books tagged “social commentary” (Social commentary)

books tagged “social commentary”

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  • Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    by Lewis Carroll, John Tenniel, Morton N. Cohen
    ISBN 0553211730 (0-553-21173-0)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
    by Lewis Carroll
    ISBN 0553213458 (0-553-21345-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    That Alice. When she's not traipsing after a rabbit into Wonderland, she's gallivanting off into the topsy-turvy world behind the drawing-room looking glass. In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll's masterful and zany sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, she makes more eccentric acquaintances, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the White Queen, and a somewhat grumpy Humpty Dumpty. Through a giant and elaborate chess game, Alice explores this odd country, where one must eat dry biscuits to quench thirst, and run like the wind to stay in one place. As in life, Alice must stay on her toes to learn the rules of this game. Through the Looking Glass immediately took its rightful place beside its partner on the shelf of eternal classics. And luckily for generations of enraptured children, Carroll was again able to persuade John Tenniel to create the fantastic woodblock engravings that have become so indelibly associated with the Alice stories. For almost 130 years, Alice's curious adventures have amused, perplexed, and delighted readers, young and old. This gorgeous, deluxe boxed set of both volumes contains engravings from Tenniel's original woodblocks that were discovered in a London bank in 1985, and reproduced for the first time here. "'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures?'" What indeed? (All ages) [via]

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  • Anthem: Library Edition
    by Ayn Rand
    ISBN 0525948937 (0-525-94893-7)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    a dark portrait of forthcoming social trends describes a world without individuals, independence, or values, and is complemented by an extensive introduction featuring the author's own commentary. [via]

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  • The Awakening
    by Kate Chopin
    ISBN 055321330X (0-553-21330-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief  novel so disturbed critics and the public that it  was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read  and admired, The Awakening has  been hailed as an early vision of woman's  emancipation. This sensuous book tells of a woman's  abandonment of her family, her seduction, and her  awakening to desires and passions that threated to  consumer her. Originally entitled "A Solitary  Soul," this portrait of twenty-eight-year-old  Edna Pontellier is a landmark in American fiction,  rooted firmly in the romantic tradition of Herman  Melville and Emily Dickinson. Here, a woman in  search of self-discovery turns away from convention and  society, and toward the primal, from convention  and society, and toward the primal, irresistibly  attracted to nature and the senses The  Awakening , Kate Chopin's last novel, has been  praised by Edmund Wilson as "beautifully  written." And Willa Cather described its style as  "exquisite," "sensitive," and  "iridescent." This edition of The  Awakening also includes a selection of  short stories by Kate Chopin. "This seems to me a  higher order of feminism than repeating the story  of woman as victim... Kate Chopin gives her female  protagonist the central role, normally reserved  for Man, in a meditation on identity and culture,  consciousness and art." -- From the  introduction by Marilynne Robinson. [via]

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  • Babbitt
    by Sinclair Lewis
    ISBN 0553214861 (0-553-21486-1)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    When Babbitt was first published in 1922, fans gleefully hailed its scathing portrait of a crass, materialistic nation; critics denounced it as an unfair skewering of the American businessman. Sparking heated literary debate, Babbitt became a controversial classic, securing Sinclair Lewis's place as one of America's preeminent social commentators.

    Businessman George F. Babbitt loves the latest appliances, brand names, and the Republican Party. In fact, he loves being a solid citizen even more than he loves his wife. But Babbitt comes to resent the middle-class trappings he has worked so hard to acquire. Realizing that his life is devoid of meaning, he grows determined to transcend his trivial existence and search for greater purpose. Raising thought-provoking questions while yielding hilarious consequences, and just as relevant today as ever, Babbitt's quest for meaning forces us to confront the Babbitt in ourselves-and ponder what it truly means to be an American. [via]

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  • The Beautiful and Damned
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    ISBN 0553214705 (0-553-21470-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    Following the great critical and financial success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Beautiful and the Damned in 1922. An immediate success upon its first publication, Fitzgerald's second novel is a dazzling portrait of love and life among the beautiful people. Through the story of two newlyweds, Anthony Patch of New York and Gloria Gilbert of Kansas City, Fitzgerald flawlessly captures the heady atmosphere and jaded values of the Jazz Age. Patch, expecting to become the sole heir to his grandfather's millions, embraces a life of endless parties and intellectual pretensions. In Gloria, he finds an exquisite ornament and a passionate lover. The couple whirls through days that mirror Fitzgerald's own--a fast life amid a smart set for which there is never enough cash. Beginning with wit and clever repartee, The Beautiful and the Damned quickly becomes a scathing chronicle of a dying marriage and a hedonistic society where beauty is all too fleeting. Through the character of Richard Caramel, a successful hack writer whose talent fails as he prospers, Fitzgerald caricatures himself. But today's readers will find an even more poignant self-portrait of Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda in Anthony and Gloria, a couple whose days of wine and roses fade quickly toward a tragic end. [via]

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  • Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar
    The Bell Jar
    by Sylvia Plath, Frances McCullough
    ISBN 0553260081 (0-553-26008-1)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • Beneath the Wheel
    by Hermann Hesse
    ISBN 055323837X (0-553-23837-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    In Hermann Hesse's Beneath the Wheel, Hans Giebernath lives among the dull and respectable townsfolk of a sleepy Black Forest village. When he is discovered to be an exceptionally gifted student, the entire community presses him onto a path of serious scholarship. Hans dutifully follows the regimen of study and endless examinations, his success rewarded only with more crushing assignments. When Hans befriends a rebellious young poet, he begins to imagine other possibilities outside the narrowly circumscribed world of the academy. Finally sent home after a nervous breakdown, Hans is revived by nature and romance, and vows never to return to the gray conformity of the academic system.
    [via]

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  • Beyond Good and Evil
    by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Judith Norman
    ISBN 0521779138 (0-521-77913-8)
    Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

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    Book summary:

    This is a major work by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings have been deeply influential on subsequent generations of philosophers. It is offered here in a new translation by Judith Norman, with an introduction by Rolf Peter Horstmann that places the work in its historical and philosophical context. [via]

