books tagged “Fiction” (fiction)

books tagged “Fiction”

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The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler

ISBN 0345452003 (0-345-45200-3)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:
Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around. [via]
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The Accidental Tourist and Ladder of Years
by Anne Tyler

ISBN 0345487648 (0-345-48764-8)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

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- The Accidental Tourist and Ladder of Years: ISBN 0345487648 (0-345-48764-8)
  Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren

ISBN 0553204548 (0-553-20454-8)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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More editions of All the King's Men:
- All the King's Men: ISBN 0899662900 (0-89966-290-0)
  Hardcover, Buccaneer Books
- All the King's Men: ISBN 0553204548 (0-553-20454-8)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
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Arden Shakespeare Hamlet
by Harold Jenkins, Neil Taylor

ISBN 1904271324 (1-904271-32-4)
Hardcover, Arden Shakespeare

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Book summary:
The core of the ground-breaking, three text edition, this self-contained, free-standing volume gives readers the Second Quarto text (1604-5) and includes in its Introduction, notes and Appendices all the reader might expect to find in any standard Arden edition. As well as a full, illustrated Introduction to the playÂ's historical, cultural and performance contexts and a thorough survey of critical approaches to the play, an appendix contains the additional passages found only in the 1623 text. "The new Arden Hamlet is a pathbreaking edition, one that promises to change irrevocably our understanding of Shakespeare's greatest play." - Professor James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare Â"Hamlet's latest editors have undertaken a heroic task with great skill and thoroughnesss.Â" - Stanley Wells, The Observer "(The) new Arden Hamlet is quite simply the most comprehensive edition of the play currently available, a status I suspect it will enjoy for many years to come" - The British Theatre Guide "Stunning! There is absolutely no doubt about this being the text to buy if you are studying the play at A Level. And the same stands for those students who will be studying the play at university. This critical edition gives the reader the Second Quarto Text (1604-1605), annotated with intelligence and care, a wealth of historical and cultural references and a survey of different critical approaches to the play." - The Use of English, The English Association [via]
More editions of Arden Shakespeare Hamlet:
- Arden Shakespeare Hamlet: ISBN 1904271324 (1-904271-32-4)
  Hardcover, Arden Shakespeare
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Bee Season
by Myla Goldberg

ISBN 0786225440 (0-7862-2544-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr

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Book summary:
In Myla Goldberg's outstanding first novel, a family is shaken apart by a small but unexpected shift in the prospects of one of its members. When 9-year-old Eliza Naumann, an otherwise indifferent student, takes first prize in her school spelling bee, it is as if rays of light have begun to emanate from her head. Teachers regard her with a new fondness; the studious girls begin to save a place for her at lunch. Even Eliza can sense herself changing. She had "often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see."
Eliza's father, Saul, a scholar and cantor, had long since given up expecting sparks of brilliance on her part. While her brother, Aaron, had taken pride in reciting his Bar Mitzvah prayers from memory, she had typically preferred television reruns to homework or reading. This belated evidence of a miraculous talent encourages Saul to reassess his daughter. And after she wins the statewide bee, he begins tutoring her for the national competition, devoting to Eliza the hours he once spent with Aaron. His daughter flowers under his care, eventually coming to look at life "in alphabetical terms." "Consonants are the camels of language," she realizes, "proudly carrying their lingual loads."
Vowels, however, are a different species, the fish that flash and glisten in the watery depths. Vowels are elastic and inconstant, fickle and unfaithful.... Before the bee, Eliza had been a consonant, slow and unsurprising. With her bee success, she has entered vowelhood.
When Saul sees the state of transcendence that she effortlessly achieves in competition, he encourages his daughter to explore the mystical states that have eluded him--the influx of God-knowledge (shefa) described by the Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia. Although Saul has little idea what he has set in motion, "even the sound of Abulafia's name sets off music in her head. A-bu-la-fi-a. It's magic, the open sesame that unblocked the path to her father and then to language itself."
Meanwhile, stunned by his father's defection, Aaron begins a troubling religious quest. Eliza's brainy, compulsive mother is also unmoored by her success. The spelling champion's newfound gift for concentration reminds Miriam of herself as a girl, and she feels a pang for not having seen her daughter more clearly before. But Eliza's clumsy response to Miriam's overtures convinces her mother that she has no real ties to her daughter. This final disappointment precipitates her departure into a stunning secret life. The reader is left wondering what would have happened if the Naumanns' spiritual thirsts had not been set in restless motion. A poignant and exceptionally well crafted tale, Bee Season has a slow beginning but a tour-de-force conclusion. --Regina Marler [via]
More editions of Bee Season:
- Bee Season: ISBN 0786225440 (0-7862-2544-0)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Cliffscomplete Hamlet
by Sidney Lamb, Terri Mategrano

