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books tagged “family saga”
books tagged “family saga”
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All She Ever Wantedby Lynn AustinISBN 0764228897 (0-7642-2889-7)
Softcover, Bethany House Pub
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Another Homecomingby Janette Oke, T. Davis BunnISBN 0783883323 (0-7838-8332-3)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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At Paradise Gateby Jane SmileyISBN 0684852233 (0-684-85223-3)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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Belovedby Toni MorrisonISBN 0701130601 (0-7011-3060-1)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beloved'Book summary:Toni Morrison gently reads her own Pulitzer Prize-winning work in the unabridged version of this riveting tale of ex-slave Sethe and the beloved ghost that haunts her. While Morrison makes occasional odd pauses in her reading, what is lost in smoothness is more than made up for in quiet intensity as the author reads words obviously deeply felt. Her intimate knowledge of the characters and their motivations lends this reading an authority that helps the listener sort out the breaks in time and dialogue in this complex story of a woman coming to terms with her enslaved past and the loss of her husband and baby daughter. (Running time: 12 hours, eight cassettes) --Kimberly Heinrichs [via]
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Black Catby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0743428609 (0-7434-2860-9)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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The Blind Assassinby Margaret AtwoodISBN 0747549370 (0-7475-4937-0)
Hardcover, Bloomsbury Pub Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Blind Assassin'Book summary:"It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward," writes Margaret Atwood, towards the end of her impressive and complex new novel, The Blind Assassin. It's a melancholic account of why writers write--and readers read--and one that frames the different lives told through this book. The Blind Assassin is (at least) two novels. At the end of her life, Iris Griffen takes up her pen to record the secret history of her family, the romantic melodrama of its decline and fall between the two World Wars. Conjuring a world of prosperity and misery, marriage and loneliness, the central enigma of Iris's tale is the death of her sister, Laura Chase, who "drove a car off a bridge" at the end of the Second World War. Suicide or accident? The story gradually unfolds, interspersed with sketches of Iris's present-day life--confined by age and ill-health--and a second novel, The Blind Assassin by Laura Chase. Allowing a glimpse into a clandestine love affair between a privileged young woman and a radical "agitator" on the run, this version of The Blind Assassin is an overt act of seduction: the exchange of sex and story about an imaginary world of Sakiel-Norn (a play with the potential, and convention, of fantasy and sci-fi).
With the intelligence, subtlety and remarkable characterisation associated with Atwood's writing (from her first novel, The Edible Woman through to the best-selling Alias Grace), these two stories play with one another--sustaining an uncertainty about who has done what to who and why to the very end of this compelling book. --Vicky Lebeau [via]
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Brick Laneby Monica AliISBN 0743243315 (0-7432-4331-5)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brick Lane'Book summary:With its gritty Tower Hamlets setting, this sharply observed contemporary novel about the life of an Asian immigrant girl deals cogently with issues of love, cultural difference and the human spirit. The pre-publicity hype about Brick Lane was precisely the kind to set alarm bells ringing (we've heard it so often before), but, for once, the excitement is fully justified: Monica Ali's debut novel demonstrates that there is a new voice in modern fiction to be reckoned with.
Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with a man considerably older than her--a man whose expectations of life are so low that misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor: more able to deal with the ways of the world, and a better judge of the vagaries of human behaviour. She makes friends with another Asian girl, Razia, who is the conduit to her understanding of the unsettling ways of her new homeland.
This is a novel of genuine insight, with the kind of characterisation that reminds the reader at every turn just what the novel form is capable of. Every character (Nazneen, her disappointed husband and her resourceful friend Razia) is drawn with the complexity that can really only be found in the novel these days. In some ways, the reader is given the same all-encompassing experience as in a Dickens novel: humour and tragedy rub shoulders in a narrative that inexorably grips the reader. Whether or not Monica Ali can follow up this achievement is a question for the future; it's enough to say right now that Brick Lane is an essential read for anyone interested in current British fiction. --Barry Forshaw [via]
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Buddenbrooksby Thomas Mann, John E. WoodsISBN 0679752609 (0-679-75260-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Buddenbrooks'Book summary:A Major Literary Event: a brilliant new translation of Thomas Mann's first great novel, one of the two for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929.
Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain.
In immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modem family chronicles; it has, indeed, proved a model for most of them. Judged as the greatest of Mann's novels by some critics, it is ranked as among the greatest by all. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929.
From the Hardcover edition. [via] 
Celesteby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0743428625 (0-7434-2862-5)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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Cloudstreet: Library Editionby Tim WintonISBN 0743234413 (0-7432-3441-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cloudstreet: Library Edition'Book summary:Hailed as a classic, Tim Winton's masterful family saga is both a paean to working-class Australians and an unflinching examination of the human heart's capacity for sorrow, joy, and endless gradations in between. An award-winning work, Cloudstreet exemplifies the brilliant ability of fiction to captivate and inspire.
Struggling to rebuild their lives after being touched by disaster, the Pickle family, who've inherited a big house called Cloudstreet in a suburb of Perth, take in the God-fearing Lambs as tenants. The Lambs have suffered their own catastrophes, and determined to survive, they open up a grocery on the ground floor. From 1944 to 1964, the shared experiences of the two overpopulated clans -- running the gamut from drunkenness, adultery, and death to resurrection, marriage, and birth -- bond them to each other and to the bustling, haunted house in ways no one could have anticipated. [via]
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The Dark Roseby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751503835 (0-7515-0383-5)
Softcover, Warner Futura
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The Deptford Trilogyby Robertson DaviesISBN 0771593848 (0-7715-9384-8)
Hardcover, Nelson Canada
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Dream Westby David NevinISBN 0765313987 (0-7653-1398-7)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Eve's Daughtersby Lynn AustinISBN 0764221957 (0-7642-2195-7)
Softcover, Bethany House Pub
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The Flood-Tideby C. Harrod-EaglesISBN 0708829597 (0-7088-2959-7)
Softcover, Severn House Pub Ltd
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The Foundingby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751503827 (0-7515-0382-7)
Softcover, Warner Futura
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Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafeby Fannie FlaggISBN 0679744959 (0-679-74495-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'Book summary:The remarkable novel of two Southern friendships--the basis of the hit film--available for the first time in large print. [via]
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The Ghost of Hannah Mendes: A Novelby Naomi RagenISBN 068483393X (0-684-83393-X)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ghost of Hannah Mendes: A Novel'Book summary:When Catherine da Costa, a wealthy Manhattan matron, learns she has only a short time to live, she realizes that the family tree will die unless she transfers its legacy to her granddaughters. But Suzanne and Francesca, beautiful young women caught up in trendy causes and ambitious careers, have no interest in the past. Catherine almost despairs until one night she is visited by the family matriarch, an indomitable Renaissance businesswoman named Hannah Mendes.
The ghost of Hannah Mendes encourages Catherine to use every trick in the book -- bribery, guilt and the threat of disinheritance -- to coerce her granddaughters to journey across Europe and acquaint themselves with their roots. While the sisters honor their grandmother's request out of loyalty, they believe their quest is futile -- until it starts to produce ancient manuscript pages from Hannah's fascinating memoir, and brings new love into their lives. [via]
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Hidden Jewelby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0783816960 (0-7838-1696-0)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr
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The Hidden Shoreby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751519340 (0-7515-1934-0)
Softcover, Warner Futura
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The History of Danish Dreamsby Peter HoegISBN 0770427340 (0-7704-2734-0)
Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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The Houseby Danielle SteelISBN 0739325973 (0-7393-2597-3)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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Howards Endby E. M. ForsterISBN 0679722556 (0-679-72255-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Howards End'Book summary:Margaret Schlegel, engaged to the much older, widowed Henry Wilcox, meets her intended the morning after accepting his proposal and realizes that he is a man who has lived without introspection or true self-knowledge. As she contemplates the state of Wilcox's soul, her remedy for what ails him has become one of the most oft-quoted passages in literature:
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.
