books tagged “modernism”

The Ambassadors
by Henry James, S. P. Rosenbaum

ISBN 0393963144 (0-393-96314-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
The Ambassadors, which Henry James considered his best work, is the most exquisite refinement of his favorite theme: the collision of American innocence with European experience. This time, James recounts the continental journey of Louis Lambert Strether--a fiftysomething man of the world who has been dispatched abroad by a rich widow, Mrs. Newsome. His mission: to save her son Chadwick from the clutches of a wicked (i.e., European) woman, and to convince the prodigal to return to Woollett, Massachusetts. Instead, this all-American envoy finds Europe growing on him. Strether also becomes involved in a very Jamesian "relation" with the fascinating Miss Maria Gostrey, a fellow American and informal Sacajawea to her compatriots. Clearly Paris has "improved" Chad beyond recognition, and convincing him to return to the U.S. is going to be a very, very hard sell. Suspense, of course, is hardly James's stock-in-trade. But there is no more meticulous mapper of tone and atmosphere, nuance and implication. His hyper-refined characters are at their best in dialogue, particularly when they're exchanging morsels of gossip. Astute, funny, and relentlessly intelligent, James amply fulfills his own description of the novelist as a person upon whom nothing is lost. --Rhian Ellis [via]
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Animal Farm
by George Orwell

ISBN 0451525361 (0-451-52536-1)
Softcover, Signet

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Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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Animal Farm
by Naura Hayden

ISBN 0582530083 (0-582-53008-3)
Softcover, Longman Group United Kingdom

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Book summary:
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
More editions of Animal Farm:
- Animal Farm: ISBN 0582530083 (0-582-53008-3)
  Softcover, Longman Group United Kingdom
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Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas
by Charles Harrison, Paul Wood

ISBN 0631165754 (0-631-16575-4)
Softcover, Blackwell Pub

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Book summary:
Current debates about the status of Modernism have led to an increasing interest in critical and aesthetic theories, and to a questioning of some of the traditional assumptions and limits of art history. The aim of this substantial anthology is to equip the student, teacher and interested general reader with the necessary materials for an up-to-date understanding of twentieth-century art.
Beside the writings of the century's major artists, Art in Theory includes relevant texts by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures. It is organised into eight sections, from the legacy of Symbolism at the turn of the century to contemporary debates about the Postmodern. Each section is prefaced by a brief essay. There are introductions for all of the 300-plus texts, which serve to place theories and critical approaches in context. The result is both a comprehensive collection of documents on twentieth-century art and an encylopaedic history of relevant theory. [via]
More editions of Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas:
- Art in Theory: 1990-1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas: ISBN 0631165746 (0-631-16574-6)
  Hardcover, Blackwell Pub
- Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas: ISBN 0631165754 (0-631-16575-4)
  Softcover, Blackwell Pub
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Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley

ISBN 0582530334 (0-582-53033-4)
Softcover, Longman Pub Group

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Book summary:
"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. [via]
More editions of Brave New World:
- Brave New World: ISBN 0606001662 (0-606-00166-2)
  Hardcover, Demco Media
- Brave New World: ISBN 0582530334 (0-582-53033-4)
  Softcover, Longman Pub Group
The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce
by Derek Attridge

ISBN 0521545536 (0-521-54553-6)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

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Cannery Row
by John Steinbeck

ISBN 0553278231 (0-553-27823-1)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
Unburdened by the material necessities of the more fortunate, the denizens of Cannery Row discover rewards unknown in more traditional society. Henry the painter sorts through junk lots for pieces of wood to incorporate into the boat he is building, while the girls from Dora Floods bordello venture out now and then to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Lee Chong stocks his grocery with almost anything a man could want, and Doc, a young marine biologist who ministers to sick puppies and unhappy souls, unexpectedly finds true love. Cannery Row is just a few blocks long, but the story it harbors is suffused with warmth, understanding, and a great fund of human values.
First published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it isboth the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. John Steinbeck draws on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, and interweaves their stories in this world where only the fittest survivecreating what is at once one of his most humorous and poignant works. In Cannery Row, John Steinbeck returns to the setting of Tortilla Flat to create another evocative portrait of life as it is lived by those who unabashedly put the highest value on the intangibleshuman warmth, camaraderie, and love.
[via]
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The Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger

ISBN 0553149660 (0-553-14966-0)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. [via]
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The Catcher in the Rye
by Not Available

ISBN 055311722X (0-553-11722-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. [via]
More editions of The Catcher in the Rye:
- The Catcher in the Rye: ISBN 055311722X (0-553-11722-X)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
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The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning
by Le Corbusier

ISBN 0486253325 (0-486-25332-5)
Softcover, Dover Pubns

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Book summary:
The great revolutionary architect's probing analysis of urban problems and their origins, and his bold solutions, which include the "Voisin" scheme for the center of Paris, and the more developed scheme for a "City of Three Million Inhabitants." Introduction. Foreword. 133 black-and-white illustrations. 82 black-and-white halftones.
[via]
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- The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning: ISBN 0486253325 (0-486-25332-5)
  Softcover, Dover Pubns
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A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers
by Hugh Kenner

ISBN 0394422252 (0-394-42225-2)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Book summary:
Nonfiction: literary criticism. Hugh Kenner's theme is the Irish Literary Revival, that seizure of the English language by writers whose relation to it was oddly uncomfortable, even alien -- and their creation of a new idiom that would dominate and define International Modernism. His technique is anecdote and example. In his hands, biography jostles with critical insight, social history erupts into choice quotation, "facts" reveal themselves to be invention. [via]
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- A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers: ISBN 0394422252 (0-394-42225-2)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Collected Fictions
by Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley

ISBN 0670849707 (0-670-84970-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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Book summary:
Although Jorge Luis Borges published his first book in 1923--doling out his own money for a limited edition of Fervor de Buenos Aires--he remained in Argentinian obscurity for almost three decades. In 1951, however, Ficciones appeared in French, followed soon after by an English translation. This collection, which included the cream of the author's short fictions, made it clear that Borges was a world-class (if highly unclassifiable) artist--a brilliant, lyrical miniaturist, who could pose the great questions of existence on the head of pin. And by 1961, when he shared the French Prix Formentor with Samuel Beckett, he seemed suddenly to tower over a half-dozen literary cultures, the very exemplar of modernism with a human face.
By the time of his death in 1986, Borges had been granted old master status by almost everybody (except, alas, the gentlemen of the Swedish Academy). Yet his work remained dispersed among a half-dozen different collections, some of them increasingly hard to find. Andrew Hurley has done readers a great service, then, by collecting all the stories in a single, meticulously translated volume. It's a pleasure to be reminded that Borges's style--poetic, dreamlike, and compounded of innumerable small surprises--was already in place by 1935, when he published A Universal History of Iniquity: "The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it." (Incidentally, the thrifty author later recycled the second of these aphorisms in his classic bit of bookish metaphysics, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teris.") The glories of his middle period, of course, have hardly aged a day. "The Garden of the Forking Paths" remains the best deconstruction of the detective story ever written, even in the post-Auster era, and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" puts the so-called death of the author in pointed, hilarious perspective.
But Hurley's omnibus also brings home exactly how consistent Borges remained in his concerns. As late as 1975, in "Avelino Arredondo," he was still asking (and occasionally even answering) the same riddles about time and its human repository, memory: "For the man in prison, or the blind man, time flows downstream as though down a slight decline. As he reached the midpoint of his reclusion, Arredondo more than once achieved that virtually timeless time. In the first patio there was a wellhead, and at the bottom, a cistern where a toad lived; it never occurred to Arredondo that it was the toad's time, bordering on eternity, that he sought." Throughout, Hurley's translation is crisp and assured (although this reader will always have a soft spot for "Funes, the Memorious" rather than "Funes, His Memory.") And thanks to his efforts, Borgesians will find no better--and no more pleasurable--rebuttal of the author's description of himself as "a shy sort of man who could not bring himself to write short stories." --James Marcus [via]
More editions of Collected Fictions:
- Collected Fictions: ISBN 0670849707 (0-670-84970-7)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Collected Poems, 1934-1953
by Walford Davies, Dylan Thomas, Ralph Maud

ISBN 0460047477 (0-460-04747-7)
Hardcover, J.M. Dent

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- Collected Poems, 1934-1953: ISBN 0460047477 (0-460-04747-7)
  Hardcover, J.M. Dent
Collected Shorter Plays
by Samuel Beckett