ISBN 0764585681 (0-7645-8568-1)
Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc

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Book summary:
In the CliffsComplete guides, the novel's complete text and a glossary appear side-by-side with coordinating numbered lines to help you understand unusual words and phrasing. You'll also find all the commentary and resources of a standard CliffsNotes for Literature.
CliffsComplete Hamlet covers details of the most widely produced and critiqued Shakespearean play. Written in poignant language, Hamlet contains all the elements necessary for a good tragedy, including a brave and daring hero who suffers a fatal flaw.
Discover what happens to the complicated cast of characters and save valuable studying time all at once. Enhance your reading of Hamlet with these additional features:
A summary and insightful commentary for each chapter
Bibliography and historical background on the author, William Shakespeare
A look at Early Modern England historical, intellectual, religious, and social context
Insight into the play's classical elements and language
A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
Review questions, a quiz, discussion guide, and activity ideas
A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Web sites
Streamline your literature study with all-in-one help from CliffsComplete guides!
[via]
More editions of Cliffscomplete Hamlet:
- Cliffscomplete Hamlet: ISBN 0764585681 (0-7645-8568-1)
  Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc
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The Confusion
by Neal Stephenson

ISBN 0060733357 (0-06-073335-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe.

Meanwhile, back in Europe ...

The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child.

While ...

Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended.
[via]
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The Confusion Ltd
by Neal Stephenson

ISBN 0060599340 (0-06-059934-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, a.k.a. King of the Vagabonds, a.k.a. Half-Cocked Jack, lately and miraculously cured of the pox -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues, rife with battles, chases, hairbreadth escapes, swashbuckling, bloodletting, and danger -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe. Meanwhile, back in Europe ... The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child. While ... Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended. [via]
More editions of The Confusion Ltd:
- The Confusion Ltd: ISBN 0060599340 (0-06-059934-0)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
The Drawing of the Three
by Stephen King

ISBN 1880418398 (1-880418-39-8)
Hardcover, Donald m Grant Pub Inc

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Book summary:
After his confrontation with the man in black at the end of The Gunslinger, Roland awakes to find three doors on the beach of Mid-World's Western Seaeach leading to New York City but at three different moments in time. Through these doors, Roland must "draw" three figures crucial to his quest for the Dark Tower. In 1987, he finds Eddie Dean, The Prisoner, a heroin addict. In 1964, he meets Odetta Holmes, the Lady of Shadows, a young African-American heiress who lost her lower legs in a subway accident and gained a second personality that rages within her. And in 1977, he encounters Jack mort, Death, a pusher responsible for cruelties beyond imagining. Has Roland found new companions to form the ka-tet of his quest? Or has he unleashed something else entirely?
[via]
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The First Quarto of Hamlet
by William Shakespeare, Kathleen O. Irace, A. R. Braunmuller, Brian Gibbons

ISBN 0521653908 (0-521-65390-8)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press

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Book summary:
The first printed text of Shakespeare's Hamlet is about half the length of the more familiar second quarto and Folio versions. It reorders and combines key plot elements to present its own workable alternatives. This is the only modernized critical edition of the 1603 quarto in print. Kathleen Irace explains its possible origins, special features and surprisingly rich performance history, and while describing textual differences between it and other versions, offers alternatives that actors or directors might choose for specific productions. [via]
More editions of The First Quarto of Hamlet:
- The First Quarto of Hamlet: ISBN 0521418194 (0-521-41819-4)
  Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
- The First Quarto of Hamlet: ISBN 0521653908 (0-521-65390-8)
  Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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Grendel
by John Champlin Gardner

ISBN 0808566482 (0-8085-6648-2)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
Grendel is a beautiful and heartbreaking modern retelling of the Beowulf epic from the point of view of the monster, Grendel, the villain of the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon epic. This book benefits from both of Gardner's careers: in addition to his work as a novelist, Gardner was a noted professor of medieval literature and a scholar of ancient languages. [via]
More editions of Grendel:
- Grendel: ISBN 0816160155 (0-8161-6015-5)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
- Grendel: ISBN 0808566482 (0-8085-6648-2)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
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Grendel
by Emil Antonucci, John Champlin Gardner

