| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “literary”
books tagged “literary”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
English
-
The Alchemistby Paulo Coelho, Alan R. ClarkeISBN 0061122416 (0-06-112241-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Alchemist'Book summary:Amazon.co.uk Review Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sense a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalucian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream. Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." [via]
-
The Alchemist/a Fable About Following Your Dreamby Paulo Coelho, Alan R. ClarkeISBN 0062502174 (0-06-250217-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Alchemist/a Fable About Following Your Dream'Book summary:Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.
Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." --Gail Hudson [via]
More editions of The Alchemist/a Fable About Following Your Dream:
-
Autobiography of a Faceby Lucy GrealyISBN 006097673X (0-06-097673-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Autobiography of a Face'Book summary:At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasure of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect [via]
More editions of Autobiography of a Face:
-
The Autobiography of Mark Twainby Mark Twain, Charles NeiderISBN 0060955422 (0-06-095542-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Autobiography of Mark Twain'Book summary:"Mark Twain's autobiography is a classic of American letters, to be ranked with the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Adams.... It has the marks of greatness in it--style, scope, imagination, laughter, tragedy."
--From the Introduction by Charles NeiderMark Twain was a figure larger than fife: massive in talent, eruptive in temperament, unpredictable in his actions. He crafted stories of heroism, adventure, tragedy, and comedy that reflected the changing America of the time, and he tells his own story--which includes sixteen pages of photos--with the same flair he brought to his fiction. Writing this autobiography on his deathbed, Twain vowed to he "free and frank and unembarrassed" in the recounting of his life and his experiences.
Twain was more than a match for the expanding America of riverboats, gold rushes, and the vast westward movement, which provided the material for his novels and which served to inspire this beloved and uniquely American autobiography.
[via]More editions of The Autobiography of Mark Twain:
-
Autumn of the Patriarchby Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gregory RabassaISBN 0060932678 (0-06-093267-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Autumn of the Patriarch'Book summary:Gabriel Garcia Marquez, renowned as a master of magical realism, creates stories that grip the imagination. Set in exotic locals, peoples with unforgettable characters, and crafted with exquisite prose, his stories transport the reader to a world that is at once fanciful and real.
One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power. Employing an innovative, dreamlike style, the novel is overflowing with symbolic descriptions as it vividly portrays the dying tyrant caught in the prison of his own dictatorship. From charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, the dictator embodies at once the best and the worst of human nature.
[via]More editions of Autumn of the Patriarch:
-
The Bad Beginningby Lemony Snicket, Brett HelquistISBN 0061146307 (0-06-114630-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bad Beginning'Book summary:Make no mistake. The Bad Beginning begins badly for the three Baudelaire children, and then gets worse. Their misfortunes begin one gray day on Briny Beach when Mr. Poe tells them that their parents perished in a fire that destroyed their whole house. "It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed," laments the personable (occasionally pedantic) narrator, who tells the story as if his readers are gathered around an armchair on pillows. But of course what follows is dreadful. The children thought it was bad when the well-meaning Poes bought them grotesque-colored clothing that itched. But when they are ushered to the dilapidated doorstep of the miserable, thin, unshaven, shiny-eyed, money-grubbing Count Olaf, they know that they--and their family fortune--are in real trouble. Still, they could never have anticipated how much trouble. While it's true that the events that unfold in Lemony Snicket's novels are bleak, and things never turn out as you'd hope, these delightful, funny, linguistically playful books are reminiscent of Roald Dahl (remember James and the Giant Peach and his horrid spinster aunts), Charles Dickens (the orphaned Pip in Great Expectations without the mysterious benefactor), and Edward Gorey (The Gashlycrumb Tinies). There is no question that young readers will want to read the continuing unlucky adventures of the Baudelaire children in The Reptile Room and The Wide Window. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
More editions of The Bad Beginning:
A Bigamist's Daughterby Alice McDermottISBN 0060971428 (0-06-097142-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Bigamist's Daughter'More editions of A Bigamist's Daughter:
Billy Bathgateby E.L. DoctorowISBN 0060975954 (0-06-097595-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Billy Bathgate'Book summary:In 1930's New York, Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old high-school dropout, has captured the attention of infamous gangster Dutch Schultz, who lures the boy into his world of racketeering. The product of an East Bronx upbringing by his half-crazy Irish Catholic mother, after his Jewish father left them long ago, Billy is captivated by the world of money, sex, and high society the charismatic Schultz has to offer. But it is also a world of extortion, brutality, and murder, where Billy finds himself involved in a dangerous affair with Schultz's girlfriend. Relive this story through the title character's driving narrative, a child's thoughts and feelings filtered through the sensibilities of an adult, and the result is E.L. Doctorow's most convincing and appealing portrayal of a young boy's life. Converging mythology and history, one of America's most admired authors has captured the romance of gangsters and criminal enterprise that continues to fascinate the American psyche today. [via]
The Bingo Palaceby Louise ErdrichISBN 0061129755 (0-06-112975-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bingo Palace'More editions of The Bingo Palace:
-
The Book of Laughter and Forgettingby Milan Kundera, Aaron AsherISBN 0060932147 (0-06-093214-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'Book summary:In one of the finer modern ironies of the life-imitates-art sort, the country that Kundera seemed to be writing about when he talked about Czechoslovakia is, thanks to the latest political redefinitions, no longer precisely there. This kind of disappearance and reappearance is, partly, what Kundera explores in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. In this polymorphous work -- now a novel, now autobiography, now a philosophical treatise -- Kundera discusses life, music, sex, philosophy, literature and politics in ways that are rarely politically correct, never classifiable but always original, entertaining and definitely brilliant. [via]
More editions of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
Bridgeby Iain M. BanksISBN 0061001082 (0-06-100108-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Bridge'
The Catsittersby James WolcottISBN 006093218X (0-06-093218-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Catsitters'More editions of The Catsitters:
Coastlinersby Joanne HarrisISBN 0060958014 (0-06-095801-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Coastliners'More editions of Coastliners:
Coldheart Canyonby Clive BarkerISBN 006103018X (0-06-103018-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Coldheart Canyon'More editions of Coldheart Canyon:
-
Collected Storiesby Gabriel García MárquezISBN 0060932686 (0-06-093268-6)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Collected Stories'Book summary:Collected here are twenty-six of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most brilliant and enchanting short stories, presented in the chronological order of their publication in Spanish from three volumes: Eyes of a Blue Dog,Big Mama's Funeral, and The Incredible and Sad Tale of lnnocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother. Combining mysticism, history, and humor, the stories in this collection span more than two decades, illuminating the development of Marquez's prose and exhibiting the themes of family, poverty, and death that resound throughout his fiction.
