Archives: Books
Archives: Books
Atlas Shrugged
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller. Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rand’s most extensive statement of Objectivism—her groundbreaking philosophy—offers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century’s leading artists.
Another Country
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions—sexual, racial, political, artistic—that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. In a small set of friends, Baldwin imbues the best and worst intentions of liberal America in the early 1970s.
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables is the beloved coming-of-age story about freckled 11-year-old orphan Anne Shirley, who is taken in by adult siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. Anne’s relentless positivity and energy endear her to those around her, even as she struggles to adapt to the societal conventions of fictional Avonlea. Her vivid imagination and sentimentality get her in trouble, as she finds it hard to balance her fantasy life with the reality of Avonlea’s expectations. As she grows up and encounters more adult decisions, Anne is gradually able to find comfort in the home that she has made for herself.
Americanah
The bestselling novel—a love story of race and identity—from the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele. Ifemelu and Obinzeare are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and …
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematics teacher at Christ Church, Oxford, often took three young daughters of his dean rowing down the Thames River, spinning fairy tales to pass the time. One afternoon in 1862, his story was especially well received by Alice Liddell, who entreated him to write it down for her. The story he’d told became Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which Dodgson later published under the penname Lewis Carroll. It and its companion works trace the adventures of a young girl who dreams of a number of bizarre encounters inflected with logic puzzles while she meets such memorable characters …
Alex Cross Mysteries (Series)
A missing little girl named Maggie Rose.The thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher. A psychopathic serial murderer who calls himself the Son of Lindbergh, Gary Soneji. He is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him —even after he’s been captured. Who will be his next victim? This book is the first one in the series.
The Alchemist
The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations. Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer follows the exciting, mischievous, and often ill-advised exploits of the title character and his friend Huckleberry Finn. Their escapades include getting “engaged,” shirking their chores, running away to an island to become pirates, hunting for buried treasure, and getting dangerously lost in a cave. Through each of these adventures, Tom and Huck create a world for themselves that is more exciting than the town they live in along the Mississippi River, where the institutions that govern society in the Reconstruction-era American South are no match for impish and clever children.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harshlife of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior-such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce-no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty.
A Separate Peace
In American classic and great bestseller for decades, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II. Set at a boys’ boarding school in New England during the early years of the war, A Separate Peace is the story of Gene, a lonely, introverted intellectual, and Phineas, a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
A Prayer for Owen Meany
In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary.
1984
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s …
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces’ protagonist, Ignatius Jacques Reilly, is described in Walker Percy’s foreword as a slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one. Reilly’s adventures and observations of New Orleans paint a rich portrait of the diversity of the city, including its various dialects; today on Canal Street, a bronze statue of the character recreates the novel’s opening scene, as Reilly waits for his mother outside the D.H. Holmes department store.
And Then There Were None
Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to aisolated mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. And one by one, they die…
An American Marriage
Married for only a short time, Celestial and Roy take a trip to visit his parents. During that visit, Roy is arrested for a crime he did not commit, and is eventually sentenced to twelve years in prison. Of course, Celestial is devastated. She is an artist who creates hand-made high-end dolls for wealthy collectors, and her business is just starting to take off. As her usual self-reliant, independent self is crumbling, she leans on childhood friend and neighbor, Andre, for support. Needless to say, their relationship deepens, and the ensuing love triangle sets the stage for plenty of soul-searching …