ISBN 0394620984 (0-394-62098-4)
Softcover, Grove Press

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- Collected Shorter Plays: ISBN 0394620984 (0-394-62098-4)
  Softcover, Grove Press
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The Complete Dramatic Works
by Samuel Beckett

ISBN 0571144861 (0-571-14486-1)
Softcover, Faber & Faber Ltd

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Book summary:
A volume containing the English texts of all the plays of Samuel Beckett, including "Waiting For Godot", "Krapp's Last Tape", "Endgame" and "Not I". [via]
More editions of The Complete Dramatic Works:
- The Complete Dramatic Works: ISBN 0571138217 (0-571-13821-7)
  Hardcover, Faber and Faber
- The Complete Dramatic Works: ISBN 0571144861 (0-571-14486-1)
  Softcover, Faber & Faber Ltd
A Concise History of Modern Painting
by Caroline Tisdall, William Feaver, Herbert Edward Read

ISBN 0500181470 (0-500-18147-0)
Hardcover, Thames & Hudson

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- A Concise History of Modern Painting: ISBN 0500181470 (0-500-18147-0)
  Hardcover, Thames & Hudson
Concise History of Modern Painting
by Herbert E. Read, Benedict Read

ISBN 0500201412 (0-500-20141-2)
Softcover, Thames & Hudson

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- Concise History of Modern Painting: ISBN 0500201412 (0-500-20141-2)
  Softcover, Thames & Hudson
The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change
by David Harvey

ISBN 0631162941 (0-631-16294-1)
Softcover, Blackwell Pub

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Book summary:
The Condition of Postmodernity is David Harvey's seminal history of this, our most equivocal of eras. What does postmodernism mean? Where did it come from? Harvey, a Professor of Geography, and a key mover behind extending the scope and influence of the discipline of geography itself, does a thorough job here delineating the passage through to postmodernity and the economic, social and political changes that underscored and accompanied it. As he clearly states, the rise in postmodernist cultural forms is related to a new intensity in what Harvey terms "time-space compression" but this new intensity is a qualitive and not a quantitive change in social organisation and does not point to a era beyond capitalism as "the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation" remain unchanged. Unlike Fredric Jameson (whose equally rewarding Postmodernism stands as the twin pillar to Harvey's critique), who explicitly relies on Ernest Mandel's periodisation of Late Capitalism, Harvey eschews a narrowly economic focus, the limits and contradictions of production that have led to the rise in the service sector, and takes a more multidisciplinary approach to his history: as comfortable discussing Manet as he is labour markets. Harvey is an excellent writer and The Condition of Postmodernity is an exceptionally informative and enjoyable read. Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change:
- The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change: ISBN 0631162925 (0-631-16292-5)
  Softcover, Blackwell Pub
- The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change: ISBN 0631162941 (0-631-16294-1)
  Softcover, Blackwell Pub
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Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann, Clayton Koelb

ISBN 0393960137 (0-393-96013-7)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Celebrated novella of a middle-aged German writer's tormented passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, and its tragic consequences. Powerful evocation of the mysterious forces of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, and the isolation of the artist in 20th-century life. New translation and extensive commentary.
[via]
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Der Tod in Venedig
by Thomas Mann, A. W. Hornsey

ISBN 0435385801 (0-435-38580-1)
Hardcover, Heinemann Educational

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- Der Tod in Venedig: ISBN 0435385801 (0-435-38580-1)
  Hardcover, Heinemann Educational
The Ern Malley Affair
by Michael Heyward

ISBN 0571167810 (0-571-16781-0)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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- The Ern Malley Affair: ISBN 0571167810 (0-571-16781-0)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol
by W. Kirk MacNutly

ISBN 0500810370 (0-500-81037-0)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
About the Art & Imagination Series: Explore a range of interests, philosophies, religions, and culturesfrom Kabbalah to Freemasonry, Buddhism to Hinduism, myth to magic. The distinguished authors bring a wealth of knowledge, visionary thinking, and accessible writing to each intriguing subject in these lavishly illustrated, large-format paperback books. [via]
More editions of Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol:
- Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol: ISBN 0500810370 (0-500-81037-0)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
by James George Frazer