[via]More editions of Collected Stories:
-
Collected Novellasby Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gregory Rabassa, J.S. BernsteinISBN 006093266X (0-06-093266-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Collected Novellas'Book summary:Renowned as a master of magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has long delighted readers around the world with his exquisitely crafted prose. Brimming with unforgettable characters and set in exotic locales, his fiction transports readers to a world that is at once fanciful, haunting, and real.
Leaf Storm, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's first novella, introduces the mythical village of Macondo, a desolate town beset by torrents of rain, where a man must fulfill a promise made years earlier.
No One Writes to the Colonel is a novella of life in a decaying tropical town in Colombia with an unforgettable central character.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a dark and profound story of three people joined together in a fatal act of violence.
[via]More editions of Collected Novellas:
-
The Concise Roget's International Thesaurusby Robert L. ChapmanISBN 0061007099 (0-06-100709-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Concise Roget's International Thesaurus'Book summary:-- Ideal for home, school, and office -- Portable, compact, authoritative -- Learn to speak and write more effectively -- Enlarge your vocabulary -- Use the word with your precise shade of meaning Only in THE CONCISE ROGET'S INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS "RM" will you find 43 ways to say overjoyed and 39 ways to say dejected, 32 ways to be astonished, 59 ways to laugh and 23 ways to weep -- and even 58 words to describe the color yellow. [via]
More editions of The Concise Roget's International Thesaurus:
-
Coralineby Neil Gaiman, Dave McKeanISBN 0061139378 (0-06-113937-8)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Coraline'Book summary:Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.
What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
More editions of Coraline:
Crooked Heartsby Robert BoswellISBN 0060975865 (0-06-097586-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Crooked Hearts'More editions of Crooked Hearts:
Deep Purpleby Mayra Montero, Edith GrossmanISBN 0060938218 (0-06-093821-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Deep Purple'More editions of Deep Purple:
El Demonio Y LA Senorita Prymby Paulo Coelho, M. Dolors VentosISBN 0061124257 (0-06-112425-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Demonio Y LA Senorita Prym'More editions of El Demonio Y LA Senorita Prym:
-
Factotumby Charles BukowskiISBN 006113127X (0-06-113127-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Factotum'Book summary:One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.
Charles Bukowski's posthumous legend continues to grow. Factotum is a masterfully vivid evocation of slow-paced, low-life urbanity and alcoholism, and an excellent introduction to the fictional world of Charles Bukowski.
[via]More editions of Factotum:
Family Pictures : A Novelby Sue MillerISBN 0061099252 (0-06-109925-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Family Pictures : A Novel'More editions of Family Pictures : A Novel:
-
Far from the Madding Crowdby Thomas HardyISBN 0060956968 (0-06-095696-8)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Far from the Madding Crowd'Book summary:It's Time To Rediscover
The Wonderful Books
We All Cherish.First published in 1874, Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's first commerically successful novel. Set in the fictional Wessex countryside in the 1840s, it tells the story of the beautiful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene. Forced to choose between three suitors, Bathsheba makes a disastrous decision, which leads to both tragedy and true love.
Far from the Madding Crowd remains one of the most enduring English novels of our time, and one of Hardy's most popular. [via]
More editions of Far from the Madding Crowd:
-
Galatea 2.2by Richard PowersISBN 0060976926 (0-06-097692-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Galatea 2.2'Book summary:After several years abroad, novelist Richard Powers -- the fictional protagonist of the story -- returns to America and accepts the position of Humanist-in-Residence at the enormous and prestigious Center for the Study of Advanced Sciences. There, he meets Philip Lentz, an outspoken neurologist intent on creating a model of the human brain with computer-based neural networks, and together they embark on an outlandishly ambitious project -- to teach the neural net English literature so that it can pass a difficult master's exam.
