures as an animal. He also retails many stories that he overheard, the most charming being that of Cupid and Psyche (beginning, in true fairy-tale fashion, 'Erant in quadam civitate rex et regina'). Some of the stories are as indecent as they are witty, and two in the ninth book were deemed by Boccaccio worthy of inclusion in the Decameron. At last the goddess Isis takes pity on Lucius. In a surprising denouement, he is restored to human shape and, now spiritually regenerated, is initiated into her mysteries. The author's baroque Latin style nicely matches his fantastic narrative and is guaranteed to hold a reader's attention from beginning to end.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Apuleius is in two volumes.
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Apuleius Metamorphosesby Apuleius, J. Arthur HansonISBN 0674990498 (0-674-99049-8)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Apuleius Metamorphoses'Book summary:In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, also known as The Golden Ass, we have the only Latin novel which survives entire. It is truly enchanting: a delightful romance combining realism and magic. The hero, Lucius, eager to experience the sensations of a bird, resorts to witchcraft but by an unfortunate pharmaceutical error finds himself transformed into an ass. He knows he can revert to his own body by eating rose-petals, but these prove singularly elusive; and the bulk of the work describes his adventures as an animal. He also retails many stories that he overheard, the most charming being that of Cupid and Psyche (beginning, in true fairy-tale fashion, ' Erant in quadam civitate rex et regina '). Some of the stories are as indecent as they are witty, and two in the ninth book were deemed by Boccaccio worthy of inclusion in the Decameron. At last the goddess Isis takes pity on Lucius. In a surprising denouement, he is restored to human shape and, now spiritually regenerated, is initiated into her mysteries. The author's baroque Latin style nicely matches his fantastic narrative and is guaranteed to hold a reader's attention from beginning to end. J. Arthur Hanson was at the time of his death in 1985 Giger Professor of Latin at Princeton University. His publications include Roman Theater-Temples. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Apuleius is in two volumes. [via]
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Belovedby Toni MorrisonISBN 0606040463 (0-606-04046-3)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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Beowulfby Robert NyeISBN 0613027671 (0-613-02767-1)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beowulf'Book summary:He comes out of the darkness, moving in on his victims in deadly silence. When he leaves, a trail of blood is all that remains. He is a monster, Grendel, and all who know of him live in fear.
Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, knows something must be done to stop Grendel. But who will guard the great hall he has built, where so many men have lost their lives to the monster while keeping watch?
Only one man dares to stand up to Grendel's fury --Beowulf.
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The Black Ravenby Katharine KerrISBN 0553579193 (0-553-57919-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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Bristling Woodby Katharine KerrISBN 061363022X (0-613-63022-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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Centennialby James A. MichenerISBN 0613339959 (0-613-33995-9)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Centennial'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Chronicles the lives of individuals involved in the development and exploitation of the American West, particularly Colorado. [via]
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The Changing Light at Sandover: A Poemby James MerrillISBN 067941083X (0-679-41083-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Changing Light at Sandover: A Poem'Book summary:A narrative poem by the author of The Inner Room and the winner of the Pulitzer, Prize, Bollingen Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, two National Book Awards, and the Bobbitt Award, is republished in its entirety. [via]
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Charles Dickens' a Tale of Two Citiesby Charles DickensISBN 0671006118 (0-671-00611-8)
Softcover, Monarch Notes
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Cold Mountainby Charles FrazierISBN 0679309454 (0-679-30945-4)
Softcover, Random House of Canada Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cold Mountain'Book summary:The hero of Charles Frazier's beautifully written and deeply-imagined first novel is Inman, a disillusioned Confederate soldier who has failed to die as expected after being seriously wounded in battle during the last days of the Civil War. Rather than waiting to be redeployed to the front, the soul-sick Inman deserts, and embarks on a dangerous and lonely odyssey through the devastated South, heading home to North Carolina, and seeking only to be reunited with his beloved, Ada, who has herself been struggling to maintain the family farm she inherited. Cold Mountain is an unforgettable addition to the literature of one of the most important and transformational periods in American history. [via]
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Cold Mountainby Hal Leonard CorpISBN 0634078593 (0-634-07859-3)
Softcover, Hal Leonard Corp
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cold Mountain'Book summary:This stunning, Oscar-winning epic features a T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack of Appalachian-flavored folk, moving originals by Elvis Costello and Sting, performances by Alison Krauss and the White Stripes' Jack White, and an orchestral score by Gabriel [via]
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Complete English Peoms: Everyman's Libraryby John Milton, Gordon CampbellISBN 0679409971 (0-679-40997-1)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Count Brassby Michael MoorcockISBN 0583121985 (0-583-12198-5)
Hardcover, Mayflower
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Count Brass'Book summary:Contains the title book as well as "The Champion of Garathorm" and "The Quest for Tanelorn", forms part of "The Chronicles of Castle Brass". Michael Moorcock is a well-known fantasy writer whose other books include "The History of the Runestaff" and "The Dancers at the End of Time". [via]