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  • Bleak House
    by Charles Dickens
    ISBN 0553212230 (0-553-21223-0)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Bleak House is a satirical look at the Byzantine legal system in London as it consumes the minds and talents of the greedy and nearly destroys the lives of innocents--a contemporary tale indeed. Dickens's tale takes us from the foggy dank streets of London and the maze of the Inns of Court to the peaceful countryside of England. Likewise, the characters run from murderous villains to virtuous girls, from a devoted lover to a "fallen woman," all of whom are affected by a legal suit in which there will, of course, be no winner. The first-person narrative related by the orphan Esther is particularly sweet. The articulate reading by the acclaimed British actor Paul Scofield, whose distinctive broad English accent lends just the right degree of sonority and humor to the text, brings out the color in this classic social commentary disguised as a Victorian drama. However, to abridge Dickens is, well, a Dickensian task, the results of which make for a story in which the author's convoluted plot lines and twists of fate play out in what seems to be a fast-forward format. Listeners must pay close attention in order to keep up with the multiple narratives and cast of curious characters, including the memorable Inspector Bucket and Mr. Guppy. Fortunately, the publisher provides a partial list of characters on the inside jacket. (Running time: 3 hours; 2 cassettes) [via]

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  • The Brothers Karamazov: Library Edition
    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    ISBN 0553212168 (0-553-21216-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    In 1880 Dostoevsky completed The Brothers Karamazov, the literary effort for which he had been preparing all his life. Compelling, profound, complex, it is the story of a patricide and of the four sons who each had a motive for murder: Dmitry, the sensualist, Ivan, the intellectual; Alyosha, the mystic; and twisted, cunning Smerdyakov, the bastard child. Frequently lurid, nightmarish, always brilliant, the novel plunges the reader into a sordid love triangle, a pathological obsession, and a gripping courtroom drama. But throughout the whole, Dostoevsky searhes for the truth--about man, about life, about the existence of God. A terrifying answer to man's eternal questions, this monumental work remains the crowning achievement of perhaps the finest novelist of all time. [via]

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  • Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: Cancer Ward
    Cancer Ward
    by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    ISBN 0553206559 (0-553-20655-9)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • Candide
    by Francois M. Voltaire
    ISBN 0553211668 (0-553-21166-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    Political satire doesn't age well, but occasionally a diatribe contains enough art and universal mirth to survive long after its timeliness has passed. Candide is such a book. Penned by that Renaissance man of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, Candide is steeped in the political and philosophical controversies of the 1750s. But for the general reader, the novel's driving principle is clear enough: the idea (endemic in Voltaire's day) that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and apparent folly, misery and strife are actually harbingers of a greater good we cannot perceive, is hogwash.

    Telling the tale of the good-natured but star-crossed Candide (think Mr. Magoo armed with deadly force), as he travels the world struggling to be reunited with his love, Lady Cunegonde, the novel smashes such ill-conceived optimism to splinters. Candide's tutor, Dr. Pangloss, is steadfast in his philosophical good cheer, in the face of more and more fantastic misfortune; Candide's other companions always supply good sense in the nick of time. Still, as he demolishes optimism, Voltaire pays tribute to human resilience, and in doing so gives the book a pleasant indomitability common to farce. Says one character, a princess turned one-buttocked hag by unkind Fate: "I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most melancholy propensities; for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one's very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?"--Michael Gerber [via]

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  • Colour of Magic
    by Terry Pratchett
    ISBN 0552124753 (0-552-12475-3)
    Softcover, Trafalgar Square

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    Book summary:

    paperback, vg++ [via]

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  • Common Sense: Library Edition
    by Thomas Paine, Diana Gabaldon
    ISBN 0553214659 (0-553-21465-9)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    "These are the times that try men's souls," begins Thomas Paine's first Crisis paper, the impassioned pamphlet that helped ignite the American Revolution. Published in Philadelphia in January of 1776, Common Sense sold 150,000 copies almost immediately. A powerful piece of propaganda, it attacked the idea of a hereditary monarchy, dismissed the chance for reconciliation with England, and outlined the economic benefits of independence while espousing equality of rights among citizens. Paine fanned a flame that was already burning, but many historians argue that his work unified dissenting voices and persuaded patriots that the American Revolution was not only necessary, but an epochal step in world history. [via]

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  • The Communist Manifesto
    by Friedrich Engels, K. Marx, Vladimir Pozner
    ISBN 0553214063 (0-553-21406-3)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    "A spectre is haunting Europe," Karl Marx and Frederic Engels wrote in 1848, "the spectre of Communism." This new edition of The Communist Manifesto, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its publication, includes an introduction by renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm which reminds us of the document's continued relevance. Marx and Engels's critique of capitalism and its deleterious effect on all aspects of life, from the increasing rift between the classes to the destruction of the nuclear family, has proven remarkably prescient. Their spectre, manifested in the Manifesto's vivid prose, continues to haunt the capitalist world, lingering as a ghostly apparition even after the collapse of those governments which claimed to be enacting its principles. [via]

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  • Miller, Arthur: Crucible
    Crucible
    by Arthur Miller
    ISBN 0553206575 (0-553-20657-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • The Crying of Lot Forty-Nine
    by Thomas Pynchon
    ISBN 0553236911 (0-553-23691-1)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge.

    [via]

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  • Darkness at Noon
    by Arthur Koestler, Daphne Hardy
    ISBN 0553265954 (0-553-26595-4)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Darkness At Noon stands as an unequaled fictional portrayal of the nightmare politics of our time. Its hero is an aging revolutionary, imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which he has dedicated his life. As the pressure to confess preposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that embodies the terrible ironies and human betrayals of a totalitarian movement masking itself as an instrument of deliverance. Almost unbearably vivid in its depiction of one man's solitary agony, Darkness At Noon asks questions about ends and means that have relevance not only for the past but for the perilous present. It isas the Times Literary Supplement has declared"A remarkable book, a grimly fascinating interpretation of the logic of the Russian Revolution, indeed of all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellectualized drama..." [via]

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  • Dhalgren
    by Samuel R. Delany
    ISBN 0553253913 (0-553-25391-3)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    What is Dhalgren? Dhalgren is one of the greatest novels of 20th-century American literature. Dhalgren is one of the all-time bestselling science fiction novels. Dhalgren may be read with equal validity as SF, magic realism, or metafiction. Dhalgren is controversial, challenging, and scandalous. Dhalgren is a brilliant novel about sex, gender, race, class, art, and identity.