ISBN 0486424928 (0-486-42492-8)
Softcover, Dover Pubns

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Book summary:
An expert in myth and religion, the author spent over a quarter-century assembling this study of the cults, rites, and myths of antiquity. Frazer's definitions of "magic," "religion," and "science" were useful to his successors in social anthropology, and his explications of ancient legends influenced generations of writers and poets.
[via]
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- The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion: ISBN 0486424928 (0-486-42492-8)
  Softcover, Dover Pubns
Hamlet: A Novel of the Snopes Family
by William Faulkner

ISBN 0606252975 (0-606-25297-5)
Hardcover, Demco Media

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- Hamlet: A Novel of the Snopes Family: ISBN 0606252975 (0-606-25297-5)
  Hardcover, Demco Media
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Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer
by Joseph Conrad

ISBN 0451526570 (0-451-52657-0)
Softcover, New Amer Library Classics

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Book summary:
Heart Of Darkness. The story of the civilized, enlightened Mr. Kurtz who embarks on a harrowing "night journey" into the savage heart of Africa, only to find his dark and evil soul. The Secret Sharer. The saga of a young, inexperienced skipper forced to decide the fate of a fugitive sailor who killed a man in self-defense. As he faces his first moral test the skipper discovers a terrifying truth -- and comes face to face with the secret itself. Heart Of Darkness and The Secret Sharer draw on actual events and people that Conrad met or heard about during his many far-flung travels. In portraying men whose incredible journeys on land and at sea are also symbolic voyages into their own mysterious depths, these two masterful works give credence to Conrad's acclaim as a major psychological writer. [via]
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In Parenthesis
by D. Jones

ISBN 057105661X (0-571-05661-X)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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- In Parenthesis: ISBN 057105661X (0-571-05661-X)
  Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
The International Style
by Henry Russell Hitchcock, Philip Johnson

ISBN 0393315185 (0-393-31518-5)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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More editions of The International Style:
- The International Style: ISBN 0393036510 (0-393-03651-0)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- The International Style: ISBN 0393315185 (0-393-31518-5)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison

ISBN 0451038142 (0-451-03814-2)
Softcover, New Amer Library

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We rely, in this world, on the visual aspects of humanity as a means of learning who we are. This, Ralph Ellison argues convincingly, is a dangerous habit. A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists in a very peculiar state. "I am an invisible man," he says in his prologue. "When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me." But this is hard-won self-knowledge, earned over the course of many years.
As the book gets started, the narrator is expelled from his Southern Negro college for inadvertently showing a white trustee the reality of black life in the south, including an incestuous farmer and a rural whorehouse. The college director chastises him: "Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of an education are you getting around here?" Mystified, the narrator moves north to New York City, where the truth, at least as he perceives it, is dealt another blow when he learns that his former headmaster's recommendation letters are, in fact, letters of condemnation.
What ensues is a search for what truth actually is, which proves to be supremely elusive. The narrator becomes a spokesman for a mixed-race band of social activists called "The Brotherhood" and believes he is fighting for equality. Once again, he realizes he's been duped into believing what he thought was the truth, when in fact it is only another variation. Of the Brothers, he eventually discerns: "They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves.... Here I thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men."
Invisible Man is certainly a book about race in America, and sadly enough, few of the problems it chronicles have disappeared even now. But Ellison's first novel transcends such a narrow definition. It's also a book about the human race stumbling down the path to identity, challenged and successful to varying degrees. None of us can ever be sure of the truth beyond ourselves, and possibly not even there. The world is a tricky place, and no one knows this better than the invisible man, who leaves us with these chilling, provocative words: "And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" --Melanie Rehak [via]
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J.D. Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger

ISBN 0671006916 (0-671-00691-6)
Softcover, Monarch Notes

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- J.D. Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye: ISBN 0671006916 (0-671-00691-6)
  Softcover, Monarch Notes
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Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day Of The Locust
by Nathanael West

ISBN 061399762X (0-613-99762-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Two short novels, one set in New York and the other in Hollywood, dramatically depict the extremes of the human condition and the destructive forces pervading modern American life. [via]
More editions of Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day Of The Locust:
- Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day Of The Locust: ISBN 061399762X (0-613-99762-X)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
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Modern Architecture: A Critical History
by Kenneth Frampton