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Crime and Punishmentby Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, W. J. LeatherbarrowISBN 0679420290 (0-679-42029-0)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crime and Punishment'Book summary:Translated by Constance Garnett, Introduction by Ernest J. Simmons [via]
Crime and Punishmentby Richard Pevear, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Larissa VolokhonskyISBN 0679405577 (0-679-40557-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Curse of Chalionby Lois McMaster BujoldISBN 0606297820 (0-606-29782-0)
Hardcover, Tandem Library Books
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Daggerspellby Katharine KerrISBN 060627555X (0-606-27555-X)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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The Dark Remainsby Mark AnthonyISBN 0553579355 (0-553-57935-5)
Softcover, Spectra
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Dawn on a Distant Shoreby Sara DonatiISBN 0553578553 (0-553-57855-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dawn on a Distant Shore'Book summary:Sara Donati's novel Dawn on a Distant Shore picks up soon after the conclusion of her prior book, Into the Wilderness. In the winter of 1794, on the edge of the New York wilderness, Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have settled into the comforts of domestic bliss. Typically, however, adventure seeks these two out. Alone but for her stepdaughter Hannah, Elizabeth gives birth to twins, while Nathaniel and his father Hawkeye are imprisoned in Montreal. Determined to help her men, Elizabeth packs up the children and sets off to free them. Liberty does not bring relief to the Bonner clan, however, as sinister forces conspire to pirate them to Scotland and embroil them in a complex family feud.
History and adventure are slathered on thickly throughout this epic tale. Donati's talent for dialect and detail bring the large cast of characters to life, though the steady pace of dramatic catastrophe is somewhat exhausting. Will our heroes never get a break? Fans of Donati's earlier work will enjoy seeing the familiar characters, but new readers would benefit by reading the books in the series in order. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien [via]
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Days of Air and Darknessby Katharine KerrISBN 0553572628 (0-553-57262-8)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agencyby Douglas AdamsISBN 0671746723 (0-671-74672-3)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'Book summary:What do a dead cat, a computer whiz-kid, an Electric Monk who believes the world is pink, quantum mechanics, a Chronologist over 200 years old, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet), and pizza have in common? Apparently not much; until Dirk Gently, self-styled private investigator, sets out to prove the fundamental interconnectedness of all things by solving a mysterious murder, assisting a mysterious professor, unravelling a mysterious mystery, and eating a lot of pizza -- not to mention saving the entire human race from extinction along the way (at no extra charge). To find out more, read this book (better still, buy it, then read it) -- or contact Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. 'A thumping good detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy epic.' The author [via]
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Dune House Atreidesby Not AvailableISBN 0606191844 (0-606-19184-4)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dune House Atreides'Book summary:Acclaimed SF novelist Brian Herbert is the son of Dune author Frank Herbert. With his father, Brian wrote Man of Two Worlds and later edited The Notebooks of Frank Herbert's Dune. Kevin J. Anderson has written many bestsellers, alternating original SF with novels set in the X-Files and Star Wars universes. Together they bring personal commitment and a lifelong knowledge of the Dune Chronicles to this ambitious expansion of a series that transformed SF itself. Dune: House Atreides chronicles the early life of Leto Atreides, prince of a minor House in the galactic Imperium. Leto comes to confront the realities of power when House Vernius is betrayed in an imperial plot involving a quest for an artificial substitute to melange, a substance vital to interstellar trade that is found only on the planet Dune. Meanwhile, House Harkonnen schemes to bring Leto into conflict with the Tleilax, and the Bene Gesserit manipulate Baron Harkonnen as part of a plan stretching back 100 generations. In the Imperial palace, treason is afoot, and on Dune itself, planetologist Pardot Kynes embarks on a secret project to transform the desert world into a paradise.
Dune remains the bestselling SF novel ever, such that three decades later no prequel can possibly have the same impact. Yet in House Atreides the authors have written a compelling, labyrinthine, skillfully imagined extension of the world Frank Herbert created, which ably commands attention for almost 600 pages. It is powerful SF that continues a great tradition, and in itself is a very considerable achievement. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Dune: House Harkonnenby Kevin J. Anderson, Brian HerbertISBN 0553580302 (0-553-58030-2)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dune: House Harkonnen'Book summary:Don't even think about reading House Harkonnen without reading its predecessor Dune: House Atreides; anyone who does so risks sinking in the sands between Frank Herbert's original Dune and this prequel trilogy by Herbert's son, Brian, and Kevin J. Anderson. The purist argument that had Frank Herbert wanted to go backwards he would have done so is, at least in part, negated by the sheer narrative verve, and by the fact that Anderson and Brian Herbert manage to pull some genuine surprises out of this long-running space-opera. House Harkonnen is a massive book, and there are places where it becomes plot heavy, but in following the story of Duke Leto Atreides and the conflicts with House Harkonnen, the authors succeed in spinning a gripping adventure while going off in some unexpected directions. Anderson, who has written many successful Star Wars novels, has noted his particular admiration for The Empire Strikes Back, and his desire to emulate that film's dark take on the genre. In House Harkonnen, the conflict encompasses the tragedy of nuclear war, marked by grief and horror, vengeance and torment, and all while the complex intrigues continue to unfold. As one character puts it:
Everything has its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. We pay for every change we make--and we pay just as dearly if we refuse to change.
