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Winesburg, Ohio : A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life
by Sherwood Anderson
Winesburg, Ohio depicts the strange, secret lives of the inhabitants of a small town. In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented by his hands. In "Adventure," lonely Alice Hindman impulsively walks naked into the night rain. Threaded through the stories is the viewpoint of George Willard, the young newspaper reporter who, like his creator, stands witness to the dark and despairing dealings of a community of isolated people.
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The adventures of Augie March
by Saul Bellow
Augie comes on stage with one of literatureās most famous opening lines. āI am an American, Chicago born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted.ā Itās the āCall me Ishmaelā of mid-20th-century American fiction. (For the record, Bellow was born in Canada.) Or it would be if Ishmael had been more like Tom Jones with a philosophical disposition. With this teeming book Bellow returned a Dickensian richness to the American novel. As he makes his way to a full brimming consciousness of himself, Augie careens himself through numberless occupations, and countless mentors and exemplars, all the while enchanting us with the slapdash American music of his voice.
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Ficciones
by Jorge Luis Borges
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal's abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges's Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind ofJorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.
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The death of the heart
by Elizabeth Bowen
In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayalāand sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.
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Sister Carrie
by Theodore Dreiser
When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.'
The tale of Carrie Meeber's rise to stardom in the theatre and George Hurstwood's slow decline captures the twin poles of exuberance and exhaustion in modern city life as never before. The premier example of American naturalism, Dreiser's remarkable first novel has deeply influenced such key writers as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, and Joyce Carol Oates.
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The recognitions
by William Gaddis
"Wyatt Gwyon forges not from larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals"- pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and the fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch- cannot even recognize. First published in 1955, this lively, witty, and labyrinthine novel stands among the very best of our time"
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North and South
by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction.
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Darkness at noon
by Arthur Koestler
"The newly discovered lost text of Arthur Koestler's modern masterpiece, Darkness at Noon--the haunting portrait of a revolutionary, imprisoned and tortured under totalitarian rule--is now restored and in a completely new translation. Editor Michael Scammell and translator Philip Boehm bring us a brilliant novel, a remarkable discovery, and a new translation of an international classic"
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Passing
by Nella Larsen
Clare Kendry, a beautiful light-skinned African American woman married to a white man who is unaware of her heritage, long ago cut all ties to her past, but a reunion with a childhood friend forces her to confront her lies.
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Under the volcano
by Malcolm Lowry
A story taking place on a single day, the Day of the Dead in 1938, explores the life of alcoholic British consul Geoffrey Firmin and his wife Yvonne's attempt to save their failed marriage, despite the presence of the consul's half-brother, Hugh, and childhood friend, Jacques.
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Nectar in a sieve
by Kamala Markandaya
Featuring an Introduction by Indira Ganesan, this critically acclaimed novel tells the story of India and its people through the eyes of one woman and her experiences in one peasant family in a primitive Indian village. Reissue.
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Cry, the beloved country
by Alan Paton
A novel depicting the racial ferment in the beautiful country of South Africa in 1948
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Excellent women
by Barbara Pym
A subtle comedy about life and its complications chronicles the experiences of spinster Mildred Lathbury, who tends to become involved in other people's affairs, set in England during the 1950s. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.
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Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
Beautiful and wealthy Antoinette Cosway's passionate love for an English aristocrat threatens to destroy her idyllic West Indian island existence and her very life, in a new edition published in honor of this classic novel's 50th anniversary. Reissue.
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The tale of Genji
by Murasaki Shikibu
The classical novel of court life in tenth and eleventh-century Japan centers on the life and loves of a nobleman known as the shining Genji, son of an emperor, and those of Kaoru, grandson of Genji's best friend
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Fathers and Sons
by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
Fathers and Sons, also translated more literally as Fathers and Children, is an 1862 novel by Ivan Turgenev, published in Moscow by Grachev & Co. It is one of the most acclaimed Russian novels of the 19th century. A timeless depiction of generational conflict during social upheaval, it vividly portrays the clash between the older Russian aristocracy and the youthful radicalism that foreshadowed the revolution to comeāand offers modern-day readers much to reflect upon as they look around at their own tumultuous, ever changing world.
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Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter : A Novel
by Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario falls in love with and embarks on a secret love affair with his recently divorced Aunt Julia, scandalizing the town of Lima, Peru, while Mario's friend Pedro Camacho becomes more and more obsessed with the soap operas he writes.
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The optimist's daughter
by Eudora Welty
Laurel Hand is forced to face her Southern past when she returns to Mississippi for her father's funeral
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The bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder
A Franciscan monk's investigation into the early eighteenth-century collapse of a Peruvian bridge, killing five Peruvian travelers, probes the private lives of the victims, in a new edition of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. 15,000 first printing.
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Half a lifelong romance : a novel
by Ailing Zhang
Separated from each other by family expectations about marrying for wealth, a young couple in 1930s Shanghai find their lives shaped by plots, missed connections, tragic misunderstandings and societal norms that thwart their prospects for happiness.
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