    A mysterious disaster has stricken the midwestern American city of Bellona, and its aftereffects are disturbing: a city block burns down and is intact a week later; clouds cover the sky for weeks, then part to reveal two moons; a week passes for one person when only a day passes for another. The catastrophe is confined to Bellona, and most of the inhabitants have fled. But others are drawn to the devastated city, among them the Kid, a white/American Indian man who can't remember his own name. The Kid is emblematic of those who live in the new Bellona, who are the young, the poor, the mad, the violent, the outcast--the marginalized.

    Dhalgren is many things, but instantly accessible isn't one of them. While most of this big, ambitious, deeply detailed novel is beautifully pellucid, the opening pages will be difficult for some: the novel starts with the second half of an incomplete sentence, in the viewpoint of a man who doesn't know who he is. If you find the early pages rough going, push on; the story soon becomes clear and fascinating. But--fair warning--the central nature of the disaster, of its strange devastations and disruptions, remains a puzzle for many readers, sometimes after several readings.

    Spoiler warning: If you want to figure out the secret of the novel as you read Dhalgren, then stop reading this review right now! If you want to know the secret before you start, this is what the novel is about: the experience of existence inside a novel. Time passes differently for different characters. A river changes location. Stairs change their number. The Kid looks in a mirror and sees not himself, but someone who looks an awful lot like Samuel R. Delany. Central images include mirrors, lenses, and prisms, devices that focus, reflect--and distort. The Kid fills a notebook with a journal that may be Dhalgren, and is uncertain if he has written much, or any, of it. The characters don't know they're in a novel, but they know something is wrong. Dhalgren explores the relationship between characters and author (or, perhaps, characters, "author," and author).

    The final chapter can be even tougher going than the opening pages, with its viewpoint change and its stretches of braided narrative--and the novel ends with the beginning of an unfinished sentence. But the last chapter becomes clear as you persevere; and when you get to that unfinished closing line, turn to the first line of the novel to finish the sentence and close the narrative circle. --Cynthia Ward [via]

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  • Distraction
    by Bruce Sterling
    ISBN 0553104845 (0-553-10484-5)
    Hardcover, Bantam Books

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    It's the year 2044, and America has gone to hell. A disenfranchised U.S. Air Force base has turned to highway robbery in order to pay the bills. Vast chunks of the population live nomadic lives fueled by cheap transportation and even cheaper computer power. Warfare has shifted from the battlefield to the global networks, and China holds the information edge over all comers. Global warming is raising sea level, which in turn is drowning coastal cities. And the U.S. government has become nearly meaningless. This is the world that Oscar Valparaiso would have been born into, if he'd actually been born instead of being grown in vitro by black market baby dealers. Oscar's bizarre genetic history (even he's not sure how much of him is actually human) hasn't prevented him from running one of the most successful senatorial races in history, getting his man elected by a whopping majority. But Oscar has put himself out of a job, since he'd only be a liability to his boss in Washington due to his problematic background. Instead, Oscar finds himself shuffled off to the Collaboratory, a Big Science pork barrel project that's run half by corruption and half by scientific breakthroughs. At first it seems to be a lose-lose proposition for Oscar, but soon he has his "krewe" whipped into shape and ready to take control of events. Now if only he can straighten out his love life and solve a worldwide crisis that no one else knows exists. --Craig E. Engler [via]

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  • Dubliners
    by James Joyce
    ISBN 0553213806 (0-553-21380-6)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    James Joyce has been hailed as one of the great literary rebels of our time. He rebelled against social and literary conventions, against Catholicism, and against Dublin, the city at the center of this magnificent collection of stories. In Dubliners, Joyce paints vivid portraits of the denizens of the city of his birth, from the young boy encountering death in the fist story, "The Sisters," to the middle-aged Gabriel of the haunting final story, "The Dead." This collection is both unflinchingly realistic portrait of "dear dirty Dublin" and, as Joyce himself explained, a window through which his countrymen could get "one good look at themselves." [via]

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  • Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
    by Tom Robbins
    ISBN 055326611X (0-553-26611-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    Free-spirited hitchhiker sissy henshaw makes her way across the confused and paranoid america of the 1970s, gathering knowledge and experience, friends and lovers, and all sorts of unusual acquaintances. Reissue. Movie tie-in [via]

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  • Winter, Milo: Fairy Tales
    Fairy Tales
    by Milo Winter, H.C. Andersen, Valdemar Edward Paulsen
    ISBN 0528821679 (0-528-82167-9)
    Hardcover, Rand McNally

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  • Robbins, Tom: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
    Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
    by Tom Robbins
    ISBN 0553107755 (0-553-10775-5)
    Hardcover, Bantam Books

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  • The First Circle
    by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
    ISBN 0553246232 (0-553-24623-2)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    A major literary event 50 years in the making:In the First Circle is the first complete English translation of Nobel Prizewinner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns best novel (Washington Post). With an introduction by Edward Erickson, this work by the author of The Gulag Archipelago is the story of a brilliant mathematician who finds himself locked in a Moscow prison filled with the countrys brightest minds and must decide whether to aid Stalins repressive state. [via]

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  • Flowers for Algernon
    by Daniel Keyes
    ISBN 0553274503 (0-553-27450-3)
    Softcover, Random House Childrens Books

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    Daniel Keyes wrote little SF but is highly regarded for one classic, Flowers for Algernon. As a 1959 novella it won a Hugo Award; the 1966 novel-length expansion won a Nebula. The Oscar-winning movie adaptation Charly (1968) also spawned a 1980 Broadway musical.

    Following his doctor's instructions, engaging simpleton Charlie Gordon tells his own story in semi-literate "progris riports." He dimly wants to better himself, but with an IQ of 68 can't even beat the laboratory mouse Algernon at maze-solving:

    I dint feel bad because I watched Algernon and I lernd how to finish the amaze even if it takes me along time.

    I dint know mice were so smart.

    Algernon is extra-clever thanks to an experimental brain operation so far tried only on animals. Charlie eagerly volunteers as the first human subject. After frustrating delays and agonies of concentration, the effects begin to show and the reports steadily improve: "Punctuation, is? fun!" But getting smarter brings cruel shocks, as Charlie realizes that his merry "friends" at the bakery where he sweeps the floor have all along been laughing at him, never with him. The IQ rise continues, taking him steadily past the human average to genius level and beyond, until he's as intellectually alone as the old, foolish Charlie ever was--and now painfully aware of it. Then, ominously, the smart mouse Algernon begins to deteriorate...