Ultimately this is the theme of a compelling game of consequences, choices, and responsibility, a study of Leto's growth into power and the price of politics and love. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Dune: La Batalla De Corrinby Frank HerbertISBN 0613551575 (0-613-55157-5)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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Dune: La Cruzada De Las Maquinas/ the Crusader of the Machinesby Kevin J. Anderson, Brian HerbertISBN 0553580272 (0-553-58027-2)
Softcover, Spectra
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The Elf Queen of Shannaraby Terry BrooksISBN 0606026274 (0-606-02627-4)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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Fool's Fateby Robin HobbISBN 0553582461 (0-553-58246-1)
Softcover, Spectra
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fool's Fate'Book summary:A heralded writer of epic fantasy, Robin Hobb has given readers worlds within worlds in her heroic Farseer and Liveship Traders trilogies. Now she takes the final step in the breathtaking trilogy of the Tawny Man, as the tale of FitzChivalry Farseer comes to an epic end. Rife with boundless adventure and unforgettable characters, Fools Fate is destined to become a classic of the genre.
Assassin, spy, and Skillmaster, FitzChivalry Farseer, now known only as man-at-arms Tom Badgerlock, has become firmly ensconced in the queens court at Buckkeep. Only a few are aware of his fabled, tangled pastand the sacrifices he made to survive it. And fewer know of his possession of the Skill magic. With Prince
Dutiful, his assassin-mentor Chade, and the simpleminded yet strongly Skilled Thick, FitzChivalry strives to aid the prince on a quest that could ultimately secure peace between the Six Duchies and the Outislandsand win Dutiful the hand of the Narcheska Elliania.
For the Narcheska has set the prince on an unfathomable task: to behead a dragon trapped in icethe legendary Icefyre, on the island of Aslevjal. Yet not all the clans of the Outislands support the princes effort to behead their
legendary defender. Are there darker forces at work behind the Narcheskas imperious demand? As the prince and his coterie set sail, FitzChivalry works behind the scenes, playing nursemaid to the ailing Thick, while striving to strengthen their Skillultimately bringing his unacknowledged daughter into the web of the Skill magic, where the truth must finally unfold.
The quest emerges amid riddles that must be unraveled, a clash of cultures, and the ultimate betrayal. For knowing that the Fool has foretold he will die on the island of ice, FitzChivalry has plotted with Chade to leave his dearest friend behind. But fate cannot so easily be defied. [via] -
The Forestby Edward RutherfurdISBN 0609603825 (0-609-60382-5)
Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Forest'Book summary:With such novels as Sarum and Russka, Edward Rutherfurd has laid claim to James Michener's longtime turf: the immensely researched, meticulously detailed epic of place, in which the characters tend to play second fiddle to the setting. The Forest is the most ambitious example yet of Rutherfurd's art. This time the location is that bosky patch of English real estate known as the New Forest. Other writers have tackled the area before. But The Forest is surely the definitive chronicle, with all the local stories, legends, and apocrypha woven into an irresistible narrative--think of Thomas Hardy's power and drama filtered through a very modern sensibility.
Opening with the assassination of King William II in 1099, the book covers nearly a millennium's worth of history. Rutherfurd creates generation after generation of adroitly realized characters, the best of whom defy our generic expectations: the canny Brother Adam, for example, is that rarest of literary creatures, a virtuous man who doesn't end up being simply bland and anodyne. Rutherfurd may be at his best when dealing with big-canvas events like the bloody Monmouth Rebellion of 1685. But he's no slouch at detailing more microcosmic conflicts, like this head-butting contest between two buck deer:
Her buck had hit firmer ground and his feet suddenly got a purchase on the grass. His hindquarters shivering, he dug in. She saw the shoulders rise and his neck bear down. And now the interloper was slipping on the wet leaves. Slowly, cautiously, their antlers locked, the two straining bucks began to turn. Now they were both on grass. Suddenly the interloper disengaged. He gave his head a twist. The jagged spike was aiming at the buck's eye.
Bestial behavior? Perhaps. Yet the level of human folly and brutality scattered throughout The Forest makes the foregoing passage resemble an outtake from Bambi--and gives this sylvan saga a very memorable edge. --Barry Forshaw [via]More editions of The Forest:
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Foundation's Edgeby Isaac AsimovISBN 0606012303 (0-606-01230-3)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Foundation's Edge'Book summary:Now, 498 years after its founding, the Foundation seemed to be following the Seldon Plan perfectly. Too perfectly. Now an impossible planet -- with impossible powers -- threatens to upset the Seldon Plan for good unless two men, sworn enemies, can work together to save it!
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The Grapes of Wrathby John SteinbeckISBN 0670347914 (0-670-34791-4)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Grapes of Wrath'Book summary:When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations--the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions--in the Joad family. Then he set them down on a westward-running road, local dialect and all, for the world to acknowledge. For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.
The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency."
The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom--us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on." It's almost as if she's talking about the very novel she inhabits, for Steinbeck's characters, more than most literary creations, do go on. They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon--Rosasharn, as they call her--the eldest Joad daughter, forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. --Melanie Rehak [via]
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- The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0670347922 (0-670-34792-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0670826383 (0-670-82638-3)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0679420401 (0-679-42040-1)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0670347914 (0-670-34791-4)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
- The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0670347922 (0-670-34792-2)
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Gravity's Rainbowby Thomas PynchonISBN 0670348325 (0-670-34832-5)
Hardcover, Viking Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gravity's Rainbow'Book summary:Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, Gravity's Rainbow, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.
Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany.
That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel, which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.
Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. Gravity's Rainbow uses beautiful prose to induce an altered state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Greenwitchby Susan CooperISBN 0606007008 (0-606-00700-8)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Greenwitch'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Jane's invitation to witness the making of the Greenwitch begins a series of sinister events in which she and her two brothers help the Old Ones recover the grail stolen by the Dark. [via]
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secretsby J. K. RowlingISBN 0613287142 (0-613-28714-2)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'Book summary:What makes the Harry Potter series so successful? Maybe it's the fact that J.K. Rowling doesn't write children's books, she writes children's stories, more in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm than Dr. Seuss. The exploits of Harry and his friends captivate even the shortest attention spans by engaging the imagination with vivid characters and fast-moving action, instead of trying to merely catch the eye with colorful pictures or pop-up effects. Not surprisingly, the Potter tales sound wonderful read aloud, and adapt to the audiobook format extremely well. Broadway actor Jim Dale's impressive vocal range gives each character in the book its own distinctive voice--a considerable task, given the pantheon of witches, warlocks, ghosts, ghouls, dwarves, and elves that Harry encounters in his second outing. And thankfully, since the book is read unabridged, no one's favorite character is omitted. Engaging for children without being childish, the audio version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is worthy addition to the deservedly popular series. (Running time: 9 hours, 7 CDs) --Andrew Nieland [via]
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stoneby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandPréISBN 0590353403 (0-590-35340-3)
Softcover, Scholastic Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'Book summary:Paperback edition about 5"x8"x1/2" book that looks just as the picture indicated in the photo of Harry Potter. [via]
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- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: ISBN 059035342X (0-590-35342-X)
Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: ISBN 0613206339 (0-613-20633-9)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: ISBN 0606170979 (0-606-17097-9)
Hardcover, Demco Media - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: ISBN 0590353403 (0-590-35340-3)
Softcover, Scholastic Canada, Limited
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: ISBN 059035342X (0-590-35342-X)
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The Heart of Myrialby Maggie FureyISBN 055357938X (0-553-57938-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart of Myrial'Book summary:This fast-moving adventure opens Maggie Furey's second fantasy sequence, "The Shadowleague"; her first was the "Artefacts of Power" tetralogy. The Heart of Myrial is set in a particularly artificial-seeming fantasyland, which proves to be not a world but a technomagical construct, divided into isolated regions by sorcerous barriers of force. Thanks to the machinations of a bad guy who may have good motives, these "curtain walls" are now failing--the first symptoms being clashes between the enclaves' different environments, leading to prolonged descriptions of truly lousy weather. In theory the barriers are guarded by and can be penetrated only by Loremasters of the Shadowleague, a secret inner circle of representatives from this patchwork world's various species: humans, dragons, centaurs, wind-sprites, insectile aliens, and more. In practice the Shadowleague is almost impotent.