ISBN 0679723110 (0-679-72311-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Grendel is a beautiful and heartbreaking modern retelling of the Beowulf epic from the point of view of the monster, Grendel, the villain of the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon epic. This book benefits from both of Gardner's careers: in addition to his work as a novelist, Gardner was a noted professor of medieval literature and a scholar of ancient languages. [via]
More editions of Grendel:
- Grendel: ISBN 0679723110 (0-679-72311-0)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Hamlet
by William Shakespeare, Peter Holland, David M. Bevington

ISBN 140220776X (1-4022-0776-X)
Softcover, Sourcebooks Inc

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Book summary:
No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of Hamlet on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right.

Each No Fear Shakespeare contains
The complete text of the original play
A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language
A complete list of characters with descriptions
Plenty of helpful commentary
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Hamlet
by Harold Jenkins

ISBN 1903436672 (1-903436-67-2)
Softcover, Cengage Learning

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Book summary:
The Arden Shakespeare is the established edition of Shakespeare's work. Justly celebrated for its authoritative scholarship and invaluable commentary, Arden guides you a richer understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's plays. This edition of Hamlet provides, a clear and authoritative text, detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text, a full introduction discussing the critical and historical background to the play and appendices presenting sources and relevant extracts. [via]
More editions of Hamlet:
- Hamlet: ISBN 1903436672 (1-903436-67-2)
  Softcover, Cengage Learning
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Hamlet
by J. K. Lowers

ISBN 0822000180 (0-8220-0018-0)
Softcover, Cliff Notes

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Book summary:
Shakespeare [via]
More editions of Hamlet:
- Hamlet: ISBN 0822000180 (0-8220-0018-0)
  Softcover, Cliff Notes
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Hamlet
by Julia Markus, Paul Jordan

ISBN 0582097207 (0-582-09720-7)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd

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Book summary:
* Includes an informative, detailed and practical introduction to Shakespeare's life, times and language. * Supports the texts with useful notes. * Provides activities for before, during and after study. [via]
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- Hamlet: ISBN 0582097207 (0-582-09720-7)
  Softcover, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd
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Hamlet/Complete Study Edition
by William Shakespeare

ISBN 0822014157 (0-8220-1415-7)
Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc

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Book summary:
Stapled book contains Commentary, Complete Text, and Glossary plus a number of pen & ink drawings. Originally published under the title of "Hamlet: Complete Study Guide" [via]
More editions of Hamlet/Complete Study Edition:
- Hamlet/Complete Study Edition: ISBN 0822014157 (0-8220-1415-7)
  Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc
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The Klingon Hamlet
by William Shakespeare, Nick Nicholas, Andrew Strader, Klingon Language Institute, Will Martin, Mark Shoulson, D'Armond Speers

ISBN 0671035789 (0-671-03578-9)
Softcover, Star Trek

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Book summary:
Prepared by the Klingon Language Institute, The Klingon Hamlet presents full English and Klingon versions of Shakespeare's play side by side. Only experienced Klingon speakers will be able to fully appreciate the nuances of the Klingon-language version, but for anyone who has dabbled in the language, this is an excellent opportunity to acquire large chunks of authentic text to practice on. Most of the vocabulary used can be found in either The Klingon Dictionary or Klingon for the Galactic Traveler.
For non-Klingon speakers, there is Shakespeare's original text, an English-language introduction, and detailed endnotes, very wittily presented. These put forward the case that Shakespeare himself was a Klingon, and underline the essentially Klingon nature of this famous play, with its themes of honor and revenge. In creating the tragic figure of Hamlet, with his very un-Klingon propensity for brooding and procrastination, Shakespeare is believed to have been commenting on a culture becoming alienated from its traditional warlike virtues, and we are told that most Klingons find it a deeply disturbing play.
All in all, this is a very clever, well-presented interpretation of one of the world's most famous plays. The Klingon translation, in all the glory of its iambic pentameter, has been lovingly constructed, and is well worth the effort of reading at least a few favorite passages aloud. --Elizabeth Sourbut, Amazon.co.uk [via]
More editions of The Klingon Hamlet:
- The Klingon Hamlet: ISBN 0671035789 (0-671-03578-9)
  Softcover, Star Trek
Monarch Notes on Warren's All the King's Men
by George B. Gerhard