As their experiment progresses, their brain-child absorbs more and more information, gradually becoming increasingly worldly. Soon, it demands to know its name, sex, race and reason for existing. Meanwhile, this literary crash course sparks in Powers a parallel awakening, and he begins a reconsideration of his chosen profession, his decade-long, failed relationship with a former pupil and his obsession with the master's candidate against whom his cybernetic pupil is slated to compete. [via]
More editions of Galatea 2.2:
-
Galileeby Clive BarkerISBN 0061092002 (0-06-109200-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Galilee'Book summary:Over many years and many books, Clive Barker has earned a reputation as the thinking person's horror writer. His novels have mixed fantasy, psychology, and sheer creepiness in almost equal quantities, and while the gore quotient remains relatively low, the tension always runs high. In Galilee, however, Barker soft-pedals the ghoulish in favor of the gothic. His novel (or as the author would have it, "romance") tells the tale of two warring families caught up in a disastrous web of corruption, illicit sexuality, and star-crossed love, with a soupçon of the supernatural thrown in as well. On one side are the wealthy Gearys--a fictional stand-in for the Kennedys--and on the other are the Barbarossas, a mysterious black clan that has been around since the time (quite literally) of Adam. Galilee chronicles the twisted course of this centuries-old family feud, which centers around the magical Barbarossa matriarch Cesaria and her son Galilee. Indeed, it's the latter figure--one part Heathcliff to one part Christ--whose relationship with the Geary women sets a match to the entire powder keg of hostility and resentment. Mixing standard clichés of romance with his own peculiarly deep-fried version of the Southern gothic, Baker has come up with an intelligent and shamelessly amusing potboiler. [via]
More editions of Galilee:
Gertrude and Aliceby Diana SouhamiISBN 0062509152 (0-06-250915-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Gertrude and Alice'More editions of Gertrude and Alice:
The Gold Bug Variationsby Richard PowersISBN 0060975008 (0-06-097500-8)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Gold Bug Variations'More editions of The Gold Bug Variations:
-
The Great and Secret Showby Clive BarkerISBN 006093316X (0-06-093316-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great and Secret Show'Book summary:In the little town of Palomo Grove, two great armies are amassing; forces shaped from the hearts and souls of America. In this New York Times bestseller, Barker unveils one of the most ambitious imaginative landscapes in modern fiction, creating a new vocabulary for the age-old battle between good and evil. Carrying its readers from the first stirring of consciousness to a vision of the end of the world, The Great and Secret Show is a breathtaking journey in the company of a master storyteller.
[via]More editions of The Great and Secret Show:
-
Ham on Ryeby Charles BukowskiISBN 006117758X (0-06-117758-X)
Softcover, Ecco Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ham on Rye'Book summary:Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, Ham on Rye, is the semi-autobiographical story of the early years of his alter ego Henry Chinaski. It is a finely written and honest account of the painful childhood of a boy marked out from his peers. Regularly beaten by his father, Chinaski is shown growing through his difficult and violent adolescence (struck with the worst case of acne his doctors have ever seen) through to the first jobs he can't and won't hold down. In this moving story of growing up Bukowski disciplines his muscular, concentrated writing and creates a novel that distils his poetry into the finest full-length piece of prose that he ever wrote. Bukowski is often good but in Ham on Rye he's great.
Sadly, best known as the alcoholic inspiration for the film Barfly (an experience he reflected on in his book Hollywood), it is as a poet, rather than a drunk, that Bukowski should be best remembered. His bitter, caustic, direct, humane, damaged poetry reflects a life dominated by poverty and booze. His poetry stretches over many, many volumes but Bukowski also wrote great novels: all of them have many faults but the first four books he wrote shine for similar reasons. Post Office and Factotum both dissect, quite brilliantly, the life of an angry, poor man forced to do mindless jobs, pushed around and considered mindless by the fools who force him to do them. Women, as Roddy Doyle points out in his short introduction, continues the themes but focuses on the numerous women who share his hero's bed and bottle. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of Ham on Rye:
The Hellbound Heartby Clive BarkerISBN 0061002828 (0-06-100282-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hellbound Heart'More editions of The Hellbound Heart:
-
A Jacques Barzun Reader: Selections from His Worksby Jacques Barzun, Michael MurrayISBN 0060935421 (0-06-093542-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Jacques Barzun Reader: Selections from His Works'Book summary:Throughout his career Jacques Barzun, author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist From Dawn to Decadence, has always been known as a witty and graceful essayist, one who combines a depth of knowledge and a rare facility with words.
Now Michael Murray has carefully selected eighty of Barzun's most inventive, accomplished, and insightful essays, and compiled them in one impressive volume. With subjects ranging from history to baseball to crime novels, A Jacques Barzun Reader is a feast for any reader.
[via]More editions of A Jacques Barzun Reader: Selections from His Works:
-
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreamsby Sylvia PlathISBN 0060955295 (0-06-095529-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams'Book summary:"What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.... If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine."
-- Sylvia Plath, from Notebooks, February 1956Renowned for her poetry, Sylvia Plath was also a brilliant writer of prose. This collection of short stories, essays, and diary excerpts highlights her fierce concentration on craft, the vitality of her intelligence, and the yearnings of her imaginaton. Featuring an introduction by Plath's husband, the late British poet Ted Hughes, these writings also reflect themes and images she would fully realize in her poetry. Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams truly showcases the talent and genius of Sylvia Plath.
[via]More editions of Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams:
-
The Known Worldby Edward P. JonesISBN 0061159174 (0-06-115917-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Known World'Book summary:Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. --Regina Marler [via]
More editions of The Known World:
-
Las Cronicas De Narnia: Libro VII (la Ultima Batalla)by C. S. Lewis, Margarita Valdes E., Gemma Gallart, Editorial Andres Bello, Pauline BaynesISBN 0061199001 (0-06-119900-1)
Softcover, Rayo
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Las Cronicas De Narnia: Libro VII (la Ultima Batalla)'Book summary:Viajes al fin del mundo, criaturas fantásticas y batallas épicas entre el bien y el malEl León, la Bruja y el Ropero es un libro que lo contiene todoy fue escrito en 1949 por C. S. Lewis. Sin embargo, Lewis no acabó ahí. Seis libros más siguieron, y juntos se dieron a conocer como Las Crónicas de Narnia.