Against this complex background, various characters struggle across the landscape through terrible weather. A woman Loremaster and her irrepressibly feisty firedrake companion play leading parts in the large cast (many of whom suffer death or worse). After tortuous regroupings and plot twists centered on a particular city that houses a key magical shrine, the book concludes with a gory invasion of nasties through the holed curtain wall. It reads well enough, and of course there's more to come. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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I, Claudiusby Robert GravesISBN 0613172973 (0-613-17297-3)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'I, Claudius'Book summary:Having never seen the famous 1970s television series based on Graves' historical novel of ancient Rome and being generally uneducated about matters both ancient and Roman, I wasn't prepared for such an engaging book. But it's a ripping good read, this fictional autobiography set in the Roman Empire's days of glory and decadence. As a history lesson, it's fabulous; as a novel it's also wonderful. Best is Claudius himself, the stutterer who let everyone think he was an idiot (to avoid getting poisoned) but who reveals himself in the narrative to be a wry and likable observer. His story continues in Claudius the God. [via]
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Into the Wildernessby Sara DonatiISBN 0553578529 (0-553-57852-9)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrathby John SteinbeckISBN 0671006924 (0-671-00692-4)
Softcover, Monarch Notes
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Lady of Avalonby Marion Zimmer BradleyISBN 0670857831 (0-670-85783-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobeby C. S. Lewis, Pauline BaynesISBN 0613930096 (0-613-93009-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Four English schoolchildren find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter [via]
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Lucan the Civil Warby LucanISBN 0674992423 (0-674-99242-3)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lucan the Civil War'Book summary:Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus, 3965 CE), son of wealthy M. Annaeus Mela and nephew of Seneca, was born at Corduba (Cordova) in Spain and was brought as a baby to Rome. In 60 CE at a festival in Emperor Nero's honour Lucan praised him in a panegyric and was promoted to one or two minor offices. But having defeated Nero in a poetry contest he was interdicted from further recitals or publication, so that three books of his epic The Civil War were probably not issued in 61 when they were finished. By 65 he was composing the tenth book but then became involved in the unsuccessful plot of Piso against Nero and, aged only twenty-six, by order took his own life.
Quintilian called Lucan a poet "full of fire and energy and a master of brilliant phrases." His epic stood next after Virgil's in the estimation of antiquity. Julius Caesar looms as a sinister hero in his stormy chronicle in verse of the war between Caesar and the Republic's forces under Pompey, and later under Cato in Africaa chronicle of dramatic events carrying us from Caesar's fateful crossing of the Rubicon, through the Battle of Pharsalus and death of Pompey, to Caesar victorious in Egypt. The poem is also called Pharsalia.
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Memoirs of a Geishaby Arthur GoldenISBN 0606222049 (0-606-22204-9)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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Midnight's Childrenby Salman RushdieISBN 0679444629 (0-679-44462-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Midnight's Children'Book summary:Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends up establishing squatters' rights to his unlucky hospital mate's luxurious bassinet. Switched babies are standard fare for a Hindi film, and one can't help but feel that Rushdie's world-view--and certainly his sense of the fantastical--has been shaped by the films of his childhood. But whereas the movies, while entertaining, are markedly mediocre, Midnight's Children is a masterpiece, brilliant written, wildly unpredictable, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.
Rushdie's narrator, Saleem Sinai, is the Hindu child raised by wealthy Muslims. Near the beginning of the novel, he informs us that he is falling apart--literally:
I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug--that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.
In light of this unfortunate physical degeneration, Saleem has decided to write his life story, and, incidentally, that of India's, before he crumbles into "(approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust." It seems that within one hour of midnight on India's independence day, 1,001 children were born. All of those children were endowed with special powers: some can travel through time, for example; one can change gender. Saleem's gift is telepathy, and it is via this power that he discovers the truth of his birth: that he is, in fact, the product of the illicit coupling of an Indian mother and an English father, and has usurped another's place. His gift also reveals the identities of all the other children and the fact that it is in his power to gather them for a "midnight parliament" to save the nation. To do so, however, would lay him open to that other child, christened Shiva, who has grown up to be a brutish killer. Saleem's dilemma plays out against the backdrop of the first years of independence: the partition of India and Pakistan, the ascendancy of "The Widow" Indira Gandhi, war, and, eventually, the imposition of martial law.We've seen this mix of magical thinking and political reality before in the works of Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez. What sets Rushdie apart is his mad prose pyrotechnics, the exuberant acrobatics of rhyme and alliteration, pun, wordplay, proper and "Babu" English chasing each other across the page in a dizzying, exhilarating cataract of words. Rushdie can be laugh-out-loud funny, but make no mistake--this is an angry book, and its author's outrage lends his language wings. Midnight's Children is Salman Rushdie's irate, affectionate love song to his native land--not so different from a Bombay talkie, after all. --Alix Wilber [via]
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The October Horse : A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatraby Colleen McCulloughISBN 0671024205 (0-671-02420-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The October Horse : A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra'Book summary:A SWEEPING EPIC OF ANCIENT ROME FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE THORN BIRDS
With her renowned storytelling gifts in full force, Colleen McCullough delivers a breathtaking novel that is both grand in scope and vivid in detail -- and proves once again why she is the top historical novelist of our time.