Like all of Forster's work, Howards End concerns itself with class, nationality, economic status, and how each of these affects personal relationships. It follows the intertwined fortunes of the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and the Wilcox family over the course of several years. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes, on the other hand, can't be bothered with the life of the mind or the heart, leading, instead, outer lives of "telegrams and anger" that foster "such virtues as neatness, decision, and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they have formed our civilization." Helen, after a brief flirtation with one of the Wilcox sons, has developed an antipathy for the family; Margaret, however, forms a brief but intense friendship with Mrs. Wilcox, which is cut short by the older woman's death. When her family discovers a scrap of paper requesting that Henry give their home, Howards End, to Margaret, it precipitates a spiritual crisis among them that will take years to resolve.Forster's 1910 novel begins as a collection of seemingly unrelated events--Helen's impulsive engagement to Paul Wilcox; a chance meeting between the Schlegel sisters and an impoverished clerk named Leonard Bast at a concert; a casual conversation between the sisters and Henry Wilcox in London one night. But as it moves along, these disparate threads gradually knit into a tightly woven fabric of tragic misunderstandings, impulsive actions, and irreparable consequences, and, eventually, connection. Though set in the early years of the 20th century, Howards End seems even more suited to our own fragmented era of e-mails and anger. For readers living in such an age, the exhortation to "only connect" resonates ever more profoundly. --Alix Wilber [via]
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The Illustrated Lark Rise to Candlefordby Flora ThompsonISBN 0712601104 (0-7126-0110-4)
Hardcover, Century Commnctns Unltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford'Book summary:Flora Thompson's memoirs of a childhood spent in the Oxfordshire hamlet of Juniper in the 1880s. [via]
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In Babylonby Marcel MoringISBN 0688176453 (0-688-17645-3)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Babylon'Book summary:The worst winter blizzard the East Netherlands has seen in many years has left Nathan Hollander and his niece, Nina, snowbound in the deserted house of his late Uncle Herman. But they are not alone: Apart from Chaim and Magnus, two seventeenth-century family ghosts, there is another presence, unknown and unfriendly. As they wait for the storm to subside, Nathan and Nina piece together the story of their forefathers, a family of itinerant Jewish clockmakers who came to the Netherlands from Eastern Europe, and then fled to America in 1939. An extraordinary family history emerges, as well as many unsolved mysteries: For instance, what happened to the brilliant Zeno, who became a leader of a messianic sect and then vanished without a trace; why did Uncle Herman, a respected academic, end up dying in such undignified circumstances -- underneath an eighteen-year-old call girl? [via]
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Into the Woodsby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0743428595 (0-7434-2859-5)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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The Island Walkersby John BemroseISBN 0771011113 (0-7710-1111-3)
Hardcover, McClelland & Stewart
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The Joy Luck Clubby Amy TanISBN 067972768X (0-679-72768-X)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Joy Luck Club'Book summary:Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery. [via]
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Kartographyby Kamila ShamsieISBN 0747557306 (0-7475-5730-6)
Hardcover, Bloomsbury
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The Kitchen God's Wifeby Amy TanISBN 0679748083 (0-679-74808-3)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Kitchen God's Wife'Book summary:With the same narrative skills and evocative powers that made her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, a national bestseller, Tan now tells the story of Winnie Louie, an aging Chinese woman unfolding a life's worth of secrets to her suspicious, Americanized daughter. [via]
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Literature Made Easy Pride and Prejudiceby Tony Buzan, Michael KerriganISBN 0764108344 (0-7641-0834-4)
Softcover, Barrons Educational Series Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Literature Made Easy Pride and Prejudice'Book summary:This English literature revision guide for GCSE English students discusses Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". It features "mind maps" which summarize the entire work, icons, symbols, diagrams, cartoons and storyboards. [via]
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Little Womenby Louisa May Alcott, Monica KullingISBN 0679861750 (0-679-86175-0)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Women'Book summary:The quintessential American family story, Little Women captured readers' hearts right from the start. A bestseller from the time it was originally published in 1868, it is the story of the four March sisters: Meg, Beth, Jo, and Amy. Louisa May Alcott recreates her own family's dramatic and sometimes comic experiences in this American novel, inspiration for numerous dramatic and film versions. [via]
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- Little Women: ISBN 0689835310 (0-689-83531-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing - Little Women: ISBN 0766607119 (0-7666-0711-9)
Hardcover, Modern Pub - Little Women: ISBN 069401527X (0-694-01527-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books - Little Women: ISBN 0681007672 (0-681-00767-2)