    Flowers for Algernon is a timeless tear-jerker with a terrific emotional impact. --David Langford [via]

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  • Frankenstein
    by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
    ISBN 0553212478 (0-553-21247-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    Frankenstein, loved by many decades of readers and praised by such eminent literary critics as Harold Bloom, seems hardly to need a recommendation. If you haven't read it recently, though, you may not remember the sweeping force of the prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multilayered doppelgänger themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece. As fantasy writer Jane Yolen writes of this (the reviewer's favorite) edition, "The strong black and whites of the main text [illustrations] are dark and brooding, with unremitting shadows and stark contrasts. But the central conversation with the monster--who owes nothing to the overused movie image & but is rather the novel's charnel-house composite--is where [Barry] Moser's illustrations show their greatest power ... The viewer can all but smell the powerful stench of the monster's breath as its words spill out across the page. Strong book-making for one of the world's strongest and most remarkable books." Includes an illuminating afterword by Joyce Carol Oates. [via]

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  • Toffler, Alvin: Future Shock
    Future Shock
    by Alvin Toffler
    ISBN 0553277375 (0-553-27737-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    Paperback. [via]

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  • Great Expectations
    by Charles Dickens
    ISBN 0553213423 (0-553-21342-3)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    In the marshy mists of a village churchyard, a  tiny orphan boy named Pip is suddenly terrified by a  shivering, limping convict on the run. Years  later, a supremely arrogant young Pip boards the coach  to London where, by the grace of a mysterious  benefactor, he will join the ranks of the idle rich  and "become a gentleman." Finally, in the  luminous mists of the village at evening, Pip the  man meets Estella, his dazzingly beautiful  tormentor, in a ruined garden--and lays to rest all the  heartaches and illusions that his "great  expectations" have brought upon him. Dickens's  biographer, Edgar H. Johnson, has said that--except  for the author's last-minute tampering with his  original ending--Great Expectations  is "the most perfectly constructed and  perfectly written of all Dickens's works." In John  Irving's Introduction to this edition, the  novelist takes the view that Dickens's revised ending is  "far more that mirror of the quality of trust in  the novel as a whole." Both versions of the  ending are printed here. [via]

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  • The Grits Guide to Life : Girls Raised in the South
    by Deborah Ford, Edie Hand, Fannie Flagg
    ISBN 0525947264 (0-525-94726-4)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    They're called Sweet Potato Queens, Steel Magnolias, Ya-Ya Sisters, and Southern Belles, but at heart they're just plain Grits-Girls Raised In The South! Now, the woman who turned this clever acronym into a symbol of Southern pride reveals the code behind the distinctive-and irresistible-style of the Southern woman. Equal parts sweet sincerity and sharp, sly humor, The Grits Guide to Life is chock-full of Southern charm: advice, true-life stories from honest-to-god "Grits," recipes, humor, quotable wisdom, and more. Readers will learn vital lessons, including: how to eat watermelon in a sundress; how to drink like a Southern lady (sip . . . a lot); and the real meaning of PMS (Precious Moody Southerner).

    From the co-author's true story of inheriting Elvis's grandmother's pearls, to tips on tending your magnolia tree, this charming book is destined to become a bible for the Southern girl-whether born and bred, expatriated, or adoptive-and her many admirers. [via]

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  • Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings
    by Jonathan Swift
    ISBN 055321232X (0-553-21232-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    Considered one of English literature's first and greatest satirists, Jonathan Swift possessed a timeless genius for pointing out the foibles of human nature that still has the power to provoke, amuse, and, at times, even outrage our modern sensibilities. This representative collection of Swift's major writings includes the complete Gulliver's Travels as well as A Tale of a Tub, "The Battle of the Books," "A Modest Proposal," "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity," "The Bickerstaff Papers," and many more of his brilliantly satirical works. Here too are selections from Swift's poetry and portions of his Journal to Stella. Swift's savage ridicule, corrosive wit, and sparkling humor are fully displayed in this comprehensive collection. [via]

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  • The House of the Spirits
    by Isabel Allende
    ISBN 0553273914 (0-553-27391-4)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Chilean writer Isabel Allende's classic novel is both a richly symbolic family saga and the riveting story of an unnamed Latin American country's turbulent history. In a triumph of magic realism, Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants. The Trueba family's passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent social change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds. The House of the Spirits not only brings another nation's history thrillingly to life, but also makes its people's joys and anguishes wholly our own. [via]

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  • The Illustrated Man
    by Ray Bradbury
    ISBN 055327449X (0-553-27449-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    That The Illustrated Man has remained in print since being published in 1951 is fair testimony to the universal appeal of Ray Bradbury's work. Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley Wiater [via]

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  • The Invisible Man
    by H. G. Wells
    ISBN 0553213539 (0-553-21353-9)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Spine-tingling and entertaining, The Invisible Man is a science fiction classicand a penetrating, unflinching look into the heart of human nature. To its author, H. G. Wells, the novel was as compelling as a good gripping dream. But to generations of readers, the terrible and evil experiment of the demented scientist, Griffin, has conveyed a chilling nightmare of believable horror. An atmosphere of ever-increasing suspense begins with the arrival of a mysterious stranger at an English village inn and builds relentlessly to the stark terror of a victim pursued by a maniacal invisible man. The result is a masterwork: a dazzling display of the brilliant imagination, psychological insight, and literary craftsmanship that made H. G. Wells one of the most influential writers of his time. [via]

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  • Ishmael
    by Daniel Quinn
    ISBN 0553078755 (0-553-07875-5)
    Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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    Winner of the 1992 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, Ishmael is a unique and captivating novel that has earned a large and passionate following among readers and critics worldwide. One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, it is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla--a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankind's place in it. For this special fifth anniversary edition, the author has written a frank and informative introduction in which he discusses the worldwide Ishmael phenomenon. Timed to coincide with the eagerly anticipated publication of My Ishmael and the release of the movie Ishmael, this special edition is sure to attract new readers and reinforce Daniel Quinn's reputation as one of the most compelling and visionary writers of our age. [via]

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  • Jane Eyre
    by Charlotte Bronte, Kathy Mitchell
    ISBN 0553211404 (0-553-21140-4)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Charlotte Brontë's impassioned novel is the love story of Jane Eyre, a plain yet spirited governess, and her employer, the arrogant, brooding Mr. Rochester. Published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell, the book heralded a new kind of heroine-one whose virtuous integrity, keen intellect, and tireless perseverance broke through class barriers to win equal stature with the man she loved. Hailed by William Makepeace Thackeray as "the masterwork of a great genius," Jane Eyre is still regarded, over a century later, as one of the finest novels in English literature. [via]

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  • Jude
    by Thomas Hardy
    ISBN 0553211919 (0-553-21191-9)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    In 1895 Hardys final novel, the great tale of Jude the Obscure, sent shock waves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the institutions of marriage, education, and religion. But he had, in fact, created a deeply moral work. The stonemason Jude Fawley is a dreamer; his is a tragedy of unfulfilled aims. With his tantalizing cousin Sue Bridehead, the last and most extraordinary of Hardys heroines, Jude takes on the worldand discovers, tragically, its brutal indifference.

    The most powerful expression of Hardys philosophy, and a profound exploration of mans essential loneliness, Jude the Obscure is a great and beautiful book. His style touches sublimity. T. S. Eliot [via]

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  • King Richard II: The Life and Death of King Richard the Second the First Folio of 1623 and a Parallel Modern Edition
    by William Shakespeare
    ISBN 0553213032 (0-553-21303-2)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    One of Shakespeare's finest history plays, Richard II deals with one of the most sensitive and politically explosive issues of its day--the rights and wrongs of deposing a legitimately appointed king. Forerunner to the two parts of Henry IV, the play deals with the abdication of King Richard II in 1399, the subsequent succession of Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV, and Richard's death in the spring of 1400. But the play has been celebrated above and beyond its stature as historical drama. Richard II begins with a portrait of Richard as a pompous, arrogant and self-regarding sovereign, with little sense of his people or his political responsibilities. As he consistently miscalculates in his attempts to destroy Bolingbroke, and watches his own power wane, he becomes a far more appealing, Hamlet-like figure, more interested in "talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs", and "sad stories of the death of kings". Richard's speeches become increasingly lyrical and poetic as his supporters desert him, until he finally takes on the stature of the pilloried Christ in the climax of the play, the deposition scene, one of the most politically risky scenes in all of Shakespeare. The play remains most famous for John of Gaunt's "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle" speech, but historians believe that the play was also performed in the streets of London in 1601 in support of the Earl of Essex's attempt to depose Elizabeth I. Whilst the plot failed, it showed the power of the theatre of the time, and the politically controversial nature of Shakespeare's play. --Jerry Brotton [via]

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  • A Little Princess
    by Frances Hodgson Burnett, E. L. Konigsburg
    ISBN 053116991X (0-531-16991-X)
    Hardcover, Franklin Watts

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    A Little Princess (Bantam Classic) [Paperback] Frances Hodgson Burnett [via]

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  • Madame Bovary
    by Gustave Flaubert
    ISBN 0553213415 (0-553-21341-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    This exquisite novel tells the story of one of the most compelling heroines in modern literature--Emma Bovary. Unhappily married to a devoted, clumsy provincial doctor, Emma revolts against the ordinariness of her life by pursuing voluptuous dreams of ecstasy and love. But her sensuous and sentimental desires lead her only to suffering corruption and downfall. A brilliant psychological portrait, Madame Bovary searingly depicts the human mind in search of transcendence. Who is Madame Bovary? Flaubert's answer to this question was superb: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." Acclaimed as a masterpiece upon its publication in 1857, the work catapulted Flaubert to the ranks of the world's greatest novelists. This volume, with its fine translation by Lowell Bair, a perceptive introduction by Leo Bersani, and a complete supplement of essays and critical comments, is the indispensable Madame Bovary. [via]

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  • Mansfield Park
    by Jane Austen
    ISBN 0553212761 (0-553-21276-1)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Though Jane Austen was writing at a time when Gothic potboilers such as Ann Ward Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto were all the rage, she never got carried away by romance in her own novels. In Austen's ordered world, the passions that ruled Gothic fiction would be horridly out of place; marriage was, first and foremost, a contract, the bedrock of polite society. Certain rules applied to who was eligible and who was not, how one courted and married and what one expected afterwards. To flout these rules was to tear at the basic fabric of society, and the consequences could be terrible. Each of the six novels she completed in her lifetime are, in effect, comic cautionary tales that end happily for those characters who play by the rules and badly for those who don't. In Mansfield Park, for example, Austen gives us Fanny Price, a poor young woman who has grown up in her wealthy relatives' household without ever being accepted as an equal. The only one who has truly been kind to Fanny is Edmund Bertram, the younger of the family's two sons.

    Into this Cinderella existence comes Henry Crawford and his sister, Mary, who are visiting relatives in the neighborhood. Soon Mansfield Park is given over to all kinds of gaiety, including a daring interlude spent dabbling in theatricals. Young Edmund is smitten with Mary, and Henry Crawford woos Fanny. Yet these two charming, gifted, and attractive siblings gradually reveal themselves to be lacking in one essential Austenian quality: principle. Without good principles to temper passion, the results can be disastrous, and indeed, Mansfield Park is rife with adultery, betrayal, social ruin, and ruptured friendships. But this is a comedy, after all, so there is also a requisite happy ending and plenty of Austen's patented gentle satire along the way. Describing the switch in Edmund's affections from Mary to Fanny, she writes: "I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that everyone may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people." What does not vary is the pleasure with which new generations come to Jane Austen. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • The Martian Chronicles
    by Ray Bradbury
    ISBN 0553278223 (0-553-27822-3)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    From "Rocket Summer" to "The Million-Year Picnic," Ray Bradbury's stories of the colonization of Mars form an eerie mesh of past and future. Written in the 1940s, the chronicles drip with nostalgic atmosphere--shady porches with tinkling pitchers of lemonade, grandfather clocks, chintz-covered sofas. But longing for this comfortable past proves dangerous in every way to Bradbury's characters--the golden-eyed Martians as well as the humans. Starting in the far-flung future of 1999, expedition after expedition leaves Earth to investigate Mars. The Martians guard their mysteries well, but they are decimated by the diseases that arrive with the rockets. Colonists appear, most with ideas no more lofty than starting a hot-dog stand, and with no respect for the culture they've displaced.

    Bradbury's quiet exploration of a future that looks so much like the past is sprinkled with lighter material. In "The Silent Towns," the last man on Mars hears the phone ring and ends up on a comical blind date. But in most of these stories, Bradbury holds up a mirror to humanity that reflects a shameful treatment of "the other," yielding, time after time, a harvest of loneliness and isolation. Yet the collection ends with hope for renewal, as a colonist family turns away from the demise of the Earth towards a new future on Mars. Bradbury is a master fantasist and The Martian Chronicles are an unforgettable work of art. --Blaise Selby [via]

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  • Men at Arms: A Novel of Discworld
    by Terry Pratchett
    ISBN 0552140287 (0-552-14028-7)
    Softcover, Trafalgar Square

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    Another wild romp through Discworld! Corporal Carrot, a young dwarf, is newly in charge of the recruits guarding Ankh-Morpork. Edward, the 37th Lord d'Eath, has just discovered that Ankh-Morpork, kingless for generations, has a sovereign ruler, who must be convinced that he is, in fact, the King. The fate of Ankh-Morpork rides on a young man's courage, an ancient sword's magic, and a three-legged poodle's bladder. [via]

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  • Metamorphosis
    by Franz Kafka
    ISBN 0553213695 (0-553-21369-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from  unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his  bed into a monstrous vermin." With this  startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first  sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The  Metamorphosis. It is the story of a  young man who, transformed overnight into a giant  beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to  his family, an outsider in his own home, a  quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing -- though  absurdly comic -- meditation on human feelings of  inadequecy, guilt, and isolation, The  Metamorphosis has taken its place as one  of the mosst widely read and influential works of  twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote,  "Kafka is important to us because his predicament  is the predicament of modern man." [via]

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  • The Metamorphosis: Including Selections from Kafka's Letters and Diaries and Critical Essays
    by Franz Kafka, Stanley Corngold
    ISBN 055321196X (0-553-21196-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis is one of the great novellas of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. This story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking up to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect-like creature. [via]

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  • Middlemarch
    by George Eliot
    ISBN 0553211803 (0-553-21180-3)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Middlemarch [Paperback] [via]

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  • Nana
    by Emile Zola
    ISBN 0553214403 (0-553-21440-3)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    The story of Nana, a child of the Parisian slums, actress, and courtesan who uses her sexuality to amass great wealth and ruin her lovers, offers a shattering portrait of decadence among the wealthy and powerful of nineteenth-century France. Reissue. [via]

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  • Narcissus and Goldmund
    by Hermann Hesse
    ISBN 0553275860 (0-553-27586-0)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Hesse's novel of two medieval men, one quietly  content with his religion and monastic life, the  other in fervent search of more worldly salvation.  This conflict between flesh and spirit, between  emotional and contemplative man, was a life study for  Hesse. It is a theme that transcends all time.  The Hesse Phenomenon "has turned into a vogue,  the vogue into a torrent. . .He has appealed both  to. . . an underground and to an establishment. .  .and to the disenchanted young sharing his contempt  for our industrial  civilization."-- The New York Times Book Review [via]

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  • Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra A Book For All And None
    by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Not Available, Robert B. Pippin
    ISBN 0521602610 (0-521-60261-0)
    Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

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    Book summary:

    Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and his story of the wandering Zarathustra has had enormous influence on subsequent culture. Nietzsche uses a mixture of homilies, parables, epigrams and dreams to introduce some of his most striking doctrines, including the Overman, nihilism, and the eternal return of the same. This edition offers a new translation by Adrian Del Caro which restores the original versification of Nietzsche's text and captures its poetic brilliance. Robert Pippin's introduction discusses many of the most important interpretative issues raised by the work, including who is Zarathustra and what kind of 'hero' is he and what is the philosophical significance of the work's literary form? The volume will appeal to all readers interested in one of the most original and inventive works of modern philosophy. [via]

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  • Northanger Abbey
    by Barbara M. Benedict, Deirdre Le Faye
    ISBN 0521824192 (0-521-82419-2)
    Hardcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

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    Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.

    Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • Northanger Abbey
    by Jane Austen
    ISBN 0553211978 (0-553-21197-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.

    Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • Oliver Twist
    by Charles Dickens
    ISBN 0553211021 (0-553-21102-1)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    Classic American Literature, Literary Studies [via]

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  • One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich
    by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
    ISBN 0553247778 (0-553-24777-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Solzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend. [via]

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  • Kosinski, Jerzy: Painted Bird
    Painted Bird
    by Jerzy Kosinski
    ISBN 0553265202 (0-553-26520-2)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • The Painted Word
    by Tom Wolfe
    ISBN 0553273795 (0-553-27379-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    In 1975, after having put radical chic and '60s counterculture to the satirical torch, Tom Wolfe turned his attention to the contemporary art world. The patron saint (and resident imp) of New Journalism couldn't have asked for a better subject. Here was a hotbed of pretension, nitwit theorizing, social climbing, and money, money, money--all Wolfe had to do was sharpen his tools and get to work. He did! Much of The Painted Word is a superb burlesque on that modern mating ritual whereby artists get to despise their middle-class audience and accommodate it at the same time. The painter, Wolfe writes, "had to dedicate himself to the quirky god Avant-Garde. He had to keep one devout eye peeled for the new edge on the blade of the wedge of the head on the latest pick thrust of the newest exploratory probe of this fall's avant-garde Breakthrough of the Century.... At the same time he had to keep his other eye cocked to see if anyone in le monde was watching."

    The other bone Wolfe has to pick is with the proliferation of art theory, particularly the sort purveyed by postwar colossi like Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, and Leo Steinberg. Decades after the heyday of abstract expressionism, these guys make pretty easy targets. What could be more absurd, after all, than endless Jesuitical disputes about the flatness of the picture plane? So most of them get a highly comical spanking from the author. It's worth pointing out, of course, that Wolfe paints with a broad (as it were) brush. If he's skewering the entire army of artistic pretenders in a single go, there's no room to admit that Jasper Johns or Willem DeKooning might actually have some talent. But as he would no doubt admit, The Painted Word isn't about the history of art. It's about the history of taste and middlebrow acquisition--and nobody has chronicled these two topics as hilariously or accurately as Tom Wolfe. --James Marcus [via]

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  • Past Mortem
    by Ben Elton
    ISBN 055215265X (0-552-15265-X)
    Softcover, Black Swan

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    In romantic desperation, mild-mannered detective Edward Newson logged on to the "Friends Reunited" website searching for the girlfriends of his youth. As his old class begins to reassemble in cyberspace, the years slip away and old feuds and passions burn hot once more. A school reunion is planned, and as history begins to repeat itself, the past crashes headlong into the present. Past Mortem is both a heart-stopping thriller and a killer comic romance.
    [via]

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  • Riordon, William L.: Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
    Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
    by William L. Riordon
    ISBN 0525471189 (0-525-47118-9)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • The Prince
    by Niccolo Machiavelli
    ISBN 0553212788 (0-553-21278-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    When Lorenzo de' Medici seized control of the Florentine Republic in 1512, he summarily fired the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria and set in motion a fundamental change in the way we think about politics. The person who held the aforementioned office with the tongue-twisting title was none other than Niccolò Machiavelli, who, suddenly finding himself out of a job after 14 years of patriotic service, followed the career trajectory of many modern politicians into punditry. Unable to become an on-air political analyst for a television network, he only wrote a book. But what a book The Prince is. Its essential contribution to modern political thought lies in Machiavelli's assertion of the then revolutionary idea that theological and moral imperatives have no place in the political arena. "It must be understood," Machiavelli avers, "that a prince ... cannot observe all of those virtues for which men are reputed good, because it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion, in order to preserve the state." With just a little imagination, readers can discern parallels between a 16th-century principality and a 20th-century presidency. --Tim Hogan [via]

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  • The Prince and the Pauper
    by Mark Twain
    ISBN 0553212567 (0-553-21256-7)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    Rich with surprise and hilarious adventure, The Prince and the Pauper is a delightful satire of Englands romantic past and a joyful boyhood romp filled with the same tongue-in-cheek irony that sparks the best of Mark Twains tall tales. Two boys, one an urchin from Londons filthy lanes, the other a prince born in a lavish palace, unwittingly trade identities. Thus a bedraggled Prince of Poverty discovers that his private dreams have all come truewhile a pampered Prince of Wales finds himself tossed into a rough-and-tumble world of squalid beggars and villainous thieves. Originally written as a story for children, The Prince and the Pauper is a classic novel for adults as wellthrough its stinging attack on the ageless human folly of attempting to measure true worth by outer appearances. [via]

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  • Pudd'Nhead Wilson
    by Mark Twain
    ISBN 0553211587 (0-553-21158-7)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    At the beginning of Pudd'nhead Wilson a young slave woman, fearing for her infant's son's life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's.  From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels.  On its surface, Pudd'nhead Wilson possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery:  reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution.  Yet it is not a mystery novel.  Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes.  Written in 1894, Pudd'nhead Wilson glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony:  a gem among the author's later works. [via]

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  • Ragtime
    by E.L. Doctorow
    ISBN 0553257366 (0-553-25736-6)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    Published in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century and the First World War.

    The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, New York, at the home of an affluent American family. One lazy Sunday afternoon, the famous escape artist Harry Houdini swerves his car into a telephone pole outside their house. And almost magically, the line between fantasy and historical fact, between real and imaginary characters, disappears. Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata slip in and out of the tale, crossing paths with Doctorow's imagined family and other fictional characters, including an immigrant peddler and a ragtime musician from Harlem whose insistence on a point of justice drives him to revolutionary violence.

    The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torch-bearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices. [via]

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  • Taylor, Mildred D.: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
    Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
    by Mildred D. Taylor
    ISBN 0553244027 (0-553-24402-7)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • A Room With a View
    by E. M. Forster
    ISBN 0553213237 (0-553-21323-7)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England.

    A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson-who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist-Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires. Back in England, she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will decide the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion.

    The enduring delight of this tale of romantic intrigue is rooted in Forster's colorful characters, including outrageous spinsters, pompous clergymen, and outspoken patriots. Written in 1908, A Room with a View is one of E. M. Forster's earliest and most celebrated works. [via]

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  • The Scarlet Letter
    by Nathaniel Hawthorne
    ISBN 0553210092 (0-553-21009-2)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride. [via]

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  • The Scarlet Pimpernel
    by Orczy
    ISBN 0553214020 (0-553-21402-0)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    very good//near new copy--ships quick-nan56 [via]

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  • The Screwtape Letters
    by C. S. Lewis
    ISBN 0553214438 (0-553-21443-8)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    This adaptation of C.S. Lewis's biting satire received a 1999 Grammy nomination for best spoken-word performance, and it's easy to see why--the story fits the format perfectly. It's relatively brief (the unabridged reading takes a mere four hours), and contains only one character--the demon Screwtape, who writes letters to his novice nephew Wormwood, instructing him on how to best tempt his "patient" (a wayward soul on earth) into the bosom of "our Lord below."

    Obviously, the book wasn't written with former Monty Python John Cleese in mind, but it's hard to imagine a better Screwtape. Cleese's voice provides the perfect vehicle for Lewis's dry, razor-edged wit. His uncanny comic timing and ability to milk each phrase for maximum effect betray an infectious enthusiasm for the story. It's clear that he's having a great time reading, and it's impossible not to laugh along with him. This inspired pairing of two of the 20th century's greatest wits makes for a meditation on the dark side of spiritual guidance that's as relevant and funny today as it was in Lewis's war-torn England. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --Andrew Neiland [via]

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  • Siddhartha
    by Hermann Hesse
    ISBN 0553208845 (0-553-20884-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gautama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahman, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. --Brian Bruya [via]

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  • The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living
    by Janet Luhrs
    ISBN 0553067966 (0-553-06796-6)
    Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    Whether you are looking at small solutions for cutting down the stress in your life or taking the big leap toward the simpler life, this book can be your guide.  Janet Luhrs, the nationally recognized founder and editor of the Simple Living Journal, brings together strategies, inspiration, resources, and real-life profiles of people who have slowed down, overcome obstacles, and created richer lives.

    As Janet Luhrs says, "Simple living is about living deliberately.  Simple living is not about austerity, or frugality, or income level.  It's about being fully aware of why you are living your particular life, and knowing that life is one you have chosen thoughtfully.  Simple living is about designing our lives to coincide with our ideals." In The Simple Living Guide Janet Luhrs demonstrates how to live a deliberate, simpler life--and savor it.

    Discover Simple Living approaches to:
    Time Money Inner Simplicity Work Simple Pleasures and Romance Virtues Families Holidays Cooking and Nutrition Health and Exercise Housing Clutter Gardening Travel [via]

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  • Skipping Toward Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America
    by Dan Savage
    ISBN 0525946756 (0-525-94675-6)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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    Dan Savage is irreverent, irrepressible, and opinionated. He's held his own on Politically Incorrect, told tales on This American Life, continues to write a beloved nationally syndicated column-and he's had it up to here (my hand is higher than my head) with the moral, conservative scolds who proclaim America is slouching towards Gomorrah (to use Robert Bork's phrase). Are we really that bad?

    Yes, we are! And in Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Dan Savage eviscerates those cynics as he commits each of the Seven Deadly Sins himself (or tries to) and finds those everyday Americans who take particular delight in their sinful pursuits. Among them:

    Greed: Gamblers reveal secrets behind outrageous fortune.
    Lust: "We're swingers!"-you won't believe who's doing it.
    Gluttony: Dan meets gluttons with attitude at a pro-fat conference.
    Sloth: Leave it to Dan to find a way to celebrate this sin that will get him in trouble with his mother.
    Anger: Texans shoot off some rounds and then listen to Dan fire off on his own about guns, control, and the Second Amendment.
    Envy: Meet the rich-then be glad you're not one of them.
    Pride: You'll never look at a gay pride parade the same way again.

    Couple all this sinning with a unique history of the Seven Deadly Sins, a new interpretation of the biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, and enough Bork, Bennett, Buchanan, et al, bashing to more than make up for their incessant carping, and you've got the most provocative book of the fall. [via]

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  • Delany, Samuel R.: Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand
    Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand
    by Samuel R. Delany
    ISBN 055325149X (0-553-25149-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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  • Still Life With Woodpecker
    by Tom Robbins
    ISBN 0553270931 (0-553-27093-1)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    tom robbins still life with woodpecker [via]

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  • A Tale of Two Cities
    by Charles Dickens
    ISBN 0553211765 (0-553-21176-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    With his sublime parting words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done..." Sidney Carton joins that exhalted group of Dickensian characters who have earned a permanent place in the popular literary imagination. His dramatic story, set against the volcanic fury of the French Revolution and pervaded by the ominous rumble of the death carts trundling toward the guillotine, is the heart-stirring tale of a heroic soul in an age gone mad. A masterful pageant of idealism, love, and adventure -- in a Paris bursting with revolutionary frenzy, and a London alive with anxious anticipation -- A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens's most energetic and exciting works. [via]

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  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    by Thomas Hardy
    ISBN 0553211684 (0-553-21168-4)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Violated by one man, forsaken by another, Tess Durbeyfield is the magnificent and spirited heroine of Thomas Hardy's immortal work. Of all the great English novelists, no one writes more eloquently of tragic destiny than Hardy. With the innocent and powerless victim Tess, he creates profound sympathy for human frailty while passionately indicting the injustices of Victorian society. Scorned by outraged readers upon its publication in 1891, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is today one of the enduring classics of nineteenth-century literature. [via]

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  • Time Machine
    by H. G. Wells
    ISBN 0553213512 (0-553-21351-2)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    When the Time Traveller courageously stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the year 802,700--and everything has changed.  In another, more utopian age, creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony.  The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings--unearth their secret and then retum to his own time--until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.  H.G. Well's famous novel of one man's astonishing journey beyond the conventional limits of the imagination first appeared in 1895.  It won him immediate recognition, and has been regarded ever since as one of the great masterpieces in the literature of science fiction. [via]

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  • Valis
    by Philip K. Dick, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress)
    ISBN 0553141562 (0-553-14156-2)
    Hardcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    The first of Dick's three final novels (the others are Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). Known as science fiction only for lack of a better category, "Valis" takes place in our world and may even be semi-autobiographical. It is a fool's search for God, who turns out to be a virus, a joke, and a mental hologram transmitted from an orbiting satellite.

    The proponent of the novel, Horselover Fat, is thrust into a theological quest when he receives communion in a burst of pink laser light. From the cancer ward of a bay area hospital to the ranch of a fraudulent charismatic religious figure who turns out to have a direct com link with God, Dick leads us down the twisted paths of Gnostic belief, mixed with his own bizarre and compelling philosophy. Truly an eye opening look at the nature of consciousness and divinity. [via]

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  • Vanity Fair
    by William Makepeace Thackery
    ISBN 0553214624 (0-553-21462-4)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle A Novel Without a Hero, Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkertons academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London. Thackerays forte is the bon mot and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale of both picaresque and risqué. Thackery mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical morals. His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observation of the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy&and a mirror with which to view our own times. [via]

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  • Walden and Civil Disobedience
    by Henry David Thoreau
    ISBN 0534522068 (0-534-52206-8)
    Softcover, Wadsworth Pub Co

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    A discourse on appreciating nature and discovering personal identity, Henry David Thoreau wrote WALDEN, after retreating to a small cabin the woods near Walden Pond. Promoting individual thought, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE reveals what is still considered essential American political thought. [via]

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  • The War of the Worlds
    by H. G. Wells
    ISBN 0553213385 (0-553-21338-5)
    Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept

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    Book summary:

    This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..."

    Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler [via]

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  • We
    by Evgenii Ivanovich Zamiatin, Gregory Ziboorg
    ISBN 0525470395 (0-525-47039-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    First published in the West in 1924, We is an adventurous story of the future nameless "numbers," the two-tenths of the world's population that survived the Great Two Hundred Years War. Their food is derived from petroleum, and they believe that their totally restricted existence under the watchful eye of the Benefactor is the ideal. They do not mourn the passing of the creative human spirit; indeed, they are hardly aware it ever existed. More than half a century later, We remains a strange and telling tragicomedy of love and death. The author, an acknowledged satirist in his own right, set the stage for Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984.

    [via]

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  • Wyrd Sisters
    by Terry Pratchett
    ISBN 0552144304 (0-552-14430-4)
    Softcover, Transworld Pub

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    Book summary:

    Adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs, in this tale there is a wicked duke and duchess, a ghost of a murdered king, dim soldiers, strolling players, and a land in peril. But it is three witches who stand between the Kingdom and destruction.
    [via]

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  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    by Robert M. Pirsig
    ISBN 0553277472 (0-553-27747-2)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.

    Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.

    In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya [via]

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  • Zen Art of Motorcycle
    by Robert Pirsig
    ISBN 055325748X (0-553-25748-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    Book summary:

    In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.

    Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.

    In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya [via]

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