In the last days of the Roman Republic, Gaius Julius Caesar is both adored and despised -- but his rule is unshakable. Forced by civil war to leave his beguiling mistress Cleopatra, Caesar turns his eye to the future: who is to inherit the throne of Roman power? But in the shadows of the empire, the talk is of murder. Who among his associates has the cunning and skill to fell the fierce leader -- and brave the dangerous consequences of that cataclysmic act? [via]
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The Odysseyby Homer, A.T. Murray, George E. DimockISBN 0674995619 (0-674-99561-9)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Odyssey'Book summary:Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the resplendent epic tale of Odysseus's long journey home from the Trojan War and the legendary temptations, delays, and perils he faced at every turn. Homer's classic poem features Odysseus's encounters with the beautiful nymph Calypso; the queenly but wily Circe; the Lotus-eaters, who fed his men their memory-stealing drug; the man-eating, one-eyed Cyclops; the Laestrygonian giants; the souls of the dead in Hades; the beguiling Sirens; the treacherous Scylla and Charybdis. Here, too, is the hero's faithful wife, Penelope, weaving a shroud by day and unraveling it by night, in order to thwart the numerous suitors attempting to take Odysseus's place.
The works attributed to Homer include the two oldest and greatest European epic poems, the Odyssey and Iliad. These texts have long stood in the Loeb Classical Library with a faithful and literate prose translation by A. T. Murray. George Dimock now brings the Loeb's Odyssey up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray's admirable style but is worded for today's readers. The two-volume edition includes a new introduction, notes, and index.
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Pantagruel Gargantuaby Francois Rabelais, Thomas UrquhartISBN 0679431373 (0-679-43137-3)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pantagruel Gargantua'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) [via]
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A Prayer for Owen Meanyby John IrvingISBN 061303421X (0-613-03421-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Prayer for Owen Meany'Book summary:Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras.
The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Prince of the Bloodby Raymond E. FeistISBN 0553588117 (0-553-58811-7)
Softcover, Spectra
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Prince Of The Blood'Book summary:This Authors Preferred Edition of Raymond E. Feists bestselling coming-of-age saga celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of its publication. Feist introduces a new generation of readers to his riveting novel of adventure and intrigue, revised and updated as he always meant it to be written. It is a work that explores strength and weakness, hope and fear, and what it means to be a manin a kingdom where peace is the most precious commodity of all.
If there were two more impetuous and carefree men in the Kingdom of the Isles, they had yet to be found. Twins Borric and Erland wore that mantle proudly, much to the chagrin of their father, Prince Arutha of Krondor. But their blissful youth has come to an end. Their uncle, the King, has produced no male children. Bypassing himself, Arutha names Borric, the eldest twin by seconds, the Royal Heir. As his brother, Erland will have his own great responsibilities to shoulder. To drive home their future roles, Arutha sends them as ambassadors to Kesh, the most feared nation in the world. Borric and Erland will be presented to the Queen of Keshthe single most powerful ruler in the known worldat her Seventy-fifth Jubilee Anniversary.
But they have not even left Krondor when an assassination attempt on Borric is thwarted. Aware that he is being provoked into war, Arutha does not rise to the bait. His sons journey will not be deterred, for nothing less than peace is riding on it. Yet there is to be no peace for the young princes. When their traveling party is ambushed, Borric disappears and is presumed deadsending Erland into spirals of rage and grief as he is forced to navigate alone the court intrigues at Kesh. But unbeknownst to anyone, Borric lives and has escaped his captors. In a strange land, with a price on his head, Borric must use all his wits and stamina to find his way back to his brother.
On separate paths, the two menone a fugitive and one a future kingmake their journey toward maturity, honor, and duty. For every step they take could sway the fragile peace of the land, as those who crave war rally against themand become ever more daring. [via]More editions of Prince of the Blood:
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Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of TroyISBN 0674990226 (0-674-99022-6)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
Find This BookBook summary:Quintus was a poet who lived at Smyrna some four hundred years after Christ. His work, in fourteen books, is a bold and generally underrated attempt in Homer's style to complete the story of Troy from the point at which the Iliad closes. Quintus tells us the stories of Penthesilea, the Amazonian queen; Memnon, leader of the Ethiopians; the death of Achilles; the contest for Achilles' arms between Ajax and Odysseus; the arrival of Philoctetes; and the making of the Wooden Horse. The poem ends with the departure of the Greeks and the great storm which by the wrath of heaven shattered their fleet.
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The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban)by R.K. Narayan, KamparISBN 0670589500 (0-670-58950-0)
Hardcover, Viking Press
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Red Marsby Kim Stanley RobinsonISBN 060608066X (0-606-08066-X)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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The Return of the Shadowby J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher TolkienISBN 061808357X (0-618-08357-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Return of the Shadow'Book summary:In this sixth volume of The History of Middle-earth the story reaches The Lord of the Rings. In The Return of the Shadow (an abandoned title for the first volume) Christopher Tolkien describes, with full citation of the earliest notes, outline plans, and narrative drafts, the intricate evolution of The Fellowship of the Ring and the gradual emergence of the conceptions that transformed what J.R.R. Tolkien for long believed would be a far shorter book, 'a sequel to The Hobbit'. The enlargement of Bilbo's 'magic ring' into the supremely potent and dangerous Ruling Ring of the Dark Lord is traced and the precise moment is seen when, in an astonishing and unforeseen leap in the earliest narrative, a Black Rider first rode into the Shire, his significance still unknown. The character of the hobbit called Trotter (afterwards Strider or Aragorn) is developed while his indentity remains an absolute puzzle, and the suspicion only very slowly becomes certainty that he must after all be a Man. The hobbits, Frodo's companions, undergo intricate permutations of name and personality, and other major figures appear in strange modes: a sinister Treebeard, in league with the Enemy, a ferocious and malevolent Farmer Maggot.[via]
The story in this book ends at the point where J.R.R. Tolkien halted in the story for a long time, as the Company of the Ring, still lacking Legolas and Gimli, stood before the tomb of Balin in the Mines of Moria. The Return of the Shadow is illustrated with reproductions of the first maps and notable pages from the earliest manuscripts.More editions of The Return of the Shadow:
Sabrielby Garth NixISBN 0606118144 (0-606-11814-4)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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Shelters of Stoneby Jean M. AuelISBN 0609610597 (0-609-61059-7)
Hardcover, Crown Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shelters of Stone'Book summary:The Shelters of Stone opens as Ayla and Jondalar, along with their animal friends, Wolf, Whinney, and Racer, complete their epic journey across Europe and are greeted by Jondalar's people: the Zelandonii. The people of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii fascinate Ayla. Their clothes, customs, artifacts, even their homes-formed in great cliffs of vertical limestone-are a source of wonder to her. And in the woman Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of the Ninth Cave (and the one who initiated Jondalar into the Gift of Pleasure), she meets a fellow healer with whom to share her knowledge and skills.But as Ayla and Jondalar prepare for the formal mating at the Summer Meeting, there are difficulties. Not all the Zelandonii are welcoming. Some fear Ayla's unfamiliar ways and abhor her relationship with those they call flatheads and she calls Clan. Some even oppose her mating with Jondalar, and make their displeasure known. Ayla has to call on all her skills, intelligence, knowledge, and instincts to find her way in this complicated society, to prepare for the birth of her child, and to decide whether she will accept new challenges and play a significant role in the destiny of the Zelandonii.Jean Auel is at her very best in this superbly textured creation of a prehistoric society. The Shelters of Stone is a sweeping story of love and danger, with all the wonderful detail-based on meticulous research- that makes her novels unique. It is a triumphant continuation of the Earth's Children® saga that began with The Clan of the Cave Bear. And it includes an amazing rhythmic poem that describes the birth of Earth's Children and plays its own role in the narrative of The Shelters of Stone. [via]
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Shogunby James ClavellISBN 061301328X (0-613-01328-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shogun'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A narrative of conflicting cultures, loyalties, motivations, and traditions in early 17th-century Japan, involving the power-hungry Lord Toranaga, the Lady Mariko, and the ambitious Englishman, Blackthorne. [via]
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knightby Burton RaffelISBN 0613234839 (0-613-23483-9)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'Book summary:Although the date of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is uncertain, and we know nothing about the author, its composition is roughly contemporary with Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in the latter part of the fourteenth century.[via]It is a remarkably subtle and accomplished poem, in which the hero's knightly virtues of courage, courtesy and fidelity are put to the test in a strange adventure involving a huge green knight on a green horse, a winter journey, a lady in a mysterious castle and a challenge answered. It ranks as one of the greatest works of the English Middle Ages and perhaps the greatest triumph of the English alliterative tradition.
Unlike The Canterbury Tales, however, Sir Gawain is written in a dialect belonging to Cheshire, Lancashire or Staffordshire, and this seems more remote to the modern reader than Chaucer's London language. The aim of this edition has been to remove unnecessary impediments while retaining the integrity of the original. Notes and a glossary have been provided to assist an informed, critical reading of the text.
@GawainsWorld So listen here, some green man came to the hall and wants someone to cut his head off. Some sort of dare? Could be fun, right?
The deal is I cut off his head now, and he cuts off mine a year later. What a jester, doesnt he know hell be dead?
This goblin fellow is totally dead.
All seemed fine until Ichabod Crane here fell to the floor, stood up, and picked up his head. His head, in his hands. In HIS HANDS!
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knightby M. BorroffISBN 0582484065 (0-582-48406-5)
Hardcover, Longmans
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A Tale of Two Citiesby Charles Dickens, NextextISBN 0618031502 (0-618-03150-2)
Hardcover, McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tale of Two Cities'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)A Tale of Two Cities begins on a muddy English road in an atmosphere charged with mystery and drama, and it ends in the Paris of the French Revolution with one of the most famous acts of self-sacrifice in literature. In between lies one of Charles Dickenss most exciting books a historical novel that, generation after generation, has given readers access to the profound human dramas that lie behind cataclysmic social and political events. Famous for the character of Sydney Carton, who sacrifices himself upon the guillotine It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done the novel is also a powerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused by the Revolution, and is illuminated by Dickenss lively comedy.This edition reprints the original Everyman introduction by G. K. Chesterton and includes sixteen illustrations by Phiz. [via]
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- A Tale of Two Cities: ISBN 0679420738 (0-679-42073-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - A Tale of Two Cities: ISBN 0671002740 (0-671-00274-0)
Softcover, Pocket Classics - A Tale of Two Cities: ISBN 0671695835 (0-671-69583-5)
Softcover, Pocket Books - A Tale of Two Cities: ISBN 0679602089 (0-679-60208-9)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - A Tale of Two Cities: ISBN 0618031502 (0-618-03150-2)
Hardcover, McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin
- A Tale of Two Cities: ISBN 0679420738 (0-679-42073-8)
Tiganaby Guy Gavriel KayISBN 0670833673 (0-670-83367-3)
Hardcover, Viking
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Time of the Twinsby Margaret WeisISBN 061339450X (0-613-39450-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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The Time Traveler's Wifeby Audrey NiffeneggerISBN 0676976336 (0-676-97633-6)
Softcover, Random House of Canada Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Time Traveler's Wife'Book summary:AUDREY NIFFENEGGER [via]
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The Towers of the Sunsetby L.E. ModesittISBN 0606196714 (0-606-19671-4)
Hardcover, Demco Media
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The Universe of Douglas Adamsby Douglas AdamsISBN 0671922319 (0-671-92231-9)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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Virgil: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I-VIby Virgil, G.P. GooldISBN 067499583X (0-674-99583-X)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Virgil: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I-VI'Book summary:Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) was born in 70 BCE near Mantua and was educated at Cremona, Milan and Rome. Slow in speech, shy in manner, thoughtful in mind, weak in health, he went back north for a quiet life. Influenced by the group of poets there, he may have written some of the doubtful poems included in our Virgilian manuscripts. All his undoubted extant work is written in his perfect hexameters. Earliest comes the collection of ten pleasingly artificial bucolic poems, the Eclogues, which imitated freely Theocritus's idylls. They deal with pastoral life and love. Before 29 BCE came one of the best of all didactic works, the four hooks of Georgics on tillage, trees, cattle, and bees. Virgil's remaining years were spent in composing his great, not wholly finished, epic the Aeneid, on the traditional theme of Rome's origins through Aeneas of Troy. Inspired by the Emperor Augustus's rule, the poem is Homeric in metre and method but influenced also by later Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and learning, and deeply Roman in spirit. Virgil died in 19 BCE at Brundisium on his way home from Greece, where he had intended to round off the Aeneid. He had left in Rome a request that all its twelve books should be destroyed if he were to die then, but they were published by the executors of his will.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Virgil is in two volumes.
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Virgil: Eclogues-Georgics-Aeneid Books I-VIby Virgil, Fairclough, H. Rushton FaircloughISBN 0674990706 (0-674-99070-6)
Hardcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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The Vision of Piers Plowmanby William Langland, Terence TillerISBN 0563179279 (0-563-17927-9)
Softcover, British Broadcasting Corp
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Vision of Piers Plowman'Book summary:One man's dream of a better society...PIERS PLOWMAN stands at the centre of medieval English literature along with Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES, which in many ways it complements. A weary wanderer falls asleep and dreams of a tower and a deep dungeon, and in between the whold of humanity pursuing its business and pleasure...but his dream becomes a profound vision of redemption, in which the corruptions and injustices that occur daily are laid open with passionate truthfulness in poetry that combines vigorous realism and probing argument with moments of epic sublimity and lyrical beauty. Edited by AVC Schmidt of Balliol College, Oxford, this is the B-Text. 'A marvel of comprehension' Derek Pearsall [via]
War Music: An Account of Books 16 to 19 of Homer's Iliadby Homer, Christopher LogueISBN 0571203833 (0-571-20383-3)
Softcover, Faber & Faber Ltd
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Wild Swans: Three Daughters of Chinaby Jung ChangISBN 0671685465 (0-671-68546-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China'Book summary:In Wild Swans Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents. [via]
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicleby Haruki Murakami, Jay RubinISBN 0679446699 (0-679-44669-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'Book summary:Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.
Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.
If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake [via]
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The Years of Rice and Saltby Kim Stanley RobinsonISBN 0553580078 (0-553-58007-8)
Softcover, Spectra
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