ISBN 0500202575 (0-500-20257-5)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
"One of the most important works on modern architecture we have today."Architectural Design
This acclaimed survey of modern architecture and its origins has become a classic since it first appeared in 1980. For the fourth edition Kenneth Frampton has added a major new section that explores the effects of globalization on architecture in recent years and examines the phenomenon of international celebrity architects who are increasingly active all over the world. The bibliography has been updated and expanded, making this volume more complete and indispensable than ever. 420 illustrations [via]
More editions of Modern Architecture: A Critical History:
- Modern Architecture: A Critical History: ISBN 050020201X (0-500-20201-X)
  Softcover, Thames and Hudson
- Modern Architecture: A Critical History: ISBN 0500202575 (0-500-20257-5)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
Molloy
by Samuel Beckett

ISBN 0394475151 (0-394-47515-1)
Hardcover, Grove Pr

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- Molloy: ISBN 0394475151 (0-394-47515-1)
  Hardcover, Grove Pr
Monday or Tuesday
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 0486294536 (0-486-29453-6)
Softcover, Dover Pubns

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More editions of Monday or Tuesday:
- Monday or Tuesday: ISBN 0486294536 (0-486-29453-6)
  Softcover, Dover Pubns
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Murder in the Cathedral
by Nevill Coghill, T. S. Eliot

ISBN 0571063276 (0-571-06327-6)
Softcover, Faber and Faber

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T. S. Eliots Murder in the Cathedral is both a fascinating retelling of the twelfth-century assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket and a compelling call for resistance in the face of intimidation. Written against the backdrop of rising Fascism in twentieth-century Europe, Eliots classic verse play is as relevant now as it ever was. This re-release of the original 1953 recording stars Robert Donat whose commanding performance as the Archbishop, alongside a full cast, is widely celebrated. [via]
More editions of Murder in the Cathedral:
- Murder in the Cathedral: ISBN 0571063276 (0-571-06327-6)
  Softcover, Faber and Faber
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Murder in the Cathedral
by T. S. Eliot

ISBN 0606208143 (0-606-20814-3)
Hardcover, Demco Media

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Book summary:
T. S. Eliots Murder in the Cathedral is both a fascinating retelling of the twelfth-century assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket and a compelling call for resistance in the face of intimidation. Written against the backdrop of rising Fascism in twentieth-century Europe, Eliots classic verse play is as relevant now as it ever was. This re-release of the original 1953 recording stars Robert Donat whose commanding performance as the Archbishop, alongside a full cast, is widely celebrated. [via]
More editions of Murder in the Cathedral:
- Murder in the Cathedral: ISBN 0606208143 (0-606-20814-3)
  Hardcover, Demco Media
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The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers
by T. J. Clark

ISBN 0394495802 (0-394-49580-2)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Book summary:
The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was supposedly a brand-new city, equipped with boulevards, cafés, parks, and suburban pleasure grounds--the birthplace of those habits of commerce and leisure that constitute "modern life." Questioning those who view Impressionism solely in terms of artistic technique, T. J. Clark describes the painting of Manet, Degas, Seurat, and others as an attempt to give form to that modernity and seek out its typical representatives--be they bar-maids, boaters, prostitutes, sightseers, or petits bourgeois lunching on the grass. The central question of The Painting of Modern Life is this: did modern painting as it came into being celebrate the consumer-oriented culture of the Paris of Napoleon III, or open it to critical scrutiny? The revised edition of this classic book includes a new preface by the author.
[via]
More editions of The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers:
- The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers: ISBN 0394495802 (0-394-49580-2)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Passing
by Nella Larsen

