| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “violence”
books tagged “violence”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
-
Animal Farm With Connectionsby George OrwellISBN 0030554349 (0-03-055434-9)
Hardcover, Harcourt School
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Animal Farm With Connections'Book summary:Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
More editions of Animal Farm With Connections:
Birth of the Firebringerby Meredith Ann PierceISBN 0027746100 (0-02-774610-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster Merchandise &
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Birth of the Firebringer'More editions of Birth of the Firebringer:
The Book of Silenceby William HorwoodISBN 0002239418 (0-00-223941-8)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Silence'More editions of The Book of Silence:
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracyby Joseph A. SchumpeterISBN 0043350313 (0-04-335031-3)
Hardcover, Allen and Unwin
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy'Book summary:2011 Reprint of 1947 Second Edition. Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883 - 1950) was an Austrian-American economist and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics. Schumpeter's most popular book in English is probably Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. This book opens with a treatment of Karl Marx. While he is sympathetic to Marx's theory that capitalism will collapse and will be replaced by socialism, Schumpeter concludes that this will not come about in the way Marx predicted. To describe it he borrowed the phrase "creative destruction", and made it famous by using it to describe a process in which the old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by new ways. [via]
More editions of Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy:
-
The Chosenby Chaim PotokISBN 0030556287 (0-03-055628-7)
Hardcover, Holt Rinehart & Winston
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Chosen'Book summary:i took off my glasses and rubbed the tops of my ears. I felt a sudden momentary sense of unreality...as if all the previous years of my life had led me somehow to this one ball game, and all the future years of my life would depend upon its outcome... [via]
More editions of The Chosen:
Duncton Risingby William HorwoodISBN 0006473024 (0-00-647302-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Duncton Rising'More editions of Duncton Rising:
Duncton Talesby William HorwoodISBN 0006472184 (0-00-647218-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Duncton Tales'More editions of Duncton Tales:
Escape from Evilby Ernest BeckerISBN 0029024501 (0-02-902450-1)
Softcover, Free Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Escape from Evil'Book summary:From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Denial of Death, a penetrating and insightful perspective on the source of evil in our world.
A profound, nourishing book&absolutely essential to the understanding of our troubled times. Anais Nin
An urgent essay that bears all the marks of a final philosophical raging against the dying of the light. Newsweek
Brilliant and challenging&adds another bit of reason to balance destruction&It is, in the best sense of the words, both scientific and philosophical&of the highest importance. Los Angeles Times [via]
-
For Whom the Bell Tollsby Ernest HemingwayISBN 0020518501 (0-02-051850-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'Book summary:For Whom the Bell Tolls begins and ends in a pine-scented forest, somewhere in Spain. The year is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in full swing. Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert attached to the International Brigades, lies "flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees." The sylvan setting, however, is at sharp odds with the reason Jordan is there: he has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces. He hopes he'll be able to rely on their local leader, Pablo, to help carry out the mission, but upon meeting him, Jordan has his doubts: "I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out." For Pablo, it seems, has had enough of the war. He has amassed for himself a small herd of horses and wants only to stay quietly in the hills and attract as little attention as possible. Jordan's arrival--and his mission--have seriously alarmed him.
"I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?"
In one short chapter Hemingway lays out the blueprint for what is to come: Jordan's sense of duty versus Pablo's dangerous self-interest and weariness with the war. Complicating matters even more are two members of the guerrilla leader's small band: his "woman" Pilar, and Maria, a young woman whom Pablo rescued from a Republican prison train. Unlike her man, Pilar is still fiercely devoted to the cause and as Pablo's loyalty wanes, she becomes the moral center of the group. Soon Jordan finds himself caught between the two, even as his own resolve is tested by his growing feelings for Maria.For Whom the Bell Tolls combines two of the author's recurring obsessions: war and personal honor. The pivotal battle scene involving El Sordo's last stand is a showcase for Hemingway's narrative powers, but the quieter, ongoing conflict within Robert Jordan as he struggles to fulfill his mission perhaps at the cost of his own life is a testament to his creator's psychological acuity. By turns brutal and compassionate, it is arguably Hemingway's most mature work and one of the best war novels of the 20th century. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of For Whom the Bell Tolls:
-
Gone With the Windby Margaret MitchellISBN 0024894400 (0-02-489440-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Gone With the Wind'Book summary:Set in Georgia at the time of the American Civil War, this is the story of headstrong Scarlett O'Hara, her three marriages and her determination to keep her father's property of Tara, despite the vicissitudes of war and passion. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize. [via]
-
The Great and Secret Showby Clive BarkerISBN 000223453X (0-00-223453-X)
Hardcover, Collins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great and Secret Show'Book summary:This fantasy novel by the author of "Weaveworld" describes a race to find the secret of "The Art" - a state of being or consciousness which allows its owner to transcend their humanity and enter into a heightened spiritual state - by Fletcher and the evil-intentioned Jaffe. [via]
More editions of The Great and Secret Show:
-
The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott FitzgeraldISBN 0020198817 (0-02-019881-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Gatsby'Book summary:In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. [via]
More editions of The Great Gatsby:
- The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0020198825 (0-02-019882-5)
Softcover, Macmillan Pub Co - The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0020199600 (0-02-019960-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0023381205 (0-02-338120-5)
Softcover, Scribner - The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0020198817 (0-02-019881-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
- The Great Gatsby: ISBN 0020198825 (0-02-019882-5)
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigationby Aleksandr I. SolzhenitsynISBN 0060007761 (0-06-000776-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'Book summary:"Its importance can hardly be exaggerated," said Doris Lessing. "It helped to bring down an empire." For those who doubt that literature can change the world, here is evidence to the contrary. Solzhenitsyn's scorching, brilliant, part-autobiographical expose of the dreary oppressiveness and institutionalised cruelty of the Soviet regime, really did contribute to the final collapse of the Union in 1989. It also exposed how, if Hitler had the deaths of well over 6 million on his hands, the figure for Stalin might be nearer 60 million. This is not only history-in-the-making, but also an absolutely compulsive read (especially in this 400-page version abridged from the 1800 pages of the three-volume original.) From the breathtaking opening page, when Solzhenitsyn depicts starving prisoners of the Kolyma gulags, discovering a deep-frozen, prehistoric salamander in an icy stream and devouring it on the spot, "with relish," he holds you rapt, like the Ancient Mariner, with his "skinny hand" and "glittering eye." You have no choice but to listen to him, especially when he derides those who say "It would not happen here". "Alas," he says, "all the evil of the 20th century is possible everywhere on earth." One of the very few undeniable books of the century. --Christopher Hart [via]
More editions of The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation:
-
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, I-IIby Aleksandr Isaevich SolzhenitsynISBN 000262253X (0-00-262253-X)
Hardcover, Collins : Harvill Press
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, I-II'Book summary:[This is the MP3CD audiobook format of VOLUME 2 in vinyl case.]
**Time Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of the 20th Century**
In this masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn has orchestrated thousands of incidents and individual histories into one narrative of unflagging power and momentum. Written in a tone that encompasses Olympian wrath, bitter calm, savage irony, and sheer comedy, it combines history, autobiography, documentary, and political analysis as it examines in its totality the Soviet apparatus of repression from its inception following the October Revolution of 1917.
This second volume in Solzhenitsyn's narrative chronicles the appalling inhumanity of the Soviets' ''destructive-labor camps'' and the fate of prisoners in them--felling timber, building canals and railroads, and mining gold without equipment or adequate food and clothing, and subject always to the caprices of the camp authorities. Most tragic of all is the life of the women prisoners and the luckless children they bear.
Once again, this chronicle of appalling inhumanity is made endurable by the vitality and emotional range of the writing. In one truly remarkable chapter, a parody of an anthropological treatise, Solzhenitsyn achieves new heights of sardonic wit. In the final section the music changes, and he provides a magnificent coda on the possibilities of redemption and purification through suffering. [via]More editions of The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, I-II:
-
Intercourseby Andrea DworkinISBN 0029079713 (0-02-907971-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Intercourse'Book summary:One of the most controversial modern feminists cuts to the heart of the gender debate to examine the social, legal, and political meanings of sexual intercourse for women, men and society. [via]
Letters from Prison: Felons Write about the Struggle for Life and Sanity behind Barsby Shawn ThompsonISBN 0002000865 (0-00-200086-5)
Hardcover, Harper Collins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters from Prison: Felons Write about the Struggle for Life and Sanity behind Bars'More editions of Letters from Prison: Felons Write about the Struggle for Life and Sanity behind Bars:
-
The Lord of the Ringsby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0048230871 (0-04-823087-1)
Hardcover, Allen and Unwin
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lord of the Rings'Book summary:Let's face it--even some adults find Tolkien's mammoth fantasy a daunting mouthful but children now have this special seven-book box set of The Lord of The Rings to make the epic tale just that bit easier to chew on. Split into its seven constituent parts, these slim volumes tell the ageless tale of young Frodo's quest to destroy The Ring and defeat the forces of evil. It's beautifully presented in a black presentation box with the movie logo and an illustration on the side and the spines of the books also form the movie logo. A contemporary look and plenty of "cool appeal" will grab kids' interest and ensure they don't miss out on reading this classic of the genre. --Jonathan Weir [via]
More editions of The Lord of the Rings:
-
Love Medicineby Louise ErdrichISBN 0030706114 (0-03-070611-4)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Love Medicine'Book summary:Beautiful reissue of Louise Erdrich's most famous novel, from one of the most celebrated American writers of her generation and winner of the National Book Award 2012. Set on and around a North Dakota reservation, 'Love Medicine' tells the story of the Lamartines and the Kashpaws - two extraordinary families whose fates are united and sustained in a harsh world by the strength and diversity of their love. We meet the sensual Lulu Lamartine, whose children have different fathers, but whose passionate tie to her first love, Nector Kashpaw, intensifies over the years; June Kashpaw, who froze to death in a snowstorm; and the philosophical Lipsha Morrissey, June's abandoned son, who makes a love medicine to keep his grandparents together. Greeted with great critical acclaim when first published in 1984, 'Love Medicine' won the US National Book Critics' Circle Award. Louise Erdrich has now substantially revised and expanded the novel for this edition, to complement its companion novels, 'The Beet Queen, 'Tracks' and 'The Bingo Palace'. [via]
More editions of Love Medicine:
-
The Metamorphosis, in the Penal Colony, and Other Storiesby Franz Kafka, Joachim NeugroschelISBN 0020218079 (0-02-021807-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Metamorphosis, in the Penal Colony, and Other Stories'Book summary:A collection of the author's prose poems, sketches, stories, and allegories includes the three-act novelette "The Metamorphosis" and a special translation of "The Penal Colony" Reprint. 15,000 first printing. [via]
More editions of The Metamorphosis, in the Penal Colony, and Other Stories:
-
Monstrous Regimentby Terry PratchettISBN 0060013168 (0-06-001316-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Monstrous Regiment'Book summary:War has come to Discworld . . . again.
And, to no one's great surprise, the conflict centers on the small, insufferably arrogant, strictly fundamentalist duchy of Borogravia, which has long prided itself on it's ability to beat up on its neighbors for even the tiniest imagined slight. This time, however, it's Borogravia that's getting its long overdue comeuppance, which has left the country severely drained of young men.
Ever since her brother Paul marched off to battle a year ago, Polly Perks has been running The Duchess,her family's inn -- even though the revered national deity Nuggan has decreed that female ownership of a business is an Abomination (with, among others, oysters, rocks, and the color blue). To keep The Duchess in the family, Polly must find her missing sibling. So she cuts off her hair, dons masculine garb, and sets out to join him in this man's army.
Despite her rapid mastery of belching, scratching, and other macho habits (and aided by a well-placed pair of socks), Polly is afraid that someone will immediately see through her disguise; a fear that proves groundless when the recruiting officer, the legendary and seemingly ageless Sergeant Jackrum, accepts her without question. Or perhaps the sergeant is simply too desperate for fresh cannon fodder to discriminate -- which would explain why a vampire, a troll, a zombie, a religious fanatic, and two uncommonly close "friends" are also eagerly welcomed into the fighting fold. But marching off with little (read: no) training, Polly (now called "Oliver") finds herself wondering about the myriad peculiarities of her new brothers-in-arms. It would appear that Polly "Ozzer" Perks is not the only grunt with a secret. There is no time to dwell on such matters, however.Duty calls. The battlefield beckons. There's a tide to be turned.
And sometimes -- in war as in everything else -- the best man for the job is a woman.
[via]More editions of Monstrous Regiment:
A Night at the Moviesby Robert CooverISBN 0020191200 (0-02-019120-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Night at the Movies'More editions of A Night at the Movies:
-
The Place of Dead Roadsby William S. BurroughsISBN 0030632560 (0-03-063256-0)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Place of Dead Roads'Book summary:A good old-fashion shoot-out in the American West of the frontier days serves as the springboard for this hyperkinetic adventure in which gunslingers, led by Kim Carson, fight for galactic freedom." The Place of Dead Roads is the second novel in the trilogy with "Cities of the Red Night and" The Western Lands.
[via]More editions of The Place of Dead Roads:
Purple Hibiscusby Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieISBN 0007176112 (0-00-717611-2)
Hardcover, New York
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Purple Hibiscus'More editions of Purple Hibiscus:
-
Steppenwolfby Hermann Hesse, Joseph MileckISBN 0030121353 (0-03-012135-3)
Softcover, Harcourt Canada, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Steppenwolf'Book summary:Rare 1966 5th Printing Hardcover Edition in Very Good Condition Great boards, tight spine, clear, crisp pages. Dust jacket shows slight bump marks on corners/edges. Ships same day as payment [via]
More editions of Steppenwolf:
-
The Sun Also Risesby Ernest HemingwayISBN 0020518706 (0-02-051870-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sun Also Rises'Book summary:The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.
Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett, the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War I anomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Paris cafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett, with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all around until she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." Whereupon the party disbands.
But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-free style. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one of them, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be able to resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to its reputation. --David Laskin [via]
More editions of The Sun Also Rises:
-
Super-Cannesby James Graham BallardISBN 0002258471 (0-00-225847-1)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Super-Cannes'Book summary:JG Ballard covers familiar territory in Super-Cannes: new social structures under pressure, new psychopathologies to be explored. As he did in his previous novel Cocaine Nights, he has avoided the more abstract imagery and plot of Rushing to Paradise or The Day of Creation to create, on the surface, a more mainstream novel, clearly concerned with modern issues of racism, random violence and sexuality. But familiar territory is always the most deeply subversive place in a Ballard novel.
Eden-Olympia is more than a mere business park. It is an expensive and intense hive, the modern "Dream Palace" of "a new elite of administrators, enarques and scientific entrepreneurs"; its aim, "to turn Provence into Europe's silicon valley". Paul Sinclair finds himself with time on his hands in this radical environment when his young wife takes a job at Eden-Olympia. She replaces a doctor who killed 10 executives with a rifle before shooting himself. He left no note and no explanation. Sinclair finds himself living in the same house and learning some of the same lessons as the killer.
There are the (un)usual Ballardian motifs; the injured airman, the swimming pools, the cars, the voyeuristic sex and violence, the perverse personal iconography of the central characters (the hothouse social environment even harks back to High-Rise from 1975), but in this new context they are even more profoundly unsettling than before. The apparently slick, professional characters are flawed and ambiguous, while strange events, as in the outstanding novella Running Wild from 1988, lead to extreme conclusions. Ballard is an expert in explaining how what at first appears perverse, amoral or simply wrong, is actually obvious, sensible and sane, and then going even further. From the beginning, the clues are all there. Eventually, both Sinclair and the reader are clear on what must be done. --John Shire [via]
Ten Little Niggersby Agatha ChristieISBN 0002318350 (0-00-231835-0)
Hardcover, Collins for the Crime Club
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ten Little Niggers'More editions of Ten Little Niggers:
-
Things Fall Apartby Chinua AchebeISBN 0030554381 (0-03-055438-1)
Hardcover, Holt Rinehart & Winston
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Things Fall Apart'Book summary:One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also a man who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:
Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.
And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He is fond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent from another village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young woman from Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom he has too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes him.Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Things Fall Apart:
The Trade Missionby Andrew PyperISBN 0002005085 (0-00-200508-5)
Hardcover, HarperFlamingoCanada
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Trade Mission'More editions of The Trade Mission:
Violence Between Intimate Partners: Patterns, Causes, and Effectsby Albert P. CardarelliISBN 0023192135 (0-02-319213-5)
Softcover, Allyn & Bacon
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Violence Between Intimate Partners: Patterns, Causes, and Effects'More editions of Violence Between Intimate Partners: Patterns, Causes, and Effects:
-
Watership Downby Richard George AdamsISBN 0027000303 (0-02-700030-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Watership Down'Book summary:Watership Down has been a staple of high-school English classes for years. Despite the fact that it's often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldn't cringe at the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adams's bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogs between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they won't "get" it, into reading it), but it's equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure.
The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul Hughes [via]
More editions of Watership Down:
When Battered Women Killby Angela BrowneISBN 0029038812 (0-02-903881-2)
Softcover, Free Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'When Battered Women Kill'Book summary:A compassionate look at 42 battered women who felt "locked in with danger and so desperate that they killed a man they loved"; scholarly and compelling. [via]
More editions of When Battered Women Kill:
-
A Witness to Genocide: The 1993 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dispatches on the "Ethnic Cleansing" of Bosniaby Roy GutmanISBN 0020329954 (0-02-032995-4)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Witness to Genocide: The 1993 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dispatches on the "Ethnic Cleansing" of Bosnia'Book summary:A compilation of 1993 Pulitizer Prize-winning reports from the front lines of Bosnia, by a foreign correspondent for Newsday, provides firsthand evidence of the genocide perpetrated against Bosnia's Muslim population. [via]
More editions of A Witness to Genocide: The 1993 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dispatches on the "Ethnic Cleansing" of Bosnia:
-
A Wrinkle in Time: Library Editionby Madeleine L'EngleISBN 0028180054 (0-02-818005-4)
Hardcover, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill School Pub Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Wrinkle in Time: Library Edition'Book summary:Everyone in town thinks Meg is volatile and dull-witted and that her younger brother Charles Wallace is dumb. People are also saying that their father has run off and left their brilliant scientist mother. Spurred on by these rumors, Meg and Charles Wallace, along with their new friend Calvin, embark on a perilous quest through space to find their father. In doing so they must travel behind the shadow of an evil power that is darkening the cosmos, one planet at a time.
Young people who have trouble finding their place in the world will connect with the "misfit" characters in this provocative story. This is no superhero tale, nor is it science fiction, although it shares elements of both. The travelers must rely on their individual and collective strengths, delving deep into their characters to find answers.
A classic since 1962, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is sophisticated in concept yet warm in tone, with mystery and love coursing through its pages. Meg's shattering yet ultimately freeing discovery that her father is not omnipotent provides a satisfying coming-of-age element. Readers will feel a sense of power as they travel with these three children, challenging concepts of time, space, and the power of good over evil. (Ages 9 to 12) [via]
More editions of A Wrinkle in Time: Library Edition:
-
Your Mirror to My Times: The Selected Autobiographies and Impressions of Ford Madox Fordby Ford Madox FordISBN 0030859719 (0-03-085971-9)
Hardcover, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Your Mirror to My Times: The Selected Autobiographies and Impressions of Ford Madox Ford'Book summary:Description: xxi, 392 p. Illus. 24 cm. Subjects: Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939. Authors, English--20th century--Biography. Editors--Great Britain--Biography. [via]
More editions of Your Mirror to My Times: The Selected Autobiographies and Impressions of Ford Madox Ford:
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}