Hardcover, Longmeadow Pr - Little Women: ISBN 0681400552 (0-681-40055-2)
Hardcover, Longmeadow Pr - Little Women: ISBN 070641313X (0-7064-1313-X)
Hardcover, Octopus Books Limited - Little Women: ISBN 0716632020 (0-7166-3202-0)
Hardcover, World Book - Little Women: ISBN 0723512116 (0-7235-1211-6)
Hardcover, Egmont Books, Limited - Little Women: ISBN 0762405651 (0-7624-0565-1)
Hardcover, Courage Books - Little Women: ISBN 0764170473 (0-7641-7047-3)
Hardcover, Barrons Juveniles - Little Women: ISBN 0679861750 (0-679-86175-0)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
- Little Women: ISBN 0689835310 (0-689-83531-0)
Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amyby Louisa May Alcott, Trina Schart HymanISBN 0688140904 (0-688-14090-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
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Luckyby Jackie CollinsISBN 0743482867 (0-7434-8286-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Maidenby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751506451 (0-7515-0645-1)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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Mama Flora's Familyby David Stevens, Alex HaleyISBN 0684834715 (0-684-83471-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mama Flora's Family'Book summary:In the tradition of Roots and Queen, Mama Flora's Family is a sweeping epic of contemporary American history, culled from the unpublished works of award-winning writer Alex Haley. It is the poignant story of three generations of an African-American family who start out as destitute sharecroppers in Tennessee.
Mama Flora is the heart and strength of the family, shepherding her children through hard times after the murder of her husband by white landholders. She has passionate ambitions for her son Willie, but he dashes her dreams by abandoning his church-going roots and moving to Chicago. After fighting in the Second World War, he marries his childhood sweetheart and struggles to build a new urban life for his family.
Flora's dreams are realized by Ruthana, her sister's child, whom Mama Flora adopts. Ruthana graduates from college, and as a social worker in Harlem, counsels underprivileged women. Through her love for the radical poet Ben, Ruthana begins to understand her heritage, and after a sojourn in Africa comes to a redemptive understanding of herself.
In Chicago, Willie's twin son and daughter embrace Muslim militancy and Black Power, and eventually, drugs on their rocky road through the 1960s. Mama Flora struggles to maintain her family, but she also is caught up in the turbulent times.
Mama Flora's Family is an American tale as dramatic and touching as anything Alex Haley ever wrote. [via]
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Master of the Gameby Sidney SheldonISBN 0688013651 (0-688-01365-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
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Maus: A Survivor's Tale My Father Bleeds History/Her My Troubles Began/Boxedby Art SpiegelmanISBN 0679748407 (0-679-74840-7)
Softcover, Pantheon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maus: A Survivor's Tale My Father Bleeds History/Her My Troubles Began/Boxed'Book summary:A boxed edition of the two paperback volumed of this 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrated narrative of Holocaust survival. Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father's story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in "drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust" ( The New York Times ). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek's harrowing story of survival is woven into the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century's grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. [via]
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Maus a Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Beginby Art SpiegelmanISBN 0679729771 (0-679-72977-1)
Softcover, Pantheon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maus a Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Begin'Book summary:***WINNER OF THE 1992 PULIZTER PRIZE***Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spiegelman's Mausintroduced readers to Vladek Spieglman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us out of any lingering sense of familiarity with the events described, approaching, as it does, the unspeakable through the diminutive.This second volume, subtitled And Here My Troubles Began, moves us from the barracks of Auschwitz to the bungalows of the Catskills. Genuinely tragic and comic by turns, it attains a complexity of theme and a precision of thought new to comics and rare in any medium. Mausties together two powerful stories: Vladek's harrowing take of survival against all odds, delineating the paradox of family life in the death camps, and the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. At every level this is the ultimate survivor's tale-and that too of the children who somehow survive even the survivors. [via]
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Maus I: A Survivor's Tale My Father Bleeds Historyby Art SpiegelmanISBN 0679739742 (0-679-73974-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Midnight Flightby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0743428617 (0-7434-2861-7)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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On Gold Mountainby Lisa SeeISBN 0679768521 (0-679-76852-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Orphansby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0743403614 (0-7434-0361-4)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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The Pillars of the Earthby Ken FollettISBN 0688046592 (0-688-04659-2)
Hardcover, William Morrow & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pillars of the Earth'Book summary:Dust jacket notes: "Ken Follett is known worldwide as the master of split-second suspense, but his most beloved and bestselling book tells the magnificent tale of a twelfth-century monk driven to do the seemingly impossible: build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known. Everything readers expect from Follett is here: intrigue, fast-paced action, and passionate romance. But what makes The Pillars of the Earth extraordinary is the time - the twelfth century; the place - feudal England; and the subject - the building of a glorious cathedral. The author has re-created the crude, flamboyant England of the Middle Ages in every detail. The forests, the walled towns, the castles, and the monasteries become a familiar landscape. Against this richly imagined and intricately interwoven backdrop, filled with the ravages of war and the rhythms of daily life, the master storyteller draws the reader irresistibly into the intertwined lives of his characters - into their dreams, their labors, and their loves: Tom, the master builder; Aliena, the ravishingly beautiful noblewoman; Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge; Jack, the artist in stone and Ellen, the woman of the forest who casts a terrifying curse. From humble stonemason to imperious monarch, each character is brought vividly to life. The building of the cathedral, with the almost eerie artistry of the unschooled stonemasons, is the center of the drama. Around the site of the construction, Follett weaves a story of betrayal, revenge, and love, which begins with the public hanging of an innocent man and ends with the humiliation of a king. At once a sensuous and endearing love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age, The Pillars of the Earth is without a doubt Ken Follett's masterpiece." [via]
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Postcardsby Annie ProulxISBN 068480087X (0-684-80087-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Postcards'Book summary:Reproduced as graphics that preface narrative sections, the postcards in this novel -- communications between the Blood family and their son Loyal, as well as other personal mail and advertising material -- progressively reveal the insecurity of the rural Bloods in the changing post-war world. Loyal has fled into exile after an accidental killing, but cannot find a haven of rest. The family patriarch, Mink, writes vitriolic letters to local agricultural agents when the real object of his ire is his absent son. Loyal's brother sends off for an artificial arm to replace the one he lost in an accident; his sister answers a mail order ad for a husband. Through the mail, Proulx inventively reveals the inchoate longings of a difficult existence in this winner of the 1993 PEN/Faulkner Award. [via]
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A Prayer for Owen Meanyby John IrvingISBN 0679642595 (0-679-64259-5)
Hardcover, Modern Library
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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 mum with a baseball and believes--correctly, it transpires--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 Dr Dolder, Owen's shrink, drunkenly driving his VW down the school's marble steps is a marvellous 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 change 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' 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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Pride and Prejudiceby Jane AustenISBN 0679783261 (0-679-78326-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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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]
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- Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0743487591 (0-7434-8759-1)
Softcover, Washington Square Pr - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 075533146X (0-7553-3146-X)
Softcover, Headline Book Publishing - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0774033312 (0-7740-3331-2)
Softcover, Coles Pub Group Ltd - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 070898228X (0-7089-8228-X)
Hardcover, Ulverscroft Large Print Books - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0712610111 (0-7126-1011-1)
Hardcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0762405503 (0-7624-0550-3)
Hardcover, Courage Books - Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0679783261 (0-679-78326-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- Pride and Prejudice: ISBN 0743487591 (0-7434-8759-1)
The Promiseby Chaim PotokISBN 0783802560 (0-7838-0256-0)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co
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The Questionby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751525294 (0-7515-2529-4)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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The Regencyby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751506508 (0-7515-0650-8)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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Sacred Timeby Ursula HegiISBN 0743255992 (0-7432-5599-2)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Some Can Whistleby Larry McMurtryISBN 0743230167 (0-7432-3016-7)
Softcover, Scribner
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The Tangled Threadby Cynthia Harrod-EaglesISBN 0751506478 (0-7515-0647-8)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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These Twainby Arnold BennettISBN 0755106873 (0-7551-0687-3)
Softcover, House of Stratus Ltd
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Three Continentsby Ruth Prawer JhabvalaISBN 0688071848 (0-688-07184-8)
Hardcover, Random House Value Pub
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Tin Drumby Gunter Grass, Ralph ManheimISBN 067972575X (0-679-72575-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tin Drum'Book summary:Meet Oskar Matzerath, "the eternal three-year-old drummer." On the morning of his third birthday, dressed in a striped pullover and patent leather shoes, and clutching his drumsticks and his new tin drum, young Oskar makes an irrevocable decision: "It was then that I declared, resolved, and determined that I would never under any circumstances be a politician, much less a grocer; that I would stop right there, remain as I was--and so I did; for many years I not only stayed the same size but clung to the same attire." Here is a Peter Pan story with a vengeance. But instead of Never-Never Land, Günter Grass gives us Danzig, a contested city on the Polish-German border; instead of Captain Hook and his pirates, we have the Nazis. And in place of Peter himself is Oskar, a twisted puer aeternis with a scream that can shatter glass and a drum rather than a shadow. First published in 1959, The Tin Drum's depiction of the Nazi era created a furor in Germany, for the world of Grass's making is rife with corrupt politicians and brutal grocers in brown shirts:
There was once a grocer who closed his store one day in November, because something was doing in town; taking his son Oskar by the hand, he boarded a Number 5 streetcar and rode to the Langasser Gate, because there as in Zoppot and Langfuhr the synagogue was on fire. The synagogue had almost burned down and the firemen were looking on, taking care that the flames should not spread to other buildings. Outside the wrecked synagogue, men in uniform and others in civilian clothes piled up books, ritual objects, and strange kinds of cloth. The mound was set on fire and the grocer took advantage of the opportunity to warm his fingers and his feelings over the public blaze.
As Oskar grows older (though not taller), portents of war transform into the thing itself. Danzig is the first casualty when, in the summer of 1939, residents turn against each other in a pitched battle between Poles and Germans. In the years that follow, Oskar goes from one picaresque adventure to the next--he joins a troupe of traveling musicians; he becomes the leader of a group of anarchists; he falls in love; he becomes a recording artist--until some time after the war, he is convicted of murder and confined to a mental hospital.The Tin Drum uses savage comedy and a stiff dose of magical realism to capture not only the madness of war, but also the black cancer at the heart of humanity that allows such degradations to occur. Grass wields his humor like a knife--yes, he'll make you laugh, but he'll make you bleed, as well. There have been many novels written about World War II, but only a handful can truly be called great; The Tin Drum, without a doubt, is one. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Twisted Rootsby V. C. AndrewsISBN 0743428587 (0-7434-2858-7)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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The Wapshot Chronicleby John CheeverISBN 0679738991 (0-679-73899-1)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Waterlandby Graham SwiftISBN 0679739793 (0-679-73979-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Waterland'Book summary:Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy.
"Waterland, like the Hardy novels, carries with all else a profound knowledge of a people, a place, and their interweaving.... Swift tells his tale with wonderful contemporary verve and verbal felicity.... A fine and original work."--Los Angeles Times [via]More editions of Waterland:
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Wild Swansby Jung ChangISBN 0743254392 (0-7432-5439-2)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster Mass Market
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wild Swans'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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Wild Swans: Three Daughters of Chinaby Jung ChangISBN 0743246985 (0-7432-4698-5)
Softcover, 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 Wildflowersby V. C. AndrewsISBN 074342347X (0-7434-2347-X)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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The Wildflowers: Misty--Star--Jade--Catby V. C. Andrews, Tracy BernsteinISBN 0743437373 (0-7434-3737-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Winshaw Legacy or What a Carve Up!by Jonathan CoeISBN 0679754059 (0-679-75405-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Winshaw Legacy or What a Carve Up!'Book summary:If Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had ever managed to collaborate, they might have produced this shamelessly entertaining novel, which introduces readers to what may be the most powerful family in England--and is certainly the vilest. A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer. [via]
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Wise Childrenby Angela CarterISBN 0701133546 (0-7011-3354-6)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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Witchlightby Marion Zimmer BradleyISBN 0765347148 (0-7653-4714-8)
Softcover, Tor Books
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The World According to Garpby John IrvingISBN 0679603069 (0-679-60306-9)
Hardcover, Modern Library
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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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The World's Great ClassicsISBN 0717200019 (0-7172-0001-9)
Hardcover, Xs Books
Find This BookBook summary:Odyssey, The: The World's Great Classics, by Homer; tr. by S.H. Butcher and Andrew Lang [via]
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The Yearsby Hogarth PressISBN 0701202815 (0-7012-0281-5)
Hardcover, Pub. by L. and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press
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