Durante más de cincuenta años, Las Crónicas de Narnia han transcendido el género de la fantasía, formando parte del canon de la literatura clásica. Cada uno de los siete libros es una obra maestra, que sumerge a los lectores en un terreno donde la magia es realidad, y el resultado es un mundo ficticio cuyo ámbito ha fascinado a generaciones.
Esta edición presenta los siete libros en un volumen impresionante.
[via]More editions of Las Cronicas De Narnia: Libro VII (la Ultima Batalla):
-
Limbo, and Other Places I Have Livedby Lily TuckISBN 0060934859 (0-06-093485-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived'Book summary:In an elegant and penetrating first short-story collection, Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived, Lily Tuck's characters travel to unknown, exotic places and, while there, find themselves deeply immersed in observation -- of the natives, the local customs, the foreign landscape -- in an effort to discern some elemental truth about who they themselves are. Instead, these women meet with disorientation, confusion; they are disappointed by the people closest to them -- lovers, husbands, family members. Finally, they arrive at the sometimes heartbreaking but ultimately optimistic realization that the answers they seek lie not in other people or places but within themselves. Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived is a brilliant collection from a writer of exceptional poise and insight. [via]
More editions of Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived:
-
The Lion, the Witch And the Wardrobeby C. S. Lewis, Pauline BaynesISBN 0061125237 (0-06-112523-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lion, the Witch And the Wardrobe'Book summary:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is now repackaged in a unjacketed paper-over-board edition with black-and-white Pauline Baynes artwork in the interior and the iconic Chris Van Allsburg art on the cover. [via]
More editions of The Lion, the Witch And the Wardrobe:
Little Green Menby Christopher BuckleyISBN 0060955570 (0-06-095557-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Green Men'More editions of Little Green Men:
-
Little, Bigby John CrowleyISBN 0061120057 (0-06-112005-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Little, Big'Book summary:Little, Big tells the epic story of Smoky Barnable -- an anonymous young man who meets and falls in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater, and goes to live with her in Edgewood, a place not found on any map. In an impossible mansion full of her relatives, who all seem to have ties to another world not far away, Smoky fathers a family and tries to learn what tale he has found himself in -- and how it is to end.
[via] 
Love in Veinby Poppy Z. BriteISBN 0061054909 (0-06-105490-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Love in Vein'-
Love Medicineby Louise ErdrichISBN 0060975547 (0-06-097554-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Love Medicine'Book summary:The first book in Louise Erdrich's Native American series, which also includes The Beet Queen, Tracks, and The Bingo Palace, Love Medicine tells the story of two families--the Kashpaws and the Lamartines.Now resequenced by the author with the addition of never-before-published chapters, this is a publishing event equivalent to the presentation of a new and definitive text. Written in Erdrich's uniquely poetic, powerful style, Love Medicine springs to raging life: a multigenerational portrait of new truths and secrets whose time has come, of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable drama of anger, desire, and the healing power that is Love Medicine. Discover the writer whom Philp Roth called "the most interesting new American novelist to have appeared in years" all over again. [via]
More editions of Love Medicine:
-
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Loveby Oscar HijuelosISBN 0060955457 (0-06-095545-7)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love'Book summary:Inspired by their heroes Xavier Cugat and Desi Arnaz, brothers Cesar and Nestor Castillo come to New York City from Cuba in 1949 with designs on becoming mambo stars. Eventually they do--performing with Arnaz on "I Love Lucy" in 1955 and recording 78s with their own band, the Mambo Kings. In his second novel, Hijuelos traces the lives of the flashy, guitar-strumming Cesar and the timid, lovelorn Nestor as they cruise the East Coast club circuit in a flamingo-pink bus. Enriching the story are the brothers' friends and family members--all driven by their own private dreams. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990. [via]
More editions of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love:
The Man in the Ceilingby Jules FeifferISBN 0062059076 (0-06-205907-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man in the Ceiling'More editions of The Man in the Ceiling:
-
Microserfsby Douglas CouplandISBN 0060987049 (0-06-098704-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Microserfs'Book summary:Narrated in the form of a Powerbook entry by Dan Underwood, a computer programmer for Microsoft, this state-of-the-art novel about life in the '90s follows the adventures of six code-crunching computer whizzes. Known as "microserfs," they spend upward of 16 hours a day "coding" (writing software) as they eat "flat" foods (such as Kraft singles, which can be passed underneath closed doors) and fearfully scan the company email to see what the great Bill might be thinking and whether he is going to "flame" one of them.
Seizing the chance to be innovators instead of cogs in the Microsoft machine, this intrepid bunch strike out on their own to form a high-tech start-up company named Oop! in Silicon Valley. Living together in a sort of digital flophouse --"Our House of Wayward Mobility" -- they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world.
Funny, illuminating and ultimately touching, Microserfs is the story of one generation's very strange and claustrophobic coming of age. [via]
More editions of Microserfs:
-
The Monkey Wrench Gangby Edward AbbeyISBN 0060956445 (0-06-095644-5)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Monkey Wrench Gang'Book summary:Ed Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief. The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's concerns about wilderness preservation ("Hell of a place to lose a cow," Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. "Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period"). Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. It's comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert. --Gregory McNamee [via]
More editions of The Monkey Wrench Gang:
-
Narnia Chronology: From the Archives of the Last Kingby C. S. Lewis, Pauline BaynesISBN 0061174262 (0-06-117426-2)
Hardcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Narnia Chronology: From the Archives of the Last King'Book summary:Narnia is the land of enchantment, glory, nobility--home to the magnificent Aslan, cruel Jadis (the White Queen), heroic Reepicheep, and kind Mr. Tumnus. All the magic of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, bewitching readers for almost 50 years, is captured for the first time in this splendid deluxe edition, including The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle, with fabulous illustrations hand-colored by the original Narnia artist Pauline Baynes and an insightful introduction by Narnia authority Brian Sibley.
Lewis's work has cast a spell over countless readers over the years, so that once we pick up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we don't want to stop until we've read the whole series. The Complete Chronicles makes it even easier to keep reading! The seven beloved stories have been arranged in the chronological order in which Lewis intended them to be read. Begin at the beginning, as Digory and Polly are tricked into a strange other world, which becomes, even as they watch, the great Narnia. Return again and again with four other children--Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy--who are to play such a vital role in Narnia's history. Finally, enter the whimsical land one last time to witness the end of Time, and the beginning of something new: "world within world, Narnia within Narnia." This gorgeous volume is absolutely a must-have for current and future Narnia lovers. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]
More editions of Narnia Chronology: From the Archives of the Last King:
-
Odysseyby Homer, Joanne Mattern, Sheila BlackISBN 0061064130 (0-06-106413-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Odyssey'Book summary:By its evocation of a real or imaged heroic age, its contrasts of character and its variety of adventure, above all by its sheer narrative power, the Odyssey has won and preserved its place among the greatest tales in the world. It tells of Odysseus' adventurous wanderings as he returns from the long war at Troy to his home in the Greek island of Ithaca, where his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus have been waiting for him for twenty years. He meets a one-eyed giant, Polyphemus the Cyclops; he visits the underworld; he faces the terrible monsters Scylla and Charybdis; he extricates himself from the charms of Circe and Calypso. After these and numerous other legendary encounters he finally reaches home, where, disguised as a beggar, he begins to plan revenge on the suitors who have for years been besieging Penelope and feasting on his own meat and wine with insolent impunity. [via]
More editions of Odyssey:
-
The Old Devilsby Kingsley AmisISBN 0060971460 (0-06-097146-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Old Devils'Book summary:Malcolm Peter and Charlie and their Soave-sodden wives have one main ambition left in life: to drink Wales dry. But their routine is both shaken and stirred when they are joined by professional Welshman Alun Weaver (CBE) and his wife Rhiannon. [via]
More editions of The Old Devils:
-
The Old Gringoby Carlos FuentesISBN 0060970634 (0-06-097063-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Old Gringo'Book summary:"The fate of journalist Ambrose Bierce has intrigued literate Americans since 1914 when he vanished in Mexico. Now Carlos Fuentes has spun an opalescent novel around the mystery."Evan S. Connell, Los Angeles Times [via]
More editions of The Old Gringo:
-
One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulknerby Jay PariniISBN 0060935553 (0-06-093555-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner'Book summary:William Faulkner was a literary genius, and one of America's most important and influential writers. Drawing on previously unavailable sources -- including letters, memoirs, and interviews with Faulkner's daughter and lovers -- Jay Parini has crafted a biography that delves into the mystery of this gifted and troubled writer. His Faulkner is an extremely talented, obsessive artist plagued by alcoholism and a bad marriage who somehow transcends his limitations. Parini weaves the tragedies and triumphs of Faulkner's life in with his novels, serving up a biography that's as engaging as it is insightful. [via]
More editions of One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner:
The Orange Treeby Carlos Fuentes, Alfred MacAdamISBN 0060976527 (0-06-097652-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Orange Tree'More editions of The Orange Tree:
-
Pilgrim at Tinker Creekby Annie DillardISBN 0060953020 (0-06-095302-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'Book summary:"...a personal narrative. It highlights one year's explorations on foot in the author's own neighborhood..." [via]
More editions of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
-
Polaroids from the Deadby Douglas CouplandISBN 0060987219 (0-06-098721-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Polaroids from the Dead'Book summary:Douglas Coupland takes his sparkling literary talent in a new direction with this crackling collection of takes on life and death in North America -- from his sweeping portrait of Grateful Dead culture to the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe and the middle class.
For years, Coupland's razor-sharp insights into what it means to be human in an age of technology have garnered the highest praise from fans and critics alike. At last, Coupland has assembled a wide variety of stories and personal "postcards" about pivotal people and places that have defined our modern lives. Polaroids from the Dead is a skillful combination of stories, fact and fiction -- keen outtakes on life in the late 20th century, exploring the recent past and a society obsessed with celebrity, crime and death. Princess Diana, Nicole Brown Simpson and Madonna are but some of the people scrutinized.
[via]More editions of Polaroids from the Dead:
The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuqueby Jeffrey FordISBN 0060936177 (0-06-093617-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque'More editions of The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque:
-
The Professor and the Madmanby Simon WinchesterISBN 0061030228 (0-06-103022-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Professor and the Madman'More editions of The Professor and the Madman:
-
Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionaryby Simon WinchesterISBN 006099486X (0-06-099486-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary'Book summary:The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
More editions of Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary:
-
Profiles in Courageby John F. KennedyISBN 0061205680 (0-06-120568-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Profiles in Courage'Book summary:"This is a book about the most admirable of human virtues--courage. 'Grace under pressure,' Ernest Hemingway defined it. And these are the stories of the pressures experienced by eight United States Senators and the grace with which they endured them."
-- John F. KennedyDuring 1954-55, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, chose eight of his historical coleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benson, and Robert A. Taft.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1956, Profiles in Courage resounds with timeless lessons on themost cherished of virtues and is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit. It is, as Robert Kennedy states in the foreword, "not just stories of the past but a book of hope and confidence for the future. What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us.
[via]More editions of Profiles in Courage:
-
The Reptile Roomby Lemony Snicket, Brett HelquistISBN 0061146315 (0-06-114631-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Reptile Room'Book summary:The Reptile Room begins where Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning ends... on the road with the three orphaned Baudelaire children as they are whisked away from the evil Count Olaf to face "an unknown fate with some unknown relative." But who is this Dr. Montgomery, their late father's cousin's wife's brother? "Would Dr. Montgomery be a kind person? they wondered. Would he at least be better than Count Olaf? Could he possibly be worse?" He certainly is not worse, and in fact when the Baudelaire children discover that he makes coconut cream cakes, circles the globe looking for snakes to study, and even plans to take them with him on his scientific expedition to Peru, the kids can't believe their luck. And, if you have read the first book in this Series of Unfortunate Events, you won't believe their luck either. Despite the misadventures that befall these interesting, intelligent, resourceful orphans, you can trust that the engaging narrator will make their story--suspenseful and alarming as it is--a true delight. The Wide Window is next, and more are on their way. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
More editions of The Reptile Room:
-
The Runaway Soulby Harold BrodkeyISBN 0060975040 (0-06-097504-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Runaway Soul'Book summary:Acclaimed New Yorker writer Brodkey set the literary world ablaze with this much-talked-about debut novel--a literary tour de force about an adopted child in the early 1930s who is raised in the St. Louis household of his cousins. "Impressive. . . . The work of a lifetime. . . . As haunted by love, death, and madness as The Oresteia".--Washington Post Book World. [via]
More editions of The Runaway Soul:
-
Sacred Gamesby Vikram ChandraISBN 0061130354 (0-06-113035-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sacred Games'Book summary:Sacred Games is a novel as big, ambitious, multi-layered, contradictory, funny, sad, scary, violent, tender, complex, and irresistible as India itself. Steep yourself in this story, enjoy the delicious masala Chandra has created, and you will have an idea of how the country manages to hang together despite age-old hatreds, hundreds of dialects, different religious practices, the caste system, and corruption everywhere. The Game keeps it afloat.
There are more than a half-dozen subplots to be enjoyed, but the main events take place between Inspector Sartaj Singh, a Sikh member of the Mumbai police force, and Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. It is no accident that Ganesh is named for the Hindu god of success, the elephant god much revered by Hindus everywhere. By the world's standards he has made a huge success of his life: he has everything he wants. But soon after the novel begins he is holed up in a bomb shelter from which there is no escape, and Sartaj is right outside the door. Ganesh and Sartaj trade barbs, discuss the meaning of good and evil, hold desultory conversations alternating with heated exchanges, and, finally, Singh bulldozes the building to the ground. He finds Ganesh dead of a gunshot wound, and an unknown woman dead in the bunker along with him.
How did it come to this? Of course, Singh has wanted to capture this prize for years, but why now and why in this way? The chapters that follow tell both their stories, but especially chronicle Gaitonde's rise to power. He is a clever devil, to be sure, and his tales are as captivating as those of Scheherezade. Like her he spins them out one by one and often saves part of the story for the reader--or Sartaj--to figure out. He is involved in every racket in India, corrupt to the core, but even he is afraid of Swami Shridlar Shukla, his Hindu guru and adviser. In the story Gaitonde shares with Singh and countless other characters, Vikram Chandra has written a fabulous tale of treachery, a thriller, and a tour of the mean streets of India, complete with street slang. --Valerie Ryan
Questions for Vikram Chandra
After writing his first two, critically acclaimed books, Red Earth and Pouring Rain and Love and Longing in Bombay, Vikram Chandra set off on what became, seven years later, an epic story of crime and punishment in modern Mumbai, Sacred Games. Chandra splits his time between Berkeley, where he teaches at the University of California, and Mumbai, the vast city that becomes a character in its own right in Sacred Games. We asked him a few questions about his new book. Amazon.com: Did you imagine your book would become such an epic when you began it?
Vikram Chandra: No, not at all. When I began, I imagined a conventional crime story which began with a dead body or two, proceeded along a linear path, and ended 300 pages later with a neatly-wrapped solution. But when I began to actually investigate the particular kind of crime that I was interested in, a series of connections revealed themselves. Organized crime is of course connected to politics, both local and national, but if you're interested in political activity in India today--and elsewhere in the world--you are of course going to have to address the role of religion. These realms, in turn, intersect with the workings of the film and television industries. And all of this exists within the context of the "Great Game," the struggle between nation-states for power and dominance; some of the criminal organizations have mutually-beneficial relationships with intelligence agencies. So, I became really interested in this mesh of interlocking lives and organizations and historical forces. I began to trace how ordinary people were thrown about and forced to make choices by events and actors very far away; how disparate lives can cross each other--sometimes unknowingly--and change profoundly as a result. The form of the novel grew from this thematic interest, in an attempt to form a representation of this intricate web. The reader will, I hope, by the end of the novel see how the connections fall together and weave through each other. The individual characters, of course, see only a fragmented, partial version of this whole.
Amazon.com: You interviewed many gangsters, high and low, to research your story. How did you get introductions to them? What did they think of someone writing their life?
Chandra: When I was writing my last book, Love and Longing in Bombay (in which Sartaj Singh first appears), I had contacted some police officers and crime journalists. I stayed in touch with a few of them, and when I began to think seriously about this project I asked them to introduce me to anyone who could tell me something about organized crime. Amongst the people I met in this way were some people from the "underworld," which turns out not to be an underworld at all. It's the same world we live in, inhabited by human beings who are very much like the rest of us, even in their distinctiveness. For the most part, they were as curious about me and what I was doing as I was about them. They're not big novel readers, but they had very certain opinions about representations of their lives they had seen on the big screen: "Such-and-such film got it all wrong"--they would tell me--"don't do that." And, "This was correct, that was not." So I listened, and I hope I got it mostly right.
Amazon.com: For most American readers--like me--your story is full of slang and cultural references that we can't hope to follow. For me that's part of the charm--I feel like I'm immersed in a world I don't fully understand. Were you thinking of a particular audience as you wrote?
Chandra: I wanted to use the English that we actually speak in India, the language that I would use to tell this story if I were sitting in a bar in Mumbai talking to a friend. This English would be sprinkled with words from many Indian languages, and we would share a universe of cultural referents and facts that a reader from another country wouldn't recognize instantly. This, of course, is an experience that all of us have in a very various world. I remember reading British children's stories as a kid, and having long discussions with friends about what "crumpets" and "clotted cream" could possibly be. An Indian reader reading a novel about Arizona by an American writer might have no idea what a "pueblo" was, or why you went to a "Circle-K" to get a bottle of milk. But the context tells you something about what is being referred to, and there is a distinct delight in discovering a new world and figuring out its nuances. This is one of the great gifts of reading, that it can transport you into foreign landscapes. It's one of the reasons I read books from other cultures and places, and I hope American readers will share in this pleasure.
Amazon.com: Your book has dozens of characters who could live in books of their own. Aside from your two main figures, the policeman Sartaj Singh and the criminal Ganesh Gaitone, which was your favorite character to write?
Chandra: That would have to be Sartaj's mother, Prabhjot Kaur, as a young girl in pre-Partition India, I think. She's curious, innocent, and passionate; writing that chapter was hard and exhilarating.
Amazon.com: The movies of Bollywood (and Hollywood) are everywhere in your story, and many in your family (and you yourself) have been screenwriters and directors. For someone new to Indian film, what are some of your favorites you'd recommend?
Chandra: A very small sampling from the '50s onwards might be: Pyaasa (Thirst, 1957); Kaagaz ke Phool ("Paper Flowers," 1959); Mughal-e-Azam ("The Great Mughal," 1960); Sholay ("Embers," 1975); Parinda ("Bird," 1989); Satya (1998); Lagaan ("Land Tax," 2001); Lage Raho Munnabha ("Keep at it, Munnabhai," 2006).
[via]More editions of Sacred Games:
Searching for Intrudersby Stephen Raleigh BylerISBN 0060937505 (0-06-093750-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Searching for Intruders'More editions of Searching for Intruders:
Selected Poems 1947-1995by Allen GinsbergISBN 0060933763 (0-06-093376-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Poems 1947-1995'More editions of Selected Poems 1947-1995:
Sleeping With Cats: A Memoirby Marge PiercyISBN 0060936045 (0-06-093604-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sleeping With Cats: A Memoir'More editions of Sleeping With Cats: A Memoir:
Soul Mountainby Mabel Lee, Xingjian GaoISBN 0060936231 (0-06-093623-1)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Soul Mountain'More editions of Soul Mountain:
Sounderby William ArmstrongISBN 0060935480 (0-06-093548-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sounder'More editions of Sounder:
-
Stardustby Neil GaimanISBN 0060934719 (0-06-093471-9)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Stardust'Book summary:De Féerie, le pays magique, les habitants du petit village de Wall savent peu de choses. Il faut dire qu'un grand mur les en séparent. Un mur dans lequel est ouvert une brèche, une brèche bien gardée, par laquelle ils n'ont droit de passer qu'une fois l'an, le jour de la grande foire de Wall. C'est ce jour-là, justement, que le jeune Tristram Thorn, décidé à conquérir le cSur de sa belle, part pour le pays de fée afin de lui ramener une étoile filante. Mais dans un pays magique, rien n'est comme ailleurs. Les distances sont immenses, on y croise nains et licornes, des chasseurs d'éclairs naviguent sur des bateaux volants et l'on est jamais à l'abri d'un mauvais sort qui pourra vous transformer en arbre, en chèvre ou en rat. Un monde plein de dangers et de merveilles que Tristram est loin d'imaginer, comme il est loin d'imaginer que son étoile filante est une belle et pure jeune fille, dont la présence ici-bas va éveiller la concupiscence des sept seigneurs de Sromhold comme de quelques vilaines sorcières...
Neil Gaiman est aussi à l'aise dans la BD (Sandman), que dans le roman (Neverwhere). Un talent inépuisable qu'il confirme une fois de plus ici en revisitant avec bonheur l'univers des contes de fées. À la fois drôle, merveilleux et volontairement naïf, Stardust est une réussite. --Georges Louhans [via]
-
Staring at the Sunby J. BarnesISBN 0060971487 (0-06-097148-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Staring at the Sun'Book summary:From the Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 Staring at the Sun charts the life of Jean Serjeant, from her beginning as a naive, carefree country girl before the war through to her wry and trenchant old age in the year 2020. We follow her bruising experience in marriage, her probing of male truths, her adventures in motherhood and in China and we cannot fail to be moved by the questions she asks of life and the often unsatisfactory answers it provides. [via]
More editions of Staring at the Sun:
A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fictionby Ron HansenISBN 0060956682 (0-06-095668-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction'More editions of A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction:
Stuck Rubber Babyby Howard CruseISBN 0060977132 (0-06-097713-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Stuck Rubber Baby'More editions of Stuck Rubber Baby:
-
Taming the Beastby Emily MaguireISBN 0061122165 (0-06-112216-5)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Taming the Beast'Book summary:At the tender age of fourteen, Sarah Clark is seduced by her thirty-eight-year-old English teacher, Daniel Carr, and becomes entangled in an illegal, erotic, passionate, and dangerous affair—a vicious meeting of minds and bodies that ends badly. Devastated by grief and longing, Sarah embarks upon a series of meaningless self-abasing sexual encounters, hoping to reclaim the intensity of that first relationship. Then, seven years later, Carr unexpectedly returns and Sarah is drawn again into a destructive coupling. Now that she is no longer an innocent young girl, is she strong enough to finally tame the beast within her?
A modern Lolita, Taming the Beast is an emotionally unflinching and alluring tale that introduces a powerful new writer.
[via]More editions of Taming the Beast:
The Tattooed Girlby Joyce Carol OatesISBN 0061136042 (0-06-113604-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tattooed Girl'More editions of The Tattooed Girl:
This Boy's Lifeby Tobias WolffISBN 0060972777 (0-06-097277-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'This Boy's Life'More editions of This Boy's Life:
Three Farmers on Their Way to a Danceby Richard PowersISBN 0060975091 (0-06-097509-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance'More editions of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance:
-
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith, Anna QuindlenISBN 0061120073 (0-06-112007-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'Book summary:Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old. (Ages 10 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]
More editions of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:
The Tunnelby William H. GassISBN 0060976861 (0-06-097686-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tunnel'More editions of The Tunnel:
-
Up Above the Worldby Paul BowlesISBN 0061137359 (0-06-113735-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Up Above the World'Book summary:On the terrace of an elaborate hilltop apartment overlooking a Central American capital, four people sit making polite conversation. The American couple -- an elderly physician and his young wife -- are tourists. Their host, whom they have just met, is a young man of striking good looks and charm. The girl, his mistress, is very young and very beautiful. Sitting there, watching the sunset, the Slades seem to be enjoying the sort of fortunate chance encounter that travelers cherish. But amid the civilities and small talk, the host's casual remark to the American woman proves prophetic: "It's not exactly what you think."
Masterfully -- with the poetic control that has always characterized his work -- Paul Bowles leads the reader beneath the surface of hospitality and luxury into a tortuous maze of human relationships and shifting moods, until what seems at first a merely casual encounter is seen to be one rooted in viciousness and horror.
[via]More editions of Up Above the World:
-
Waldenby Henry David ThoreauISBN 0060955724 (0-06-095572-4)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden'Book summary:In 1845 Thoreau leased some land owned by his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson on Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, and lived in a cabin on it for two years, two months, and two days. The experience gave Thoreau the chance to make keen observations on the world around him. The result became an American classic: Walden explores not only the soul of the searching Thoreau, but defines what it means to be a truly free person, and distills the essence of our relationship of Nature.
[via]More editions of Walden:
Walkingby Henry David ThoreauISBN 0062511130 (0-06-251113-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walking'More editions of Walking:
Watch Your Mouthby Daniel HandlerISBN 006093817X (0-06-093817-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Watch Your Mouth'More editions of Watch Your Mouth:
-
Watership Downby Richard George AdamsISBN 0060935456 (0-06-093545-6)
Softcover, Perennial
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Watership Down'Book summary:Watership Down has been a staple of high-school English classes for years. Despite the fact that it's often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldn't cringe at the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adams's bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogs between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they won't "get" it, into reading it), but it's equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure.
The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul Hughes [via]
More editions of Watership Down:
The World of Louisa May Alcottby William Anderson, David WadeISBN 0060951567 (0-06-095156-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The World of Louisa May Alcott'More editions of The World of Louisa May Alcott:
-
You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories That Held Them in Aweby Ron Hansen, Jim ShepardISBN 0060982020 (0-06-098202-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories That Held Them in Awe'Book summary:Thirty-four of America's most distinguished fiction writers--including Oscar Hijuelos, John Irving, and Joyce Carol Oates--introduce the short stories that inspired them most. [via]
More editions of You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories That Held Them in Awe:
-
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Valuesby Robert M. PirsigISBN 0060958324 (0-06-095832-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values'Book summary:In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.
Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.
In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya [via]
More editions of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values:
The Zeroby Jess WalterISBN 0061242608 (0-06-124260-8)
Softcover, Harperluxe
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Zero'More editions of The Zero:
Spanish
Los Reyes Del Mambo Tocan Canciones De Amorby Oscar HijuelosISBN 0060952148 (0-06-095214-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Los Reyes Del Mambo Tocan Canciones De Amor'More editions of Los Reyes Del Mambo Tocan Canciones De Amor:
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}