ISBN 0671006975 (0-671-00697-5)
Hardcover, Peterson's

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- Monarch Notes on Warren's All the King's Men: ISBN 0671006975 (0-671-00697-5)
  Hardcover, Peterson's
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Out of the Silent Planet
by C. S. Lewis

ISBN 0684823802 (0-684-82380-2)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
The first book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which continues with Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, Out of the Silent Planet begins the adventures of the remarkable Dr. Ransom. Here, that estimable man is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and taken via spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice, and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Once on the planet, however, Ransom eludes his captors, risking his life and his chances of returning to Earth, becoming a stranger in a land that is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity. First published in 1943, Out of the Silent Planet remains a mysterious and suspenseful tour de force. [via]
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Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren

ISBN 1555460631 (1-55546-063-1)
Hardcover, Facts on File

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Book summary:
Robert Penn Warren's 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men is one of the undisputed classics of American literature. Fifty years after the novel's publication, Warren's characters still stand as powerful representations of the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in positions of power. All the King's Men had its genesis in Warren's stage play Proud Flesh, unpublished in his lifetime. He also wrote a subsequent unpublished play titled Willie Stark: His Rise and Fall and a later dramatic version of the novel that shared the title All the King's Men.
This volume is the first to collect all three dramatic texts and to publish Proud Flesh and Willie Stark. Proud Flesh is particularly fascinating for what it reveals about the development of All the King's Men and Warren's changing perceptions of its characters and themes. The other plays, as post-novel writings, provide a forum for Warren to clarify his intentions in the novel. The editors' introduction to this collection reviews the composition history of the works and their relationship to the novel and to each other.
The new perspectives on Warren's writing presented in Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men": Three Stage Versions provide a glimpse into a creative mind struggling with a compelling story and offer readers another way of looking at this American classic. This book is an essential reference in Warren studies that will give students of All the King's Men another context from which to consider Warren's novel.
[via]
More editions of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men:
- Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men: ISBN 0820320978 (0-8203-2097-8)
  Hardcover, Univ of Georgia Pr
- Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men: ISBN 1555460631 (1-55546-063-1)
  Hardcover, Facts on File
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The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien, SparkNotes Staff

ISBN 1586638270 (1-58663-827-0)
Softcover, Spark Publishing Group

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Book summary:
"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to."
A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0791081710 (0-7910-8171-0)
Hardcover, Facts on File

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Book summary:
"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to."
A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried:
- Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried: ISBN 0791081710 (0-7910-8171-0)
  Hardcover, Facts on File
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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
by William Shakespeare

ISBN 1421813459 (1-4218-1345-9)
Softcover, 1st World Library

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Book summary:
Undoubtedly the most famous of all of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet remains one of the most enduring but also enigmatic pieces of western literature. The story of Hamlet, the young Prince of Denmark, his tortured relationship with his mother, and his quest to avenge his father's murder at the hand of his brother Claudius has fascinated writers and audiences ever since it was written around 1600.
For many years interest focused on both Hamlet's inability to avenge his father's death, claiming that "the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought", and, according to none other than Freud, his oedipal fixation with his mother. However, more recently critics have turned their attention to Hamlet's bold theatrical self-reflexivity (most famously reflected in the performance of "The Mousetrap"), its fascination with issues of theology and Renaissance humanism, and its dense, complex poetic language. What is so remarkable about the play is the way in which it tends to uncannily reflect the concerns of different epochs. As a result, Hamlet has been at different moments defined as a romantic rebel, an angst-ridden existentialist, a paralysed intellectual and an ambivalent New Man. Whatever subsequent generations make of Hamlet, they are unlikely to exhaust the possibilities of this most extraordinary play. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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Villette: Library Edition
by Charlotte Bronte, Helen M. Cooper

ISBN 0140434798 (0-14-043479-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
With her final novel, "Villette," Charlotte Bronte reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, "Villette" is Bronte's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even "Jane Eyre" in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There, she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquetter. This first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey--a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature. [via]
More editions of Villette: Library Edition:
- Villette: Library Edition: ISBN 0140431187 (0-14-043118-7)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- Villette: Library Edition: ISBN 0140434798 (0-14-043479-8)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA