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books tagged “tragedy”
books tagged “tragedy”
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Adam Bedeby George EliotISBN 0140431217 (0-14-043121-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Adam Bede'Book summary:Adam Bede is a hardy young carpenter who cares for his aging mother. His one weakness is the woman he loves blindly: the trifling town beauty, Hetty Sorrel, whose only delights are her baubles - and the delusion that the careless Captain Donnithorne may ask for her hand. Betrayed by their innocence, both Adam and Hetty allow their foolish hearts to trap them in a triangle of seduction, murder, and retribution. [via]
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The Americanby Henry James, William SpengemannISBN 0140390820 (0-14-039082-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The American'Book summary:Christopher Newman, a 'self-made' American millionaire in France, falls in love with the beautiful aristocratic Claire de Bellegarde. Her family, however, taken aback by his brash American manner, rejects his proposal of marriage. When Newman discovers a guilty secret in the Bellegardes' past, he confronts a moral dilemma: Should he expose them and thus gain his revenge? James's masterly early work is at once a social comedy, a melodramatic romance and a realistic novel of manners.[via] -
The Ancient Greeksby Moses I. FinleyISBN 0140137076 (0-14-013707-6)
Softcover, Viking Pr
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Angle of Reposeby Wallace StegnerISBN 014016930X (0-14-016930-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Angle of Repose'Book summary:Wallace Stegner's Pultizer Prize-winning novel is a story of discoverypersonal, historical, and geographical. Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit. What emerges is an enthralling portrait of four generations in the life of an American family.[via]More editions of Angle of Repose:
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The Awakening and Selected Storiesby Kate ChopinISBN 0140390227 (0-14-039022-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Awakening and Selected Stories'Book summary:The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers and reviewers with its treatment of sex and suicide. In a departure from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class convention are the themes of this now-classic novel. The book was influenced by French writers ranging from Flaubert to Maupassant, and can be seen as a precursor of the impressionistic, mood-driven novels of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes. Variously called "vulgar, " "unhealthily introspective, " and "morbid, " the book was neglected for several decades, not least because it was written by a "regional" woman writer. This edition also includes selected stories from Kate Chopin's Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, and an introduction and notes by Nina Baym. [via]
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Beat the Turtle Drumby Constance C. Greene, Donna DiamondISBN 0140368507 (0-14-036850-7)
Softcover, Puffin
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Billy Buddby Herman Melville, Harold BeaverISBN 0140430296 (0-14-043029-6)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Billy Budd'Book summary:Melville's short stories are masterpieces. The best are to be appreciated on more than one level and those presented here are rich with symbolism and spiritual depth. Set in 1797, Billy Budd, Foretopman exploits the tension of this period during the war between England and France to create a tale of satanic treachery, tragedy and great pathos that explores human relationships and the inherently ambiguous nature of man-made justice. Tales such as Bartleby, Benito Cereno, The Lightning Rod Man, The Tartarus of Maids or I and My Chimney, show the timeless poetic power of Melville's writing as he consciously uses the disguise of allegory in various ways and to various ends. [via]
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Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Storiesby Herman MelvilleISBN 0140390537 (0-14-039053-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories'Book summary:Stung by the difficult reception of Moby Dick, Herman Melville became obsessed with the difficulties of communicating his vision to readers. His sense of isolation lies at the heart of these later works. "Billy Budd, Sailor" is a classic confrontation between good and evil, and the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himself against a wrongful accusation. The other stories also illuminate the way fictions are created and shared by society. [via]
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Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern Warby Mark BowdenISBN 0140288503 (0-14-028850-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War'Book summary:The acclaimed New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down is "a shocking account of modern warfare . . . gripping and horrifying" (San Francisco Chronicle)
Destined to become a classic of war reporting, Black Hawk Down is Mark Bowden's brilliant account of the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. On October 3rd, 1993, about a hundred elite U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly injured.
Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden's minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written--a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.
"Black Hawk Down ranks among the best books ever written about infantry combat. . . . A descendent of books like The Killer Angels and We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young."-- Bob Shacochis, The New York Observer
"If Black Hawk Down were fiction we'd rank it up there with the best war novels: The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, or The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien."-- Tom Walker, The Denver Post
"Stands in a league with Shelby Foote's stirring Civil War Diary, Shiloh."-- Jim Haner, The Baltimore Sun
"One of the most gripping and authoritative accounts of combat ever written."-- Kirk Spitzer, USA Today
"Amazing . . . One of the most intense, visceral reading experiences imaginable. [via]More editions of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War:
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Brighton Rockby Graham GreeneISBN 0140184929 (0-14-018492-9)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brighton Rock'Book summary:Pinkie, a boy gangster in pre-war Brighton, is a Catholic dedicated to evil and damnation. In a dark setting of double crossing and razor slashes, his ambition and hatreds are horribly fulfilled, until Ida determines to convict him for murder. [via]
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The Cement Gardenby Ian McEwanISBN 0140112820 (0-14-011282-0)
Softcover, Penguin Books
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A Child in Timeby Ian McEwanISBN 0140112464 (0-14-011246-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Collected Fictionsby Andrew Hurley, Jorge Luis BorgesISBN 0140286802 (0-14-028680-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Collected Fictions'Book summary:Although Jorge Luis Borges published his first book in 1923--doling out his own money for a limited edition of Fervor de Buenos Aires--he remained in Argentinian obscurity for almost three decades. In 1951, however, Ficciones appeared in French, followed soon after by an English translation. This collection, which included the cream of the author's short fictions, made it clear that Borges was a world-class (if highly unclassifiable) artist--a brilliant, lyrical miniaturist, who could pose the great questions of existence on the head of pin. And by 1961, when he shared the French Prix Formentor with Samuel Beckett, he seemed suddenly to tower over a half-dozen literary cultures, the very exemplar of modernism with a human face.
By the time of his death in 1986, Borges had been granted old master status by almost everybody (except, alas, the gentlemen of the Swedish Academy). Yet his work remained dispersed among a half-dozen different collections, some of them increasingly hard to find. Andrew Hurley has done readers a great service, then, by collecting all the stories in a single, meticulously translated volume. It's a pleasure to be reminded that Borges's style--poetic, dreamlike, and compounded of innumerable small surprises--was already in place by 1935, when he published A Universal History of Iniquity: "The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it." (Incidentally, the thrifty author later recycled the second of these aphorisms in his classic bit of bookish metaphysics, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teris.") The glories of his middle period, of course, have hardly aged a day. "The Garden of the Forking Paths" remains the best deconstruction of the detective story ever written, even in the post-Auster era, and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" puts the so-called death of the author in pointed, hilarious perspective.
But Hurley's omnibus also brings home exactly how consistent Borges remained in his concerns. As late as 1975, in "Avelino Arredondo," he was still asking (and occasionally even answering) the same riddles about time and its human repository, memory: "For the man in prison, or the blind man, time flows downstream as though down a slight decline. As he reached the midpoint of his reclusion, Arredondo more than once achieved that virtually timeless time. In the first patio there was a wellhead, and at the bottom, a cistern where a toad lived; it never occurred to Arredondo that it was the toad's time, bordering on eternity, that he sought." Throughout, Hurley's translation is crisp and assured (although this reader will always have a soft spot for "Funes, the Memorious" rather than "Funes, His Memory.") And thanks to his efforts, Borgesians will find no better--and no more pleasurable--rebuttal of the author's description of himself as "a shy sort of man who could not bring himself to write short stories." --James Marcus [via]
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A Confederacy of Duncesby John Kennedy TooleISBN 014010934X (0-14-010934-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Confederacy of Dunces'Book summary:"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs."
Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.
Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Lana Lee and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Count of Monte Cristoby Alexandre Dumas, Robin WaterfieldISBN 0140373535 (0-14-037353-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Count of Monte Cristo'Book summary:The Count of Monte Cristo was inspired by an anecdote from the Parisian police archives, a pearl of a story, Dumas called it, 'A rough, shapeless pearl, of no value, waiting for its jeweller'. Edmond Dantè's betrayal, his incarceration in the fortress-prison of If, his search for Abbé Faria's hidden treasure, and his reappearance, now fabulously rich, as the brooding, Byronic and vengeful Count of Monte-Cristo - these are the bare outlines of a book which Thackeray, for one, found impossible to put down. Dumas set his magnificent novel of L'action et l'amour in nineteenth-century metropolitan Paris with interludes in Marseilles and Rome. In it he gave free rein to the sensational - hashish-smoking, vampirism and sex - and to his interest in travel, classical myth, the orient, human psychology and disguises. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-46) is one of the great popular novels of all time, and a landmark in the development of modern popular fiction.[via]More editions of Count of Monte Cristo:
Daisy Millerby Henry JamesISBN 0140067213 (0-14-006721-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Daisy Miller and Other Stories'Book summary:"Daisy Miller" is a fascinating portrait of a young woman from Schenectady, New York, who, traveling in Europe, runs afoul of the socially pretentious American expatriate community in Rome. First published in 1878, the novella brought American novelist Henry James(1843-1916), then living in London, his first international success. Like many of James's early works, it portrays a venturesome American girl in the treacherous waters of European society - a theme that would culminate in his 1881 masterpiece, "The Portrait of a Lady."
On the surface, "Daisy Miller" unfolds a simple story of a young American girl's willful yet innocent flirtation with a young Italian, and its unfortunate consequences. But throughout the narrative, James contrasts American customs and values with European manners and morals in a tale rich in psychological and social insight. A vivid portrayal of Americans abroad and a telling encounter between the values of the Old and New Worlds, "Daisy Miller" is an ideal introduction to the work of one of America's greatest writers of fiction. [via]
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David Copperfieldby Charles Dickens, Jeremy Tambling, H. K. BrowneISBN 0140297383 (0-14-029738-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'David Copperfield'Book summary:This TNT Original miniseries, in partnership with Hallmark Entertainment is based on Charles Dickens's extraordinary story of a young man struggling to find a place in the world of 19th century London. Through his hero Dickens draws openly on his own life, as he recalls his experiences from childhood. The unforgettable characters of Rosa Dartle, Dora, Steerforth, Uriah Heep, and Mr. Micawber, a portrait of Dickens's own father, evoke the mixture of love, nostalgia, and guilt that makes this one of Dickens's most quoted and best-loved novels. [via]
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The Deep End of the Oceanby Jacquelyn MitchardISBN 0140286276 (0-14-028627-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Deep End of the Ocean'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1996: The horror of losing a child is somehow made worse when the case goes unsolved for nearly a decade, reports Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Jacquelyn Mitchard in this searing first novel. In it, 3-year-old Ben Cappadora is kidnapped from a hotel lobby where his mother is checking into her 15th high school reunion. His disappearance tears the family apart and invokes separate experiences of anguish, denial, and self-blame. Marital problems and delinquency in Ben's older brother (in charge of him the day of his kidnapping) ensue. Mitchard depicts the family's friction and torment--along with many gritty realities of family life--with the candor of a journalist and compassion of someone who has seemingly been there. International publishing and movie rights sold fast on this one: It's a blockbuster. [via]
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The Devil's Arithmeticby Jane YolenISBN 0140345353 (0-14-034535-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Draculaby Bram StokerISBN 0140367179 (0-14-036717-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dracula'Book summary:[via]Awareness of Dracula as a masterly gothic thriller has increased ever since its publication in 1897, and the novel is regarded as one of the most seminal horror stories ever written, having inspired countless copycat tales and literary spin-offs. The tale of young Englishman Jonathan Harker's journey to Transylvania, into the very heart of Count Draculas evil realm, is compelling, but it is perhaps the journey of the vampire to Englandand the dangers he poses to Jonathans beloved Minathat is more horrifying. -
East of Edenby John SteinbeckISBN 0140049975 (0-14-004997-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'East of Eden'Book summary:Book [via]
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East of Eden: An Easy Guide to Car Maintenance And Repairby John SteinbeckISBN 0140186395 (0-14-018639-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Edwin Mullhouseby Steven Millhauser, Jeffrey CartwrightISBN 0140077820 (0-14-007782-0)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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Elizabethan Verseby Edward Lucie-SmithISBN 0140420835 (0-14-042083-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Far from the Madding Crowdby Thomas Hardy, Ronald BlytheISBN 0140431268 (0-14-043126-8)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Far from the Madding Crowd'Book summary:This tale of love -- from reckless fervor to selfless constancy -- is firmly rooted in the rich rural byways that Hardy knew so well. Bathsheba Everdene, determined to run the farm that has always belonged to her family, is loved by three men: the local farmer Boldwood, a solid, yet passionate squire; Gabriel Oak, a quiet, devoted shepherd; and fascinating, ruthless Sergeant Troy. In this powerful, dramatic story Bathsheba, capricious and willful, comes to comprehend the true nature of generosity, humility, and, ultimately, love.
This brand-new edition of Far from the Madding Crowd includes all of the material that was censored from Hardy's original 1874 manuscript and is the complete book that the author never saw published. [via]
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Four Tragediesby William ShakespeareISBN 0140434585 (0-14-043458-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Friendly Shakespeareby Norrie EpsteinISBN 0140138862 (0-14-013886-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Friendly Shakespeare'Book summary:"Brings the Bard to the masses, makes his plays accessible, and, well, provides fun for the reader."The New York Times.[via]More editions of The Friendly Shakespeare:
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The Good Soldierby Ford Madox FordISBN 0140180818 (0-14-018081-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Soldier'Book summary:First published in 1915, Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier begins, famously and ominously, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The book then proceeds to confute this pronouncement at every turn, exposing a world less sad than pathetic, and more shot through with hypocrisy and deceit than its incredulous narrator, John Dowell, cares to imagine. Somewhat forgotten as a classic, The Good Soldier has been called everything from the consummate novelist's novel to one of the greatest English works of the century. And although its narrative hook--the philandering of an otherwise noble man--no longer shocks, its unerring cadences and doleful inevitabilities proclaim an enduring appeal.
Ford's novel revolves around two couples: Edward Ashburnham--the title's soldier--and his capable if off-putting wife, Leonora; and long-transplanted Americans John and Florence Dowell. The foursome's ostensible amiability, on display as they pass parts of a dozen pre-World War I summers together in Germany, conceals the fissures in each marriage. John is miserably mismatched with the garrulous, cuckolding Florence; and Edward, dashing and sentimental, can't refrain from falling in love with women whose charms exceed Leonora's. Predictably, Edward and Florence conduct their affair, an indiscretion only John seems not to notice. After the deaths of the two lovers, and after Leonora explains much of the truth to John, he recounts the events of their four lives with an extended inflection of outrage. From his retrospective perch, his recollections simmer with a bitter skepticism even as he expresses amazement at how much he overlooked.
Dowell's resigned narration is flawlessly conversational--haphazard, sprawling, lusting for sympathy. He exudes self-preservation even as he alternately condemns and lionizes Edward: "If I had had the courage and the virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did." Stunningly, Edward's adultery comes to seem not merely excusable, but almost sublime. "Perhaps he could not bear to see a woman and not give her the comfort of his physical attractions," John surmises. Ford's novel deserves its reputation if for no other reason than the elegance with which it divulges hidden lives. --Ben Guterson [via]
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The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passionby Ford Madox FordISBN 0140283315 (0-14-028331-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion'Book summary:Set just before World War I, The Good Soldier chronicles the tragedies of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks, it also makes use of the device of the unreliable narrator as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads you to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life. [via]
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The Grapes of Wrathby John Steinbeck, Peter Lisca, Kevin HearleISBN 0140247750 (0-14-024775-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Grapes of Wrath'Book summary:When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations--the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions--in the Joad family. Then he set them down on a westward-running road, local dialect and all, for the world to acknowledge. For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.
The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits. They're a tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency."
The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom--us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on." It's almost as if she's talking about the very novel she inhabits, for Steinbeck's characters, more than most literary creations, do go on. They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon--Rosasharn, as they call her--the eldest Joad daughter, forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. --Melanie Rehak [via]
More editions of The Grapes of Wrath:
- The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0140281622 (0-14-028162-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0140042393 (0-14-004239-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0140155082 (0-14-015508-2)
Softcover, Penguin USA - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0140186409 (0-14-018640-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0140247750 (0-14-024775-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- The Grapes of Wrath: ISBN 0140281622 (0-14-028162-2)
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Hans Andersen's Fairy Talesby Philip Gough, Naomi LewisISBN 0140367373 (0-14-036737-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales'Book summary:This is a delightful selection of stories from Hans Christian Andersen, translated by the eminent writer and critic, Naomi Lewis. All the best-known and most-loved stories are included - "Thumbelina", "The Snow Queen", "The Emperor's New Clothes" etc., as well as the less familiar - "The Goblin at the Grocer's" and "Dance, Dolly, Dance". [via]
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Hatchetby Gary PaulsenISBN 014032724X (0-14-032724-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hatchet'Book summary:Stranded in the Canadian wilderness with only the clothes on his back and a hatchet, Brian Robeson must put his bitter thoughts of his parents' divorce behind and deal with trying to stay alive. "Plausible, taut, this survival story is spellbinding."--Kirkus Reviews. [via]
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The Hauntingby Shirley JacksonISBN 0140287434 (0-14-028743-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Haunting'Book summary:Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has unnerved readers since its original publication in 1959. A tale of subtle, psychological terror, it has earned its place as one of the significant haunted house stories of the ages.
Eleanor Vance has always been a loner--shy, vulnerable, and bitterly resentful of the 11 years she lost while nursing her dying mother. "She had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words." Eleanor has always sensed that one day something big would happen, and one day it does. She receives an unusual invitation from Dr. John Montague, a man fascinated by "supernatural manifestations." He organizes a ghost watch, inviting people who have been touched by otherworldly events. A paranormal incident from Eleanor's childhood qualifies her to be a part of Montague's bizarre study--along with headstrong Theodora, his assistant, and Luke, a well-to-do aristocrat. They meet at Hill House--a notorious estate in New England.
Hill House is a foreboding structure of towers, buttresses, Gothic spires, gargoyles, strange angles, and rooms within rooms--a place "without kindness, never meant to be lived in...."
Although Eleanor's initial reaction is to flee, the house has a mesmerizing effect, and she begins to feel a strange kind of bliss that entices her to stay. Eleanor is a magnet for the supernatural--she hears deathly wails, feels terrible chills, and sees ghostly apparitions. Once again she feels isolated and alone--neither Theo nor Luke attract so much eerie company. But the physical horror of Hill House is always subtle; more disturbing is the emotional torment Eleanor endures. Intense, literary, and harrowing, The Haunting of Hill House belongs in the same dark league as Henry James's classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw. --Naomi Gesinger [via]
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Haunting of Hill Houseby Shirley JacksonISBN 0140071083 (0-14-007108-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Haunting of Hill House'Book summary:Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has unnerved readers since its original publication in 1959. A tale of subtle, psychological terror, it has earned its place as one of the significant haunted house stories of the ages.
Eleanor Vance has always been a loner--shy, vulnerable, and bitterly resentful of the 11 years she lost while nursing her dying mother. "She had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words." Eleanor has always sensed that one day something big would happen, and one day it does. She receives an unusual invitation from Dr. John Montague, a man fascinated by "supernatural manifestations." He organizes a ghost watch, inviting people who have been touched by otherworldly events. A paranormal incident from Eleanor's childhood qualifies her to be a part of Montague's bizarre study--along with headstrong Theodora, his assistant, and Luke, a well-to-do aristocrat. They meet at Hill House--a notorious estate in New England.
Hill House is a foreboding structure of towers, buttresses, Gothic spires, gargoyles, strange angles, and rooms within rooms--a place "without kindness, never meant to be lived in...."
Although Eleanor's initial reaction is to flee, the house has a mesmerizing effect, and she begins to feel a strange kind of bliss that entices her to stay. Eleanor is a magnet for the supernatural--she hears deathly wails, feels terrible chills, and sees ghostly apparitions. Once again she feels isolated and alone--neither Theo nor Luke attract so much eerie company. But the physical horror of Hill House is always subtle; more disturbing is the emotional torment Eleanor endures. Intense, literary, and harrowing, The Haunting of Hill House belongs in the same dark league as Henry James's classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw. --Naomi Gesinger [via]
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The Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad, R. G. HampsonISBN 0140186522 (0-14-018652-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart of Darkness'Book summary:A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Conrad's crowning achievement recounts Marlow's physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the mysterious trader Kurtz.[via]
@JungleFever Heading down to Africa on a boat. Too hot! I get the creeping sense this job isnt going to be as cushy as they made it sound.
The natives seem unhappy. Some are even violent! Why dont they appreciate how much weve done for them? Ungrateful welfare leeches, I say!
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or LessMore editions of The Heart of Darkness:
- The Heart of Darkness: ISBN 0140281630 (0-14-028163-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - The Heart of Darkness: ISBN 0140180907 (0-14-018090-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - The Heart of Darkness: ISBN 0140240179 (0-14-024017-9)
Softcover, Penguin USA - The Heart of Darkness: ISBN 0140431683 (0-14-043168-3)
Softcover, Penguin USA - The Heart of Darkness: ISBN 0140186522 (0-14-018652-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- The Heart of Darkness: ISBN 0140281630 (0-14-028163-0)
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The Heart of the Matterby Graham GreeneISBN 0140283323 (0-14-028332-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart of the Matter'Book summary:In this widely acclaimed modern classic, Graham Greene delves deep into character to tell the dramatic, suspenseful story of a good man's conflict between passion and faith. The Heart of the Matter is one of Graham Greene's most enduring and tragic novels. A police commissioner in a British-governed, war-torn West African state, Scobie is bound by the strictest integrity and sense of duty both for his colonial responsibilities and for his wife, whom he deeply pities but no longer loves. Passed over for a promotion, he is forced to borrow money in order to send his despairing wife away on a holiday. When in her absence he develops a passion for a young widow, the scrupulously honest Catholic finds himself giving way to deceit and dishonor. Enmeshed in love and intrigue, he will betray everything he believes in, with tragic consequences. [via]
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I, Claudiusby Robert GravesISBN 0140003185 (0-14-000318-5)
Hardcover, Penguin Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'I, Claudius'Book summary:Having never seen the famous 1970s television series based on Graves' historical novel of ancient Rome and being generally uneducated about matters both ancient and Roman, I wasn't prepared for such an engaging book. But it's a ripping good read, this fictional autobiography set in the Roman Empire's days of glory and decadence. As a history lesson, it's fabulous; as a novel it's also wonderful. Best is Claudius himself, the stutterer who let everyone think he was an idiot (to avoid getting poisoned) but who reveals himself in the narrative to be a wry and likable observer. His story continues in Claudius the God. [via]
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Idylls of the Kingby Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, J.M. GrayISBN 0140422536 (0-14-042253-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Idylls of the King'Book summary:Tennyson had a life-long interest in the legend of King Arthur and after the huge success of his poem "Morte d'Arthur" he built on the theme with this series of twelve poems, written in two periods of intense creativity over nearly twenty years. "Idylls of the King" traces the story of Arthur's rule, from his first encounter with Guinevere and the quest for the Holy Grail to the adultery of his Queen with Launcelot and the King's death in a final battle that spells the ruin of his kingdom. Told with lyrical and dreamlike eloquence, Tennyson's depiction of the Round Table reflects a longing for a past age of valour and chivalry. And in his depiction of King Arthur he created a hero imbued with the values of the Victorian age - one who embodies the highest ideals of manhood and kingship. [via]
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The Iliadby Homer, Robert Fagles, Bernard MacGregor Walker KnoxISBN 0140275363 (0-14-027536-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Iliad'Book summary:Robert Fagles , winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters presents us with his universally acclaimed modern verse translation of the world's greatest war story. Rage-Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls? Thus begins the stirring story of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles that has gripped listeners and readers for 2,700 years. This timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to its wrenching, tragic conclusion. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb Introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it co-exists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer's poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad's mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls "an astonishing performance." @RageAgainstTheAchaean Pissed. I am so, so very pissed. First I have to go to this beach. Then I have to kill all these dudes. And NOW - now! This prick stole my biscuit. Who does that? Am I right? Can't resolve this problem on my own - calling Mom! From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less [via]
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The Jungleby Upton Beall SinclairISBN 0140390316 (0-14-039031-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Jungle'Book summary:Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, this book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including then president Theodore Roosevelt, and was a major catalyst to the passing of the Pure Food and Meat Inspection act, which has tremendous impact to this day. [via]
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The Last of the Mohicansby James Fenimore CooperISBN 0140390243 (0-14-039024-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last of the Mohicans'Book summary:Angered by the values of his materialistic society, Hawk-eye lives apart from the other white men, sharing the solitude and sublimity of the wilderness with his Mohican Indian friend, Chingachgook. As the savageries of war test these exiled men, they agree to guide two sisters in search of their father through hostile Indian country - even if it means risking everything. An enduring American classic, "The Last of the Mohicans" is a fast-paced portrait of fierce individualism and courage, set against massacres, raids, battles and a doomed love affair. It is also the unforgettable story of the friendship between two men. [via]
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Le Morte D'Arthurby Janet Cowen, Thomas MaloryISBN 014043044X (0-14-043044-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Morte D'Arthur'Book summary:An immortal story of love, adventure, chivalry, treachery and death. Edited and first published by William Caxton in 1485, Le Morte D'Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's unique and splendid version of the Arthurian legend. Mordred's treason, the knightly exploits of Tristan, Lancelot's fatally divided loyalties and his love for Guenever, the quest for the Holy Grail; all the elements are there woven into a wonderful completeness by the magic of his prose style. The result is not only one of the most readable accounts of the knights of the Round Table but also one of the most moving. As the story advances towards the inevitable tragedy of Arthur's death the effect is cumulative, rising with an impending sense of doom and tragedy towards its shattering finale. [via]
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Le Morte D'Arthurby Thomas MaloryISBN 0140430431 (0-14-043043-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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A Little Princessby Frances Hodgson BurnettISBN 0140366881 (0-14-036688-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Little Princess'Book summary:When Sara Crewe's father is made bankrupt, she is reduced to poverty. At Miss Minchin's school, where she had been a privileged student, she is now forced to work as a servant. But Sara has a loving heart, and she knows that with the right spirit she can remain a princess inside. [via]
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Lord of the Fliesby William GoldingISBN 0140283331 (0-14-028333-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lord of the Flies'Book summary:William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them-the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories-and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible. Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among both students and literary critics who compared it to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in its influence on modern thought and literature. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic. [via]
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The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum: How Violence Develops and Where It Can Leadby Heinrich Boll, Leila VennewitzISBN 0140187286 (0-14-018728-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum: How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead'More editions of The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum: How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead:
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Lyrical Ballads: With a Few Other Poemsby William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Michael SchmidtISBN 0140424628 (0-14-042462-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lyrical Ballads: With a Few Other Poems'Book summary:Twenty-three poems that transformed English poetry[via]Wordsworth and Coleridge composed this powerful selection of poetry during their youthful and intimate friendship. Reproducing the first edition of 1798, this edition of Lyrical Ballads allows modern readers to recapture the books original impact. In these poemsincluding Wordsworths Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey and Coleridges The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere the two poets exercised new energies and opened up new themes.
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Mary Bartonby Elizabeth GaskellISBN 0140430539 (0-14-043053-9)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mary Barton'Book summary:This is Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, a widely acclaimed work based on the actual murder, in 1831, of a progressive mill owner. It follows Mary Barton, daughter of a man implicated in the murder, through her adolescence, when she suffers the advances of the mill owner, and later through love and marriage. Set in Manchester, between 1837-42, it paints a powerful and moving picture of working-class life in Victorian England. [via]
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Mary Bartonby Macdonald Daly, Elizabeth GaskellISBN 014043464X (0-14-043464-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mary Barton'Book summary:[via]O Jem, her father wont listen to me, and its you must save Mary! Youre like a brother to her
Mary Barton, the daughter of disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill owners son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the two men. Through Marys dilemma, and the moving portrayal of her father, the embittered and courageous activist John Barton, Mary Barton (1848) powerfully dramatizes the class divides of the hungry forties as personal tragedy. In its social and political setting, it looks towards Elizabeth Gaskells great novels of the industrial revolution, in particular North and South.
In his introduction Maconald Daly discusses Elizabeth Gaskells first novel as a pioneering book that made public the great division between rich and poor a theme that inspired much of her finest work.
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The Metamorphosis and Other Storiesby Franz Kafka, Malcolm PasleyISBN 0140283366 (0-14-028336-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Metamorphosis and Other Stories'Book summary:"Had one to name the author who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relations to our age as Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe bore to theirs, Kafka is the first one would think of." W. H. Auden[via]
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Moby Dickby Herman Melville, Harold Lowther BeaverISBN 0140430822 (0-14-043082-2)
Hardcover, Penguin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Moby Dick'Book summary:Avec Moby Dick, Melville a donné naissance à un livre-culte et inscrit dans la mémoire des hommes un nouveau mythe : celui de la baleine blanche. Fort de son expérience de marin, qui a nourri ses romans précédents et lui a assuré le succès, l'écrivain américain, alors en pleine maturité, raconte la folle quête du capitaine Achab et sa dernière rencontre avec le grand cachalot. Véritable encyclopédie de la mer, nouvelle Bible aux accents prophétiques, parabole chargée de thèmes universels, Moby Dick n'en reste pas moins construit avec une savante maîtrise, maintenant un suspense lent, qui s'accélère peu à peu jusqu'à l'apocalypse finale. L'écriture de Melville, infiniment libre et audacieuse, tour à tour balancée, puis hachée au rythme des houles, des vents et des passions humaines, est d'une richesse exceptionnelle. Il faut remonter à Shakespeare pour trouver l'exemple d'une langue aussi inventive, d'une poésie aussi grandiose. --Scarbo [via]
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Moby Dick Or, the Whaleby Herman Melville, Tom QuirkISBN 0140390847 (0-14-039084-7)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Moby Dick Or, the Whale'Book summary:Avec Moby Dick, Melville a donné naissance à un livre-culte et inscrit dans la mémoire des hommes un nouveau mythe : celui de la baleine blanche. Fort de son expérience de marin, qui a nourri ses romans précédents et lui a assuré le succès, l'écrivain américain, alors en pleine maturité, raconte la folle quête du capitaine Achab et sa dernière rencontre avec le grand cachalot. Véritable encyclopédie de la mer, nouvelle Bible aux accents prophétiques, parabole chargée de thèmes universels, Moby Dick n'en reste pas moins construit avec une savante maîtrise, maintenant un suspense lent, qui s'accélère peu à peu jusqu'à l'apocalypse finale. L'écriture de Melville, infiniment libre et audacieuse, tour à tour balancée, puis hachée au rythme des houles, des vents et des passions humaines, est d'une richesse exceptionnelle. Il faut remonter à Shakespeare pour trouver l'exemple d'une langue aussi inventive, d'une poésie aussi grandiose. --Scarbo [via]
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Nightby Elie WieselISBN 0134374940 (0-13-437494-0)
Hardcover, Pearson Prentice Hall
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Night'Book summary:2000 copyright Hardcover [via]
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Oliver Twistby Charles Dickens, Philip HorneISBN 0140435220 (0-14-043522-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Oliver Twist'Book summary:This fiercely comic tale stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor, "The Pickwick Papers." Set against London's seedy back street slums, "Oliver Twist" is the saga of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a thieves' den, where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the murderous bully Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, that treacherous ringleader whose grinning knavery threatens to send them all to the "ghostly gallows." Yet at the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver, whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation. In 1838 the publication of "Oliver Twist" firmly established the literary eminence of young Dickens. It was, according to Edgar Johnson, "a clarion peal announcing to the world that in Charles Dickens the rejected and forgotten and misused of the world had a champion." [via]
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One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nestby Ken KeseyISBN 0140043128 (0-14-004312-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest'Book summary:"Powerful, poetic realism...makes the tired old subject of life in a mental hospital into an absorbing Orwellian microcosm of all humanity."- Life . An international bestseller and the basis for a hugely successful film, Ken Kesey 's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the defining works of the 1960s. This Viking Critical Library edition is accompanied by essays, discussion topics, a chronology, and a bibliography. A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results. With One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , Kesey created a work without precedent in American literature, a novel at once comic and tragic that probes the nature of madness and sanity, authority and vitality. Greeted by unanimous acclaim when it was first published, the book has become and enduring favorite of readers. [via]
More editions of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest:
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: ISBN 0140236015 (0-14-023601-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: ISBN 014028334X (0-14-028334-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: ISBN 0140155090 (0-14-015509-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: ISBN 0140043128 (0-14-004312-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: ISBN 0140236015 (0-14-023601-5)
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The Outsidersby S. E. HintonISBN 014038572X (0-14-038572-X)
Softcover, Puffin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Outsiders'Book summary:According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser. This classic, written by S. E. Hinton when she was 16 years old, is as profound today as it was when it was first published in 1967. [via]
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Paradise Lostby John Milton, John LeonardISBN 0140424393 (0-14-042439-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Paradise Lost'Book summary:Long regarded as one of the most powerful and influential poems in the English language, Paradise Lost still inspires intense debate about whether it manages "to justify the ways of God to men" or exposes the cruelty of Christianity or the Christian God. John Leonard's illuminating introduction is fully alive to such controversies; it also contains full notes on language and many allusions to other works.
Paradise Lost conjures up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and puts a naked Adam and Eve at the very center of its story. [via]
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The Personal History of David Copperfieldby Charles Dickens, Trevor BlountISBN 0140430083 (0-14-043008-3)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Personal History of David Copperfield'Book summary:Intimately rooted in the author's own biography and written as a first-person narrative, this work charts a young man's progress through a difficult childhood in Victorian England to ultimate success as a novelist, finding true love along the way. [via]
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The Playboy of the Western World and Two Other Irish Plays: The Countess Cathleen, the Playboy of the Western World, Cock-A-Doodle Dandyby W. B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey, John Millington Synge, William A. ArmstrongISBN 0140188789 (0-14-018878-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Playboy of the Western World and Two Other Irish Plays: The Countess Cathleen, the Playboy of the Western World, Cock-A-Doodle Dandy'Book summary:[via]
Riots greeted the first performance of The Playboy of the Western World at Dublin's Abbey Theatre on 26 January 1907. Eggs, potatoes and even a slice of fruit cake were hurled at the actors during subsequent performances, and it seems unlikely that much of the actual play could have been heard in the uproar. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, with the two other plays in this volume, Yeats's The Countess Cathleen (1892) and O'Casey's Cock-a-doodle Dandy (1949), mark vital stages in the rich explosion of Irish drama that first made itself heard at the turn of the century and gathered momentum during the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Civil War.
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The Portable Danteby Dante Alighieri, Mark Musa, Laurence Binyon, Dante Gabriel RossettISBN 0140231145 (0-14-023114-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Portable Dante'Book summary:As a philosopher, Dante wedded classical methods of enquiry to a Christian faith. As an autobiographer, he looked at his own failures to depict universal moral struggles. As a visionary, he dared to draw maps of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise and populate all three realms with recognizable human beings. As a lover, he became a poet of bereavement and renunciation. As all these things Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) paved the way for modern literature. This volume aims to capture the scope of Dante's genius. It contains complete verse translations of his two masterworks, "The Divine Comedy" and "La Vita Nuova". [via]
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Portable Nietzscheby Friedrich NietzscheISBN 0140150625 (0-14-015062-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Portable Nietzsche'Book summary:The works of Friedrich Nietzsche have fascinated readers around the world ever since the publication of his first book more than a hundred years ago. As Walter Kaufmann, one of the worlds leading authorities on Nietzsche, notes in his introduction, Few writers in any age were so full of ideas, and few writers have been so consistently misinterpreted.[via]The Portable Nietzsche includes Kaufmanns definitive translations of the complete and unabridged texts of Nietzsches four major works: Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Nietzsche Contra Wagner and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In addition, Kaufmann brings together selections from his other books, notes, and letters, to give a full picture of Nietzsches development, versatility, and inexhaustibility.
In this volume, one may very conveniently have a rich review of one of the most sensitive, passionate, and misunderstood writers in Western, or any, literature. Newsweek
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The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Clubby Charles Dickens, Robert L. PattenISBN 0140430784 (0-14-043078-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Precious Baneby Mary WebbISBN 0140132171 (0-14-013217-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Rape of Nankingby Iris ChangISBN 0140277447 (0-14-027744-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rape of Nanking'Book summary:Some books you read for pleasure; others you read because they are too important to be ignored. Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking falls firmly into the second category. What most people in the West know about the Sino-Japanese war can usually be scribbled on the back of a postcard. It was a long way away, had nothing to do with us and besides the Second World War was a much bigger deal. This parochialism and chauvinism has obliterated one of the most obscene chapters from the already overflowing pages of man's inhumanity to man in the 20th century.
After fierce fighting in Shanghai, the Japanese occupied the old Chinese imperial city of Nanking on 13 December 1937. Over the next six weeks, the Japanese massacred more than 300,000 Chinese and raped more than 80,000 women. But these bare figures don't begin to describe the atrocities. The Japanese indulged in execution contests to see who could behead the most civilians in the shortest time, they burned their victims, they buried them alive, they set dogs on them. No form of mutilation and torture was too extreme or bizarre and no one escaped. Men, women, children and babies were all butchered.
What makes all this even more unbelievable is that there was no reason for this other than sadism. The Japanese army ran riot and indulged its blood lust; moreover it didn't even attempt to conceal what it was doing from eyewitnesses. The killings and the rapes all took place in public. So how come we all know so little about it? The answers, as ever, are part coincidence and part Realpolitik. The onset of the Second World War did overshadow events in China and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did help to cast the Japanese as victims, rather than aggressors, in some people's eyes in the post-war period. And in the aftermath of the war, everyone had a vested interest in keeping their mouth shut. Japan turned from enemy of the US to ally--as one of the strongest bastions of capitalism in a Far East they feared was becoming progressively more communist. Moreover, the People's Republic of China conspired to play down Nanking as it sought to gain an economic foothold in the world and didn't dare to alienate the West in the process.
So it is to Iris Chang's credit that she has dragged Nanking back into our collective consciousness. She doesn't sensationalise, neither does she spare us any of the details. She describes events from the point of view of the Japanese, the Chinese and the independent Westerners living in Nanking, but even so she fails to come up with a convincing explanation for the scale of the atrocities. --John Crace [via]
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The Razor's Edgeby W. Somerset MaughamISBN 0140185232 (0-14-018523-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Scarlet Letterby Nathaniel HawthorneISBN 0140390197 (0-14-039019-7)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Scarlet Letter'Book summary: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 Letter and Selected Talesby Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas E. ConnollyISBN 0140430520 (0-14-043052-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essaysby David YoungISBN 013807884X (0-13-807884-X)
Softcover, Pearson P T R
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Summerby Edith WhartonISBN 0140186794 (0-14-018679-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Summer'Book summary:[via]A tale of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams played out against the lush, summer backdrop of the Massachusetts Berkshires Edith Wharton called Summer her "hot Ethan." In their rural settings and their poor, uneducated protagonists, Summer (1916) and Ethan Frome represent a sharp departure from Wharton's familiar depictions of the urban upper class. Charity Royall lives unhappily with her hard-drinking adoptive father in an isolated village, until a visiting architect awakens her sexual passion and the hope for escape. Exploring Charity's relation to her father and her lover, Wharton delves into dark cultural territory: repressed sexuality, small-town prejudice, and, in subtle hints, incest.More editions of Summer:
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Tales from Shakespeareby Charles Lamb, Mary LambISBN 0140366776 (0-14-036677-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales from Shakespeare'Book summary:This work gives a perfect introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays. Charles and Mary Lamb bring vividly alive all the power of "Hamlet" and "Othello", the fun of "As You Like It", and the drama of "Pericles". Conveying all of Shakespeare's wit, wisdom and humanity, and never losing the feel of his beautiful language, these tales are classic literature in their own right. [via]
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Three Playsby John Ford, Keith SturgessISBN 0140430598 (0-14-043059-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Three Plays'Book summary:Three 17th-century plays deal with incest, forced marriage, and a political struggle for the British throne. [via]
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Villette: Library Editionby Charlotte Bronte, Helen M. CooperISBN 0140434798 (0-14-043479-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Villette: Library Edition'Book summary:With her final novel, "Villette," Charlotte Bronte reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, "Villette" is Bronte's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even "Jane Eyre" in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There, she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquetter. This first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey--a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature. [via]
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The Warsby Timothy FindleyISBN 0140050116 (0-14-005011-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group Canada
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wars'Book summary:Timothy Findley's slim, dense novel The Wars offers nothing short of an explanation of human violence. However alien or mad Findley's World War I events become, war itself is repeatedly depicted as damnably quotidian. A front-line nurse confesses, "the passions involved were as ordinary as me and my sister fighting over who's going to cook the dinner. And who won't." Bringing Dostoyevsky's moral palette to the trenches of the Great War, The Wars seems compelled to reveal how the same men who save one another's lives will also torture trench rats or stray cats for sport.
Written in surgically precise prose and studded with unforgettable scenes and memorable characters, The Wars is Findley at his best. In Cambridgeshire are "towns with names like Camden Lights and Grantchester--roads that wind past canals and over bridges--whirl you round a hundred village greens, scattering geese and waving at children--whip you past the naked swimmers in the ponds and deposit you at inn yards where the smell of ale and apples makes you drunk before you've passed the gate." Informed, compassionate, and insightful, The Wars is uniquely sensitive to the causes of social division and union. --Darryl Whetter [via]
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The Woodlandersby Thomas HardyISBN 0140431454 (0-14-043145-4)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Woodlanders'Book summary:The setting is gentler than in some of Hardy's novels, but the story is similar - thwarted love and ruined lives. [via]
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