ISBN 0393979164 (0-393-97916-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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The heroine of Passing takes an elevator from the infernal August Chicago streets to the breezy rooftop of the heavenly Drayton Hotel, "wafted upward on a magic carpet to another world, pleasant, quiet, and strangely remote from the sizzling one that she had left below." Irene is black, but like her author, the Danish-African American Nella Larsen (a star of the 1920s to mid-1930s Harlem Renaissance and the first black woman to win a Guggenheim creative-writing award), she can "pass" in white society. Yet one woman in the tea room, "fair and golden, like a sunlit day," keeps staring at her, and eventually introduces herself as Irene's childhood friend Clare, who left their hometown 12 years before when her father died. Clare's father had been born "on the left hand"--he was the product of a legal marriage between a white man and a black woman and therefore cut off from his inheritance. So she was raised penniless by white racist relatives, and now she passes as white. Even Clare's violent white husband is in the dark about her past, though he teases her about her tan and affectionately calls her "Nig." He laughingly explains: "When we were first married, she was white as--as--well as white as a lily. But I declare she's getting darker and darker." As Larsen makes clear, Passing can also mean dying, and Clare is in peril of losing her identity and her life.
The tale is simple on the surface--a few adventures in Chicago and New York's high life, with lots of real people and race-mixing events described (explicated by Thadious M. Davis's helpful introduction and footnotes). But underneath, it seethes with rage, guilt, sex, and complex deceptions. Irene fears losing her black husband to Clare, who seems increasingly predatory. Or is this all in Irene's mind? And is everyone wearing a mask? Larsen's book is a scary hall of mirrors, a murder mystery that can't resolve itself. It sticks with you. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of Passing:
- Passing: ISBN 0486437132 (0-486-43713-2)
  Softcover, Dover Pubns
- Passing: ISBN 0393979164 (0-393-97916-4)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Pearl
by John Steinbeck

ISBN 0553262610 (0-553-26261-0)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
Make this your next book club selection and everyone saves.
Get 15% off when you order 5 or more of this title for your book club.
Simply enter the coupon code STEINBECKPEARL at checkout.
This offer does not apply to eBook purchases. This offer applies to only one downloadable audio per purchase.

In this short book illuminated by a deep understanding and love of humanity, John Steinbeck retells an old Mexican folk tale: the story of the great pearl, how it was found, and how it was lost. For the diver Kino, finding a magnificent pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to the tragedy.
For Steinbeck, Kino and his wife illustrate the fall from innocence of people who believe that wealth erases all problems. Originally published in 1947, The Pearl shows why Steinbecks style has made him one of the most beloved American writers: it is a simple story of simple people, recounted with the warmth and sincerity and unrivaled craftsmanship Steinbeck brings to his writing. It is tragedy in the great tradition, beautifully conveying not despair but hope for mankind.
The Great Books Foundation Discussion Guide for The Pearl is available at www.greatbooks.org.
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More editions of The Pearl:
- The Pearl: ISBN 0670545759 (0-670-54575-9)
  Hardcover, Penguin USA
- The Pearl: ISBN 0553262610 (0-553-26261-0)
  Softcover, Bantam Books
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Remembrance of Things Past
by Marcel Proust

ISBN 0394711831 (0-394-71183-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Perfect Condition! Copyright 1981 by Random House. Translation by Andreas Mayor. Clean and free from markings. Very light shelf wear. All 3 books in excellent condition. Includes all dust jackets and 3-volume case. Expedited shipping available. Guaranteed customer satisfaction. [via]
More editions of Remembrance of Things Past:
- Remembrance of Things Past: ISBN 039450643X (0-394-50643-X)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
- Remembrance of Things Past: ISBN 0394711831 (0-394-71183-1)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Remembrance of Things Past : Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove
by Marcel Proust, C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, Terence Kilmartin

ISBN 0394711823 (0-394-71182-3)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Book summary:
Here are the first two volumes of Prousts monumental achievement, Swanns Way and Within a Budding Grove. The famous overture to Swann's Way sets down the grand themes that govern In Search of Lost Time: as the narrator recalls his childhood in Paris and Combray, exquisite memories, long since passedhis mothers good-night kiss, the water lilies on the Vivonne, his love for Swanns daughter Gilbertespring vividly into being. In Within a Budding Grovewhich won the Prix Goncourt in 1919, bringing the author instant famethe narrator turns from his childhood recollections and begins to explore the memories of his adolescence. As his affections for Gilberte grow dim, the narrator discovers a new object of attention in the bright-eyed Albertine. Their encounters unfold by the shores of Balbec. One of the great works of Western literature, now in the new definitive French Pleiade edition translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin.
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More editions of Remembrance of Things Past : Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove:
- Remembrance of Things Past : Swann's Way, Within a Budding Grove: ISBN 0394506448 (0-394-50644-8)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
- Remembrance of Things Past : Swann's Way and Within a Budding Grove: ISBN 0394711823 (0-394-71182-3)
  Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Remembrance of Things Past Volume 1-3 Box Set
by Marcel Proust, C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, Terence Kilmartin

ISBN 0394712439 (0-394-71243-9)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Marcel Proust whiled away the first half of his life as a self-conscious aesthete and social climber. The second half he spent in the creation of the mighty roman-fleuve that is Remembrance of Things Past, memorializing his own dandyism and parvenu hijinks even as he revealed their essential hollowness. Proust begins, of course, at the beginning--with the earliest childhood perceptions and sorrows. Then, over several thousand pages, he retraces the course of his own adolescence and adulthood, democratically dividing his experiences among the narrator and a sprawling cast of characters. Who else has ever decanted life into such ornate, knowing, wrought-iron sentences? Who has subjected love to such merciless microscopy, discriminating between the tiniest variations of desire and self-delusion? Who else has produced a grief-stricken record of time's erosion that can also make you laugh for entire pages? The answer to all these questions is: nobody. [via]
More editions of Remembrance of Things Past Volume 1-3 Box Set:
- Remembrance of Things Past Volume 1-3 Box Set: ISBN 0394712439 (0-394-71243-9)
  Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Remembrance of Things Past/Captive, the Fugitive, Time Regained
by Marcel Proust

ISBN 039471184X (0-394-71184-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
The third and final volume includes THE CAPTIVE, THE FUGITIVE, and TIME REGAINED. [via]
More editions of Remembrance of Things Past/Captive, the Fugitive, Time Regained:
- Remembrance of Things Past/Captive, the Fugitive, Time Regained: ISBN 039471184X (0-394-71184-X)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Sanctuary
by William Faulkner

ISBN 0394747445 (0-394-74744-5)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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First published in 1931, this classic psychological melodrama has been viewed as more of a social document in his tragic legend of the South than mere story. From Popeye, a moonshining racketeer with no conscience and Temple Drake, beautiful, bored and vulnerable, to Harace Benbow, a lawyer of honor and decency wishing for more in his life, and Gowan Stevens, college student with a weakness for drink, Faulkner writes of changing social values and order. A sinister cast peppered with social outcasts and perverts perform abduction, murder, and mayhem in this harsh and brutal story of sensational and motiveless evil. Students of Faulkner have found an allegorical interpretation of "Sanctuary" as a comment on the degradation of old South's social order by progressive modernism and materialistic exploitation. Popeye and his co-horts represent this hurling change that is corrupting the historic traditions of the South, symbolized by Horace Stevens, which are no longer able to protect the victimized Negro and poor white trash due to middle-class apathy and inbred violence. [via]
More editions of Sanctuary:
- Sanctuary: ISBN 0394512782 (0-394-51278-2)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
- Sanctuary: ISBN 0394747445 (0-394-74744-5)
  Softcover, Vintage Books
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Selected Non-Fictions
by Jorge Luis Borges, Eliot Weinberger, Esther Allen, Suzane Jill Levine, Andrew Hurley

ISBN 0670849472 (0-670-84947-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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Jorge Luis Borges was our century's greatest miniaturist, perpetually cramming entire universes onto the head of a pin. Yet his splendid economy, along the wafer-thin proportions of such classic volumes as Ficciones and Labyrinths, has given readers the impression that Borges was miserly with his prose. In fact, he was something of a verbal spendthrift. His collected stories alone run to nearly 1,000 pages. And his nonfiction output was even more staggering: the young Borges cranked out hundreds of essays, book notes, cultural polemics, and movie reviews, and even after he lost his sight in 1955, he continued to dictate short pieces by the dozens. Eliot Weinberger has assembled just a fraction of this outpouring in Selected Non-Fictions, and the result is a 559-page Borgesian blowout, in which the Argentinean fabulist takes on being and nothingness, James Joyce and Lana Turner, and (surprisingly) racial hatred and the rise of Nazism. So much for our image of the mandarin bookworm! The very engagé author of this book seems more like a subequatorial Camus, with a dash of Siskel and Ebert on the side.
Selected Non-Fictions demonstrates just how quickly Borges began wrestling with such brainteasers as identity, time, and infinity. Indeed, the very first piece in the collection, "The Nothingness of Personality" (1922), already finds him fiddling with the self: "I, as I write this, am only a certainty that seeks out the words that are most apt to compel your attention. That proposition and a few muscular sensations, and the sight of the limpid branches that the trees place outside my window, constitute my current I." There are many such meditations here, including "A History of Eternity" (in which Borges maps out his own, disarmingly empty version of the eternal, "without a God or even a co-proprietor, and entirely devoid of archetypes"). But it's more fun--and more revelatory--to see the author venturing beyond his metaphysical stomping grounds. Borges on King Kong is a hoot, and a cornball masterpiece such as The Petrified Forest elicits this terrific nugget: "Death works in this film like hypnosis or alcohol: it brings the recesses of the soul into the light of day." His capsule biographies are a delight, his critiques of Nazi propaganda are memorably stringent, and nobody should miss him on the tango. True, the sheer variety and mind-boggling erudition of Selected Non-Fictions can be a little forbidding. But, taken as a whole, the collection surely meets the specifications that Borges laid out in a 1927 essay on literary pleasure: "If only some eternal book existed, primed for our enjoyment and whims, no less inventive in the populous morning as in the secluded night, oriented toward all hours of the world." Oh, but it does. --James Marcus [via]
More editions of Selected Non-Fictions:
- Selected Non-Fictions: ISBN 0670849472 (0-670-84947-2)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot
by T. S. Eliot, Frank Kermode

ISBN 0571102638 (0-571-10263-8)
Hardcover, Faber

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More editions of Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot:
- Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot: ISBN 0571105653 (0-571-10565-3)
  Hardcover, Faber
- Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot: ISBN 0571102638 (0-571-10263-8)
  Hardcover, Faber
Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties
by Noel Riley Fitch

ISBN 0393302318 (0-393-30231-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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More editions of Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties:
- Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties: ISBN 0393017133 (0-393-01713-3)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties: ISBN 0393302318 (0-393-30231-8)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
T S Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral
by T. S. Eliot

ISBN 0671007823 (0-671-00782-3)
Softcover, Monarch Notes

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More editions of T S Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral:
- T S Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral: ISBN 0671007823 (0-671-00782-3)
  Softcover, Monarch Notes
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Tender Buttons
by Gertrude Stein

ISBN 0486298973 (0-486-29897-3)
Softcover, Dover Pubns

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Book summary:
Before becoming the patron of Lost Generation artists, Gertrude Stein established her reputation as an innovative author whose style was closer to painting than literature. Stein's strong influence on 20th-century literature is evident in this 1915 work of highly original prose rendered in thought-provoking experimental techniques.
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More editions of Tender Buttons:
- Tender Buttons: ISBN 0486298973 (0-486-29897-3)
  Softcover, Dover Pubns
Three Famous Short Novels: Spotted Horses/Old Man/the Bear
by William Faulkner

ISBN 0394701496 (0-394-70149-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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- Three Famous Short Novels: Spotted Horses/Old Man/the Bear: ISBN 0394701496 (0-394-70149-6)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Turn of the Screw
by Henry James, Deborah Esch, Jonathan Warren

ISBN 039395904X (0-393-95904-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
The story starts conventionally enough with friends sharing ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas Eve. One of the guests tells about a governess at a country house plagued by supernatural visitors. But in the hands of Henry James, the master of nuance, this little tale of terror is an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity. Only the young governess can see the ghosts; only she suspects that the previous governess and her lover are controlling the two orphaned children (a girl and a boy) for some evil purpose. The household staff don't know what she's talking about, the children are evasive when questioned, and the master of the house (the children's uncle) is absent. Why does the young girl claim not to see a perfectly visible woman standing on the far side of the lake? Are the children being deceptive, or is the governess being paranoid? By leaving the questions unanswered, The Turn of Screw generates spine-tingling anxiety in its mesmerized readers. [via]
More editions of Turn of the Screw:
The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction
by Henry James

ISBN 0553210599 (0-553-21059-9)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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More editions of The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction:
- The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction: ISBN 0553210599 (0-553-21059-9)
  Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept