Movie: books tagged “movie” (32/115) @ BookFinder.com

ISBN 9780312112257 (0-312-11225-4, 0312112254)

by Mark Twain, Gerald Graff, James Phelan

ISBN 0312112254 (0-312-11225-4)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins

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Book summary:

Like its popular predecessor, this critical edition is designed for "teaching the conflicts" surrounding Mark Twain's classic novel. It reprints the 1885 text of the first American edition (with a portfolio of illustrations) along with critical essays representing major critical and cultural controversies surrounding the work. The novel and essays are supported by distinctive editorial material - including introductions to critical conflict in literary studies, to Twain's life and work, and to each critical controversy highlighted in this edition - that helps students grapple not only with the novel's critical issues but also with cultural debates about literature itself. In addition to several new critical essays, the second edition includes an appendix on how to argue about the novel so that students may more effectively enter the critical conversation about its issues. [via]

More editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Sculley Bradley, Mark Twain, E. Hudson Long, Thomas Cooley, Richmond Croom Beatty

ISBN 0393044548 (0-393-04454-8)
Softcover, Norton

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More editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0393044548 (0-393-04454-8)
Softcover, Norton

ISBN 9780394605210 (0-394-60521-7, 0394605217)

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)

by Mark Twain, E.W. Kemble

ISBN 0394605217 (0-394-60521-7)
Hardcover, Modern Library

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Book summary:

A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]

More editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade):

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade): ISBN 0394605217 (0-394-60521-7)
Hardcover, Modern Library

ISBN 9780316739924 (0-316-73992-8, 0316739928)

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All Quiet on the Western Front

by Erich Maria Remarque, A. W. Wheen

ISBN 0316739928 (0-316-73992-8)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:

Now repackaged--the timeless classic of World War I Germany that speaks to generation after generation. [via]

More editions of All Quiet on the Western Front:

All Quiet on the Western Front: ISBN 0316739928 (0-316-73992-8)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co

ISBN 9780436563126 (0-436-56312-6, 0436563126)

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All the King's Men

by Robert Penn Warren

ISBN 0436563126 (0-436-56312-6)
Hardcover, Secker and Warburg

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Book summary:

This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a southern-fried politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. Though Stark quickly sheds his idealism, his right-hand man, Jack Burden -- who narrates the story -- retains it and proves to be a thorn in the new governor's side. Stark becomes a successful leader, but at a very high price, one that eventually costs him his life. The award-winning book is a play of politics, society and personal affairs, all wrapped in the cloak of history. [via]

More editions of All the King's Men:

All the King's Men: ISBN 0436563126 (0-436-56312-6)
Hardcover, Secker and Warburg

ISBN 9780345378484 (0-345-37848-2, 0345378482)

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The Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

ISBN 0345378482 (0-345-37848-2)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

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Book summary:

Some biologists speculate that if we ever make contact with extraterrestrials, those life forms are likely to be--like most life on earth--one-celled or smaller creatures, more comparable to bacteria than little green men. And even though such organisms would not likely be able to harm humans, the possibility exists that first contact might be our last.

That's the scientific supposition that Michael Crichton formulates and follows out to its conclusion in his excellent debut novel, The Andromeda Strain.

A Nobel-Prize-winning bacteriologist, Jeremy Stone, urges the president to approve an extraterrestrial decontamination facility to sterilize returning astronauts, satellites, and spacecraft that might carry an "unknown biologic agent." The government agrees, almost too quickly, to build the top-secret Wildfire Lab in the desert of Nevada. Shortly thereafter, unbeknownst to Stone, the U.S. Army initiates the "Scoop" satellite program, an attempt to actively collect space pathogens for use in biological warfare. When Scoop VII crashes a couple years later in the isolated Arizona town of Piedmont, the Army ends up getting more than it asked for.

The Andromeda Strain follows Stone and rest of the scientific team mobilized to react to the Scoop crash as they scramble to understand and contain a strange and deadly outbreak. Crichton's first book may well be his best; it has an earnestness that is missing from his later, more calculated thrillers. --Paul Hughes [via]

More editions of The Andromeda Strain:

ISBN 9780340715000 (0-340-71500-6, 0340715006)

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Anne Green Gables

ISBN 0340715006 (0-340-71500-6)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square Books

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Book summary:

A brother and sister send for a boy to help them on their farm, Green Gables. By mistake they are sent an 11-year-old girl. She picks a fight with anyone who mentions the colour of her hair and causes havoc, but ends up being loved. The author wrote "Anne of Avonlea" and "Anne of Ingleside". [via]

More editions of Anne Green Gables:

Anne Green Gables: ISBN 0340715006 (0-340-71500-6)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square Books

Anne of Avonlea

by L.M. Montgomery

ISBN 0448025442 (0-448-02544-2)
Hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap

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More editions of Anne of Avonlea:

Anne of Avonlea: ISBN 0448025442 (0-448-02544-2)
Hardcover, Grosset & Dunlap

ISBN 9780393926958 (0-393-92695-8, 0393926958)

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Anne of Green Gables

by L.M. Montgomery, Elizabeth Waterston, Mary Henley Rubio

ISBN 0393926958 (0-393-92695-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:

When Marilla Cuthbert's brother, Matthew, returns home to Green Gables with a chatty redheaded orphan girl, Marilla exclaims, "But we asked for a boy. We have no use for a girl." It's not long, though, before the Cuthberts can't imagine how they could ever do without young Anne of Green Gables--but not for the original reasons they sought an orphan. Somewhere between the time Anne "confesses" to losing Marilla's amethyst pin (which she never took) in hopes of being allowed to go to a picnic, and when Anne accidentally dyes her hated carrot-red hair green, Marilla says to Matthew, "One thing's for certain, no house that Anne's in will ever be dull." And no book that she's in will be, either. This adapted version of the classic, Anne of Green Gables, introduces younger readers to the irrepressible heroine of L.M. Montgomery's many stories. Adapter M.C. Helldorfer includes only a few of Anne's mirthful and poignant adventures, yet manages to capture the freshness of one of children's literature's spunkiest, most beloved characters. There's just enough to make beginning readers want more--luckily, there's a lot more in the originals! Illustrator Ellen Beier creates vibrant pictures to portray the beauty of the land around Green Gables and the spirited nature of Anne herself. (Ages 5 to 8) --Emilie Coulter [via]

More editions of Anne of Green Gables:

ISBN 9780393020397 (0-393-02039-8, 0393020398)

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The Annotated Huckleberry Finn

by Mark Twain, Michael Patrick Hearn

ISBN 0393020398 (0-393-02039-8)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:

A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]

More editions of The Annotated Huckleberry Finn:

The Annotated Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0393020398 (0-393-02039-8)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

ISBN 9780385498807 (0-385-49880-2, 0385498802)

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Bee Season

by Myla Goldberg

ISBN 0385498802 (0-385-49880-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:

In Myla Goldberg's outstanding first novel, a family is shaken apart by a small but unexpected shift in the prospects of one of its members. When 9-year-old Eliza Naumann, an otherwise indifferent student, takes first prize in her school spelling bee, it is as if rays of light have begun to emanate from her head. Teachers regard her with a new fondness; the studious girls begin to save a place for her at lunch. Even Eliza can sense herself changing. She had "often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see."

Eliza's father, Saul, a scholar and cantor, had long since given up expecting sparks of brilliance on her part. While her brother, Aaron, had taken pride in reciting his Bar Mitzvah prayers from memory, she had typically preferred television reruns to homework or reading. This belated evidence of a miraculous talent encourages Saul to reassess his daughter. And after she wins the statewide bee, he begins tutoring her for the national competition, devoting to Eliza the hours he once spent with Aaron. His daughter flowers under his care, eventually coming to look at life "in alphabetical terms." "Consonants are the camels of language," she realizes, "proudly carrying their lingual loads."

Vowels, however, are a different species, the fish that flash and glisten in the watery depths. Vowels are elastic and inconstant, fickle and unfaithful.... Before the bee, Eliza had been a consonant, slow and unsurprising. With her bee success, she has entered vowelhood.

When Saul sees the state of transcendence that she effortlessly achieves in competition, he encourages his daughter to explore the mystical states that have eluded him--the influx of God-knowledge (shefa) described by the Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia. Although Saul has little idea what he has set in motion, "even the sound of Abulafia's name sets off music in her head. A-bu-la-fi-a. It's magic, the open sesame that unblocked the path to her father and then to language itself."

Meanwhile, stunned by his father's defection, Aaron begins a troubling religious quest. Eliza's brainy, compulsive mother is also unmoored by her success. The spelling champion's newfound gift for concentration reminds Miriam of herself as a girl, and she feels a pang for not having seen her daughter more clearly before. But Eliza's clumsy response to Miriam's overtures convinces her mother that she has no real ties to her daughter. This final disappointment precipitates her departure into a stunning secret life. The reader is left wondering what would have happened if the Naumanns' spiritual thirsts had not been set in restless motion. A poignant and exceptionally well crafted tale, Bee Season has a slow beginning but a tour-de-force conclusion. --Regina Marler [via]

More editions of Bee Season:

ISBN 9780395926840 (0-395-92684-X, 039592684X)

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The Best American Short Stories, 1999

by Amy Tan, Katrina Kenison

ISBN 039592684X (0-395-92684-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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Book summary:

A great story gets its hooks into you right from the start; you know you're in the hands of a good writer when the very first sentence transports you wholly into another world. "Mother preferred Zulu servants." "It must be, Ruth thought, that she was going to die in the spring." "Who would have thought that a war of such proportions would bother to turn in its fury against the fools of Chelm?"

The 21 fictions featured in The Best American Short Stories 1999 have very little in common--but whether they're about ranchers or commuters, romantic seekers or New Age pilgrims, what they do share is a sense of urgency. In each of them, there's a kind of voice that announces its need to be heard. "I'm not a bad guy," pleads the narrator of "The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," and even though he cheats on his girlfriend, by the end of Junot Díaz's story you might be tempted to agree anyway. (Especially considering the charming way he turns Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener into a verb--as in, "A lot of the time she Bartlebys me, says, 'No, I'd rather not.'") "Real Estate," by that master of bittersweet comedy Lorrie Moore, starts by repeating "Ha! Ha! Ha!" for two solid pages but becomes a rueful take on marriage, house-hunting, and even death: "The body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body was like a sweet dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too, barked the dog."

Other standouts in this collection include Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper," a kind of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" where no one is killed or saved; Rick Bass's haunting evocation of winter in the north country, "The Hermit's Story"; and Tim Gautreax's "The Piano Tuner," about a manic-depressive Creole princess playing cocktail piano in a motel lounge. (This is one tale that truly does end with a bang, not a whimper.) Taken together, they are ample evidence that the American short story is alive, well, and eminently able to--in the words of guest editor Amy Tan--"help us live interesting lives." --Chloe Byrne [via]

More editions of The Best American Short Stories, 1999:

The Best American Short Stories, 1999: ISBN 039592684X (0-395-92684-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

ISBN 9780345350473 (0-345-35047-2, 0345350472)

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Blade Runner

by Philip K. Dick

ISBN 0345350472 (0-345-35047-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away. Wonderful in itself, the film is a flash thriller, whereas Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids who have returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break.

The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this book asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk [via]

More editions of Blade Runner:

Blade Runner: ISBN 0345350472 (0-345-35047-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

ISBN 9780385334204 (0-385-33420-6, 0385334206)

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Breakfast of Champions

by Kurt Vonnegut

ISBN 0385334206 (0-385-33420-6)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:

"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." So reads the tombstone of downtrodden writer Kilgore Trout, but we have no doubt who's really talking: his alter ego Kurt Vonnegut. Health versus sickness, humanity versus inhumanity--both sets of ideas bounce through this challenging and funny book. As with the rest of Vonnegut's pure fantasy, it lacks the shimmering, fact-fueled rage that illuminates Slaughterhouse-Five. At the same time, that makes this book perhaps more enjoyable to read.

Breakfast of Champions is a slippery, lucid, bleakly humorous jaunt through (sick? inhumane?) America circa 1973, with Vonnegut acting as our Virgil-like companion. The book follows its main character, auto-dealing solid-citizen Dwayne Hoover, down into madness, a condition brought on by the work of the aforementioned Kilgore Trout. As Dwayne cracks, then crumbles, Breakfast of Champions coolly shows the effects his dementia has on the web of characters surrounding him. It's not much of a plot, but it's enough for Vonnegut to air unique opinions on America, sex, war, love, and all of his other pet topics--you know, the only ones that really count. [via]

More editions of Breakfast of Champions:

ISBN 9780446364492 (0-446-36449-5, 0446364495)

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The Bridges of Madison County

by Robert James Waller

ISBN 0446364495 (0-446-36449-5)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:

The Bridges of Madison County tells the story of Francesca Johnson, an Italian World War II wife of an Iowa farmer, and Robert Kincaid, a nomadic photographer traveling through town on an assignment for National Geographic. Their chance meeting ignites a romantic four-day affair that stays with them for the rest of their lives. [via]

More editions of The Bridges of Madison County:

ISBN 9780446519977 (0-446-51997-9, 0446519979)

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Bridges of Madison County: The Film

by Robert James Waller, Ken Regan

ISBN 0446519979 (0-446-51997-9)
Hardcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:

This is an ideal collector's item for admirers of both Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, as well as of the novel, movie, AND covered bridges. [via]

More editions of Bridges of Madison County: The Film:

Bridges of Madison County: The Film: ISBN 0446519979 (0-446-51997-9)
Hardcover, Grand Central Pub

ISBN 9780375760303 (0-375-76030-X, 037576030X)

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Count of Monte Cristo

by Alexandre Dumas

ISBN 037576030X (0-375-76030-X)
Softcover, Modern Library

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Book summary:

Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monet Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.

From the Hardcover edition. [via]

More editions of Count of Monte Cristo:

ISBN 9780345404473 (0-345-40447-5, 0345404475)

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Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

by Philip K. Dick

ISBN 0345404475 (0-345-40447-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away. Wonderful in itself, the film is a flash thriller, whereas Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids who have returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break.

The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this book asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk [via]

More editions of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?:

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?: ISBN 0345404475 (0-345-40447-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

ISBN 9780395245101 (0-395-24510-9, 0395245109)

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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

by Tom Robbins

ISBN 0395245109 (0-395-24510-9)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin

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Book summary:

Listeners follow Sissy Hankshaw's odyssey from Virginia to chic Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, where FBI agents, cowgirls, and ecstatic whooping cranes explode in a deliciously drawn-out climax. Unabridged. 12 CDs.

[via]

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ISBN 9780345342966 (0-345-34296-8, 0345342968)

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Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

ISBN 0345342968 (0-345-34296-8)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman [via]

More editions of Fahrenheit 451:

ISBN 9780375432323 (0-375-43232-9, 0375432329)

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The Five People You Meet in Heaven

by Mitch Albom

ISBN 0375432329 (0-375-43232-9)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print

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Book summary:

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]

More editions of The Five People You Meet in Heaven:

The Five People You Meet in Heaven: ISBN 0375432329 (0-375-43232-9)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print

ISBN 9780385315678 (0-385-31567-8, 0385315678)

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Get Shorty

by Elmore Leonard

ISBN 0385315678 (0-385-31567-8)
Softcover, Dell Publishing

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Book summary:

Nobody writes openings like Elmore Leonard. Case in point: "When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio's on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off." You need to know about this because you need to know why there's bad blood between Chili Palmer and Ray Bones, the guy who stole his coat and is now his boss--and has ordered him to collect $4,200 from a dead guy. Except the guy didn't die; he went to Las Vegas with $300,000. So Chili goes to Las Vegas, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon he's in Los Angeles, hanging out with a movie producer named Harry Zimm and learning what it takes to be a player in Hollywood.

Get Shorty is classic Elmore Leonard: While other people write "crime fiction," Leonard's come up with a masterful social comedy that happens to be about criminals (and other fast operators). He's a master of snappy dialogue and dizzying plot twists. The best parts of Get Shorty move along so briskly you almost forget there's somebody with a firm control over the story. And you'll be rooting for Chili to get the money, the girl, and the studio deal. --Ron Hogan [via]

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Goonies

by James Kahn

ISBN 0446328413 (0-446-32841-3)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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More editions of Goonies:

Goonies: ISBN 0446328413 (0-446-32841-3)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

ISBN 9780385339483 (0-385-33948-8, 0385339488)

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Hannibal

by Thomas Harris

ISBN 0385339488 (0-385-33948-8)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:

Horror lit's head chef Harris serves up another course in his Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter trilogy, and it's a pièce de résistance for those with strong stomachs. In the first book, Red Dragon (filmed as Manhunter), Hannibal diabolically helps the FBI track a fascinating serial killer. (Takes one to know one.) In The Silence of the Lambs, he advises fledgling FBI manhunter Clarice Starling, then makes a bloody, brilliant escape.

Years later, posing as scholarly Dr. Fell, curator of a grand family's palazzo, Hannibal lives the good life in Florence, playing lovely tunes by serial killer/composer Henry VIII and killing hardly anyone himself. Clarice is unluckier: in the novel's action-film-like opening scene, she survives an FBI shootout gone wrong, and her nemesis, Paul Krendler, makes her the fall guy. Clarice is suspended, so, unfortunately, the first cop who stumbles on Hannibal is an Italian named Pazzi, who takes after his ancestors, greedy betrayers depicted in Dante's Inferno.

Pazzi is on the take from a character as scary as Hannibal: Mason Verger. When Verger was a young man busted for raping children, his vast wealth saved him from jail. All he needed was psychotherapy--with Dr. Lecter. Thanks to the treatment, Verger is now on a respirator, paralyzed except for one crablike hand, watching his enormous, brutal moray eel swim figure eights and devour fish. His obsession is to feed Lecter to some other brutal pets.

What happens when the Italian cop gets alone with Hannibal? How does Clarice's reunion with Lecter go from macabre to worse? Suffice it to say that the plot is Harris's weirdest, but it still has his signature mastery of realistic detail. There are flaws: Hannibal's madness gets a motive, which is creepy but lessens his mystery. If you want an exact duplicate of The Silence of the Lambs's Clarice/Hannibal duel, you'll miss what's cool about this book--that Hannibal is actually upstaged at points by other monsters. And if you think it's all unprecedentedly horrible, you're right. But note that the horrors are described with exquisite taste. Harris's secret recipe for success is restraint. --Tim Appelo [via]

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ISBN 9780312114916 (0-312-11491-5, 0312114915)

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The Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad, Ross C. Murfin

ISBN 0312114915 (0-312-11491-5)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins

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Book summary:

The Fourth Edition is again based on Robert Kimbroughs meticulously re-edited text.

Missing words have been restored and the entire novel has been repunctuated in accordance with Conrads style. The result is the first published version of Heart of Darkness that allows readers to hear Marlows voice as Conrad heard it when he wrote the story. "Backgrounds and Contexts" provides readers with a generous collection of maps and photographs that bring the Belgian Congo to life. Textual materials, topically arranged, address nineteenth-century views of imperialism and racism and include autobiographical writings by Conrad on his life in the Congo. New to the Fourth Edition is an excerpt from Adam Hochschilds recent book, King Leopolds Ghost, as well as writings on race by Hegel, Darwin, and Galton. "Criticism" includes a wealth of new materials, including nine contemporary reviews and assessments of Conrad and Heart of Darkness and twelve recent essays by Chinua Achebe, Peter Brooks, Daphne Erdinast-Vulcan, Edward Said, and Paul B. Armstrong, among others. Also new to this edition is a section of writings on the connections between Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now by Louis K. Greiff, Margot Norris, and Lynda J. Dryden. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. [via]

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ISBN 9780375753770 (0-375-75377-X, 037575377X)

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Heart of Darkness & Selections from the Congo Diary

by Joseph Conrad, Caryl Phillips

ISBN 037575377X (0-375-75377-X)
Softcover, Modern Library

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Book summary:

Introduction by Caryl PhillipsCommentary by H. L. Mencken, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Lionel Trilling, Chinua Achebe, and Philip GourevitchOriginally published in 1902, Heart of Darkness remains one of this century's most enduring works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad's grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity. This edition contains selections from Conrad's Congo Diary of 1890-the first notes, in effect, for the novel, which was composed at the end of that decade. Virginia Woolf wrote of Conrad: "His books are full of moments of vision. They light up a whole character in a flash. . . . He could not write badly, one feels, to save his life." [via]

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Heart of Darkness & Selections from the Congo Diary: ISBN 037575377X (0-375-75377-X)
Softcover, Modern Library

ISBN 9780375829161 (0-375-82916-4, 0375829164)

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Hoot: Library Edition

by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN 0375829164 (0-375-82916-4)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books

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Book summary:

Hoot, Carl Hiaasen's debut novel for younger readers is a very special treat indeed. The writing is exceptionally good, and the characters extremely quirky and well realised. It's incredibly readable despite a story premise that is not sparklingly original. But no matter, there's an engaging "feel-good" vibe running through the whole book.

The setting, as with Hiaasen's crime thrillers for adults such as Basket Case and Sick Puppy, is sunny Florida and the heat, swamps, dust and pancakes all contribute to the authentic atmosphere of the book. His favourite environmental theme is here too, as is the thoroughly watertight plotting. There's an engaging mystery set up on the very first page and it builds nicely with more twists and turns as the story unfolds--all of them reassuringly tied up come the final pages.

Roy Eberhardt's story begins when he is being mashed up against the window of the school bus by bully Dana Matherson. He spots an athletic bare-footed boy running away from the bus and wonders where he is going. Further investigations, after he has unwisely smashed Dana's nose in to get away from him, leads Roy into the middle of a battle between a green-minded local runaway and the proposed opening of a pancake restaurant. The development threatens the habitat of a burrowing-owl colony and it's an issue that several people in the community have differing views upon--not all of them legal.

Roy carries the story very well indeed. He's likable and persistent in the face of unexpected and challenging adventure, despite his modest size. The cause he chooses to support is eminently worthy--he weighs up the strength of his beliefs with the necessity to slightly bend the law. This is a good story with some great writing--a winning combination. (For readers aged 10 and over.) --John McLay [via]

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The Horse Whisperer: A Novel

by Nicholas Evans

ISBN 0440222656 (0-440-22265-6)
Softcover, Bantam Books

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ISBN 9780394847245 (0-394-84724-5, 0394847245)

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Huckleberry Finn / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Mark Twain

ISBN 0394847245 (0-394-84724-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:

A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]

More editions of Huckleberry Finn / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

Huckleberry Finn / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 0394847245 (0-394-84724-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc

I, Robot

by Isaac Asimov

ISBN 0345331397 (0-345-33139-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

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Book summary:

In this collection, one of the great classics of science fiction, Asimov set out the principles of robot behavior that we know as the Three Laws of Robotics. Here are stories of robots gone mad, mind-reading robots, robots with a sense of humor, robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world, all told with Asimov's trademark dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction. [via]

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ISBN 9780425081655 (0-425-08165-6, 0425081656)

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Ian Fleming's Goldfinger

by Ian Fleming

ISBN 0425081656 (0-425-08165-6)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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Ian Fleming's Goldfinger: ISBN 0425081656 (0-425-08165-6)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

ISBN 9780385047715 (0-385-04771-1, 0385047711)

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Jaws

by Peter Benchley

ISBN 0385047711 (0-385-04771-1)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:

It was just another day in the life of a small Atlantic resort until the terror from the deep came to prey on unwary holiday makers. The first sign of trouble - a warning of what was to come - took the form of a young woman's body, or what was left of it, washed, up on the long, white stretch of beach...A summer of terror has begun. 'Pick up Jaws before midnight, read the first five pages, and I guarantee you'll be putting it down breathless and stunned, as dawn is breaking the next day' Daily Express; Peter Benchley's Jaws first appeared in 1974, creating a legend that refuses to die. For a new generation, the ultimate holiday nightmare is about to begin all over again... [via]

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Jaws: ISBN 0385047711 (0-385-04771-1)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

ISBN 9780399134203 (0-399-13420-4, 0399134204)

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The Joy Luck Club

by Amy Tan

ISBN 0399134204 (0-399-13420-4)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group

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Book summary:

Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery. [via]

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The Joy Luck Club: ISBN 0399134204 (0-399-13420-4)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group

ISBN 9780385663656 (0-385-66365-X, 038566365X)

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The Night Watch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

ISBN 038566365X (0-385-66365-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:

The phenomenal Russian bestseller. A vampire novel set in a richly realized post-Soviet Moscow, The Night Watch has sold across Europe and to 20th Century Fox for huge advances.

In The Night Watch, the first of a quartet, and reminiscent of Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials in its ambitions and achievement, the setting is contemporary Moscow. A small number of Muscovites with supernatural powers those who are Other, owing allegiance either to the Dark or the Light co-exist in an uneasy truce, each side keeping a close eye on the others activities around the city.

Anton, an Other on the side of the Light, is a night-watchman, patrolling the streets and Metro of the city as he protects ordinary people from the vampires of the Dark. On his rounds, Anton comes across a young woman, Svetlana, whom he realizes is under a curse that threatens the entire city, and a boy, Igor, a young Other, as yet unaware of his own enormous power. Partnered by Olga, an Other who is in the form of an owl, he struggles to remove the curse and thereby save the city, while at the same time prevent Igor from falling into the clutches of the Dark.

The Night Watch explores the nature of good and evil and the tensions between the individual and the collective in a gripping narrative that owes as much to The Master and Margarita as it is does to the richly realized worlds of Philip Pullman and Tolkien. [via]

More editions of The Night Watch:

The Night Watch: ISBN 038566365X (0-385-66365-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

ISBN 9780446789295 (0-446-78929-1, 0446789291)

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Oprah Reading Group 20

ISBN 0446789291 (0-446-78929-1)
Softcover, Warner Books Inc

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Book summary:

Oprah Book Club® Selection, December 1998: A funny thing happens to Novalee Nation on her way to Bakersfield, California. Her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Willie Jack Pickens, abandons her in an Oklahoma Wal-Mart and takes off on his own, leaving her with just 10 dollars and the clothes on her back. Not that hard luck is anything new to Novalee, who is "seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight--and superstitious about sevens.... For most people, sevens were lucky. But not for her," Billie Letts writes. "She'd had a bad history with them, starting with her seventh birthday, the day Momma Nell ran away with a baseball umpire named Fred..."

Still, finding herself alone and penniless in Sequoyah, Oklahoma is enough to make even someone as inured to ill fortune as Novalee want to give up and die. Fortunately, the Wal-Mart parking lot is the Sequoyah equivalent of a town square, and within hours Novalee has met three people who will change her life: Sister Thelma Husband, a kindly eccentric; Benny Goodluck, a young Native American boy; and Moses Whitecotton, an elderly African American photographer. For the next two months, Novalee surreptitiously makes her home in the Wal-Mart, sleeping there at night, exploring the town by day. When she goes into labor and delivers her baby there, however, Novalee learns that sometimes it's not so bad to depend on the kindness of strangers--especially if one of them happens to be Sam Walton, the superchain's founder.

Where the Heart Is oddly mixes heart-warming vignettes and surprising, brutal violence. Novalee's story is juxtaposed with occasional chapters chronicling Willy Jack's downward spiral into prison, disappointment, and degradation. And even in Sequoyah, sudden storms, domestic violence, kidnapping, and deadly fires punctuate Novalee's progress from homeless, unwed teen mom to successful, happy member of the community. This is not a subtle book; there's never any doubt that our heroine will make a home for herself and her baby or that Willy Jack will get what he deserves for abandoning them. Still, Billie Letts has created several memorable characters, and there's always room for another novel that celebrates the life-affirming qualities of reading, the importance of education, and the power of love to change lives. --Alix Wilber [via]

More editions of Oprah Reading Group 20:

ISBN 9780385339605 (0-385-33960-7, 0385339607)

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The Rainmaker

by John Grisham

ISBN 0385339607 (0-385-33960-7)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:

It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a job or a prayer...except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it.By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him. And suddenly he's in over his head, plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuverings. A case that started small is exploding into a thunderous million-dollar war of nerves, skill and outright violence--a fight that could cost one young lawyer his life, or turn him into the biggest rainmaker in the land.... [via]

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ISBN 9780345331199 (0-345-33119-2, 0345331192)

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Robot Trilogy : The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn

by Isaac Asimov

ISBN 0345331192 (0-345-33119-2)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

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More editions of Robot Trilogy : The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn:

Robot Trilogy : The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn: ISBN 0345331192 (0-345-33119-2)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

ISBN 9780375424021 (0-375-42402-4, 0375424024)

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A Scanner Darkly

by Philip K. Dick

ISBN 0375424024 (0-375-42402-4)
Hardcover, Pantheon Books

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Book summary:

Mind- and reality-bending drugs factor again and again in Philip K. Dick's hugely influential SF stories. A Scanner Darkly cuts closest to the bone, drawing on Dick's own experience with illicit chemicals and on his many friends who died from drug abuse. Nevertheless, it's blackly farcical, full of comic-surreal conversations between people whose synapses are partly fried, sudden flights of paranoid logic, and bad trips like the one whose victim spends a subjective eternity having all his sins read to him, in shifts, by compound-eyed aliens. (It takes 11,000 years of this to reach the time when as a boy he discovered masturbation.) The antihero Bob Arctor is forced by his double life into warring double personalities: as futuristic narcotics agent "Fred," face blurred by a high-tech scrambler, he must spy on and entrap suspected drug dealer Bob Arctor. His disintegration under the influence of the insidious Substance D is genuine tragicomedy. For Arctor there's no way off the addict's downward escalator, but what awaits at the bottom is a kind of redemption--there are more wheels within wheels than we suspected, and his life is not entirely wasted. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk [via]

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ISBN 9780385121675 (0-385-12167-9, 0385121679)

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The Shining

by Stephen King

ISBN 0385121679 (0-385-12167-9)
Hardcover, Doubleday

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Book summary:

In MINT UNREAD condition. A first edition book club printing. Published 1977 by DoubleDay [via]

More editions of The Shining:

The Shining: ISBN 0385121679 (0-385-12167-9)
Hardcover, Doubleday

ISBN 9780345353146 (0-345-35314-5, 0345353145)

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Sphere

by Michael Crichton

ISBN 0345353145 (0-345-35314-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:

Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton is possibly the best science teacher for the masses since H.G. Wells, and Sphere, his thriller about a mysterious spherical spaceship at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, is classic Crichton. A group of not-very-complex characters (portrayed in the film by Sharon Stone, Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Queen Latifah) assemble to solve a cleverly designed roller coaster of a mystery while attempting (with mixed success) to avoid sudden death and expounding (much more successfully) on the latest, coolest scientific ideas, including the existence of black holes. Somehow, Crichton manages to convey the complicated stuff in utterly simplistic prose, making him, as his old pal Steven Spielberg puts it, "the high priest of high concept." Yet there is more to Crichton than science and big-ticket show biz. He is also, as any reader of his startling memoir Travels knows, a bit of a mystic--he is entirely open to notions spouted by spoon-bending psychics that most science writers would scorn. Sphere is not only a gratifying sci-fi suspense tale; it also reflects Crichton's keen interest in the unexplained powers of the human mind. When something passes through a black hole in Crichton's fiction, a lesson is learned. The book also contains another profound lesson: when you're staring down a giant squid with an eyeball the size of a dinner plate, don't blink first. [via]

More editions of Sphere:

ISBN 9780446603652 (0-446-60365-1, 0446603651)

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Where the Heart Is

by Billie Letts

ISBN 0446603651 (0-446-60365-1)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:

Oprah Book Club® Selection, December 1998: A funny thing happens to Novalee Nation on her way to Bakersfield, California. Her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Willie Jack Pickens, abandons her in an Oklahoma Wal-Mart and takes off on his own, leaving her with just 10 dollars and the clothes on her back. Not that hard luck is anything new to Novalee, who is "seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight--and superstitious about sevens.... For most people, sevens were lucky. But not for her," Billie Letts writes. "She'd had a bad history with them, starting with her seventh birthday, the day Momma Nell ran away with a baseball umpire named Fred..."

Still, finding herself alone and penniless in Sequoyah, Oklahoma is enough to make even someone as inured to ill fortune as Novalee want to give up and die. Fortunately, the Wal-Mart parking lot is the Sequoyah equivalent of a town square, and within hours Novalee has met three people who will change her life: Sister Thelma Husband, a kindly eccentric; Benny Goodluck, a young Native American boy; and Moses Whitecotton, an elderly African American photographer. For the next two months, Novalee surreptitiously makes her home in the Wal-Mart, sleeping there at night, exploring the town by day. When she goes into labor and delivers her baby there, however, Novalee learns that sometimes it's not so bad to depend on the kindness of strangers--especially if one of them happens to be Sam Walton, the superchain's founder.

Where the Heart Is oddly mixes heart-warming vignettes and surprising, brutal violence. Novalee's story is juxtaposed with occasional chapters chronicling Willy Jack's downward spiral into prison, disappointment, and degradation. And even in Sequoyah, sudden storms, domestic violence, kidnapping, and deadly fires punctuate Novalee's progress from homeless, unwed teen mom to successful, happy member of the community. This is not a subtle book; there's never any doubt that our heroine will make a home for herself and her baby or that Willy Jack will get what he deserves for abandoning them. Still, Billie Letts has created several memorable characters, and there's always room for another novel that celebrates the life-affirming qualities of reading, the importance of education, and the power of love to change lives. --Alix Wilber [via]

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Willow

by Wayland Drew

ISBN 0345351959 (0-345-35195-9)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

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More editions of Willow:

Willow: ISBN 0345351959 (0-345-35195-9)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

ISBN 9780374384579 (0-374-38457-6, 0374384576)

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The Witches

by Roald Dahl

ISBN 0374384576 (0-374-38457-6)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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Book summary:

"This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches." So begins one of Roald Dahl's best books ever, and, ironically, it is such a great story because the premise is perfectly plausible from the outset. When the narrator's parents die in a car crash on page two (contrast this terribly real demise with that of James's parents who are devoured by an escaped rhinoceros in James and the Giant Peach), he is taken in by his cigar-smoking Norwegian grandmother, who has learned a storyteller's respect for witches and is wise to their ways.

The bond between the boy and his grandmother becomes the centerpiece of the tale--a partnership of love and understanding that survives even the boy's unfortunate transformation into a mouse. And once the two have teamed up to outwitch the witches, the boy's declaration that he's glad he's a mouse because he will now live only as long as his grandmother is far more poignant than eerie.

Of course, there's adventure here along with Dahl's trademark cleverness and sense of the grotesque. Dahl also communicates some essential truths to children: if they smoke cigars, they'll never catch cold, and, most importantly, they should never bathe, because a clean child is far, far easier for a witch to smell than a dirty one. (Ages 7 to 10, or read aloud to younger children) [via]

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Wonder Boys

by Michael Chabon

ISBN 0312140940 (0-312-14094-0)
Softcover, Picador

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