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From the Publisher: From a swashbuckling pirate fantasy to a meditation on American morality-two classic Steinbeck novels make their black spine debuts. In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had "resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American." Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of...
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A man at one with nature finds himself enchanted by a vision in this classic Midwestern romance from the naturalist and author of The Keeper of the Bees.
David Langston, the Harvester, allows his dog to decide his fate every year-to join the money-making scramble in the noise and grime of the city, or continue harvesting the goldenseal, mullein, and ginseng in the woods around their country home. Every year, his dog Bel chooses correctly-for...
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The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky's crowning achievement, is a tale of patricide & family rivalry that embodies the moral & spiritual dissolution of an entire society (Russia in the 1870s). It created a national furor comparable only to the excitement stirred by the publication, in 1866, of Crime & Punishment. To Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov captured the quintessence of Russian character in all its exaltation, compassion, & profligacy. Significantly,...
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Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant...
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Word and the void volume 1
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On July 4, the town of Hopwell in Illinois, is invaded by demons intent on destruction. Opposing them is Nest Freemark, a girl who has magical powers. The drama comes when a demon announces he is her father.
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First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy, Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to What he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the White Army and the Bolshevik Reds of the Russian civil war. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago's...
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Appears on list
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A saintly Black man endures the depredations of slavery and the torments of a cruel overseer.
Mr. Shelby is a considerate master, but to pay off debts he must sell Tom to Haley, a slave trader. Eliza, Mrs. Shelby's servant, fearing that her son Harry will also be sold to Haley, escapes to Ohio taking Harry with her. St. Clare purchases Tom from Haley after Little Eva befriends the pious slave. Eva dies from an illness, and St. Clare decides to free...
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One of the finest American authors of the 20th century, Wallace Stegner compiled an impressive collection of accolades during his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a National Book Award, and three O. Henry Awards. His final novel, Crossing to Safety is the quiet yet stirring tale of two couples that meet during the Great Depression and form a lifelong bond. "This is a wonderfully rich, warm, and affecting book."-Library Journal
11) The fountainhead
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The Fountainhead is an unprecedented phenomenon in modern literature. Arguably the century's most challenging novel of ideas, The Fountainhead is the story of a gifted young architect, his violent battle with conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with the beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. In his fight for success, he first discovers, then rejects, the seductive power of fame and money, finding that in the end, creative genius...
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A wounded veteran discovers the healing power of nature in this classic American novel by the author of A Girl of the Limberlost.
Wounded in World War I, Jamie McFarlane is looking for a peaceful place to spend his final days. After escaping the grim confines of a California military hospital, he finds himself at the seaside home of the Bee Master. There, with the help of an impish eleven-year-old called Little Scout, Jamie tends to the hives and...
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[A] torrent of endlessly inventive prose, by turns comic and enraged, embracing life in all its contradictions. In this spectacular novel, verbal pyrotechnics barely outshine its psychological truths.”—Newsday
Winner of the Whitbread Prize
One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie’s...
Winner of the Whitbread Prize
One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie’s...
14) Sister Carrie
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After leaving the country for Chicago, Caroline Meeber is seduced by a traveling salesman and then falls in love with a saloon manager.
15) Evening class
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In his Introduction to Italian class, Aidan Dunne's predictable life changes, and the evening class "becomes a place of intrigue and revelation."--Jacket.
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Pamela Andrews is a fifteen-year-old maidservant at an estate in Bedfordshire. When Lady B, her employer, dies, her son Mr. B takes an interest in the innocent young girl, quickly turning from generosity to outright attempts at seducing her. As Pamela rejects his advances, she considers returning home to live in poverty with her parents. When he catches wind of her plan, however, Mr. B accuses Pamela of having an affair, notifying her parents and...
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The internationally acclaimed sensation that started a movement of giving. When his teacher sets a challenge to his class to come up with a plan to change the world for the better, twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney's idea is simple, do a good deed for three people and ask each of them to pay it forward to three others who need help. At first, the plan goes awry, and Trevor's project seems valuable only as a lesson on the dark side of human nature. But...
19) Ishmael
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A man and a great ape conduct a series of philosophical conversations in a work that presents a new vision of evolution and humankind and asks the question: does the Earth belong to humans, or do humans belong to the Earth?
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Word and the void volume 2
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A conflict of good versus evil in urban America, featuring a defender of good who has lost his faith. He is John Ross, Knight of the Word, and his crisis follows his failure to prevent a massacre of children in California. But faith can be regained. The Welsh hero Owain Glyndwr became a Knight of the Word and eight centuries later the legacy was passed on to John Ross, a professor of English literature on tour in Wales. Crippled in body and soul by...