Archives: Books
Archives: Books
The Outsiders
Set in 1965 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, The Outsiders follows the first-person narration of 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis over a two-week period. Ponyboy is a member of the Greasers, a gang made up “outsiders,” kids from the poorer east side of town. Their rival gang, the Socs (short for “Socials”) are wealthy students from the west side. During an altercation between the two gangs, Ponyboy’s friend and fellow Greaser, Johnny, stabs and kills a Soc. Ponyboy and Johnny go into hiding, though Johnny emerges to turn himself in as tensions rise between the rival gangs—though not before a final confrontation. The novel confronts themes …
Outlander (Series)
Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages. This is the first book in the series.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
The Notebook
The Notebook is a story-within-a-story: we first meet a nameless elderly man reading a story from a notebook to an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer’s. The notebook tells the story of Allie and Noah, who meet in Noah’s hometown while Allie and her family are vacationing there. Their whirlwind romance is cut short by her return home, and though Noah writes her a letter every day for a year, none of them are answered. Fourteen years later, Noah returns from World War II and is reunited with Allie, who is now engaged to Lon. As the novel progresses, Allie is revealed …
Moby-Dick
“Call me Ishmael.” And so begins one the most famous journeys in literature—the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, with its scarred Captain Ahab and a universe of compelling crewmen, including the islander Queequeg, the harpooner Fedallah, the mate Elijah, and Ishmael himself. Ishmael quickly learns that the Pequod’s maniacal captain sails for revenge against the elusive Moby Dick, a sperm whale with a snow-white hump and mottled skin who scuttled Ahab’s former vessel and left him crippled during his last whaling voyage. As the Pequod sails deeper through the nights and into the sea, the divisions between man and …
Memoirs of a Geisha
A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan’s most celebrated geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl’s virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.
The Martian
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he …
The Lovely Bones
Then we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn’t happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their …
The Lord of the Rings (Series)
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by the hobbit Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship of the Ring: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord Sauron, and destroy the One Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. This is the first book in the series.
Looking for Alaska
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called “The Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps. Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.
Lonesome Dove
A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, Lonesome Dove, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic and beautifully written, Lonesome Dove is both a humorous and heartbreaking as it follows cattle drivers Gus and Call across the prairie.
Little Women
Little Women follows the close-knit sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March as they grow from children into young women. Its author, Louisa May Alcott, loosely based the Marches on her own sisters, and Jo—a young writer who resists society’s expectations for her behavior and passions—on herself. Living with their mother in Massachusetts, adjusting to their poorer circumstances while their father serves in the Civil War, the March girls grapple with first love, tremendous loss, and the gaps between who they are and who they would like to be. Set in New England during a time of great national crisis, it …
The Little Prince
The story of a stranded pilot, an extraordinary little boy, and their remarkable friendship, The Little Prince has become a cherished fable for generations of readers. As enchanting as it is wise, this beloved classic captures the mysteries of the heart and opens us to the meaning of life and the magic of love.
Left Behind (Series)
Based on a Dispensationalist reading of Old and New Testament scripture, the Left Behind series centers on those “left behind” after the Rapture transports true believers to Heaven. The Tribulation, the period between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus, is marked by great pain, but it offers those left behind a chance at redemption. Over the course of 16 books, the Left Behind series tracks a group of Americans who join together to form the Tribulation Force, which battles the Global Community, an Illuminati-esque organization led by a man later revealed to be the Antichrist. Critics characterize the series as “a revenge …
Jurassic Park
An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price. Until something goes wrong… In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton taps all his mesmerizing talent and scientific brilliance to create his most electrifying technothriller.
The Joy Luck Club
Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who’s “saying” the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. “To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable.” Forty years later the stories and history continue.With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the …
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre follows a timeless heroine’s quest to find her place in the world. Orphaned as a child, Jane Eyre suffers cruelty and abuse at the hands of her aunt and cousins. Banished to the Lowood School, she forges a path for herself and thrives—in spite of loneliness, poverty, and hunger. When the opportunity for work as a governess sends her to Thornfield Hall, she meets its owner, Edward Rochester, the man who will forever alter the course of her young life. At home for the first time, she begins to fall deeply, irrevocably in love with Mr. Rochester, nurtured by …
Invisible Man
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, and retreating amid …
The Intuitionist
It is a time of calamity in a major metropolitan city’s Department of Elevator Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it. There are two warring factions within the department: the Empiricists, who work by the book and dutifully check for striations on the winch cable and such; and the Intuitionists, who are simply able to enter the elevator cab in question, meditate, and intuit any defects. Lila Mae is an Intuitionist and, it just so happens, has the highest accuracy rate in the entire …
The Hunt for Red October
Somewhere under the freezing Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. The chase for the highly advanced nuclear submarine is on—and there’s only one man who can find her… Brilliant CIA analyst Jack Ryan has little interest in fieldwork, but when covert photographs of Red October land on his desk, Ryan soon finds himself in the middle of a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek played by two world powers—a game that could end in all-out war.