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My Mortal Enemy, Willa Cather First published in 1926, this book is Cather's sparest and most dramatic novel, a dark and oddly prescient portrait of a marriage that subverts our oldest notions about the nature of happiness and the sanctity of the hearth. |
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One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. 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 Buendía 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. |
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West of the Jordan, Laila Halaby From Publishers Weekly Four young women from Palestine and Jordan contend with issues of identity in this debut novel from Arab-American author Halaby. Hala, who has just finished high school in Arizona and intends to go to university, returns to Jordan to spend time with her dying grandmother. She finds herself at odds with her conservative older sister and her father, a traditional man much older than her independent mother, who died two years earlier. As she spends time in the country of her childhood, she forges a relationship with her older cousin, Sharif, and faces tough choices about her future. Hala's cousin Mawal has remained in the West Bank village of Nawara and leads a passive existence, living with her mother and listening to the many stories of villagers and relatives who have left for Jordan or the United States. In Los Angeles, two more cousins, Soraya and Khadija, attempt to integrate themselves into American life while facing prejudice and coping with their parents' traditional expectations; Soraya rebels with her sexuality, while Khadija faces a drunken and abusive father. The themes of choice and independence are very much at the forefront of the story, and much of the news revolves around loss: of homeland, of family, of traditions. Halaby's choice to alternate the narratives of the four young women offers real characterizations to latch onto, and her prose, often lyrical-particularly when the speakers relate other peoples' stories-deepens the complications of history and heritage. Contemplative and lush, this coming-of-age tale resonates with the challenges of cross-cultural life. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
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Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Karen Tei Yamashita From Publishers Weekly This satiric morality play about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest unfolds with a diversity and fecundity equal to its setting. First-novelist Yamashita blends the matter-of-fact surrealism of Garcia Marquez, bizarre science fiction twists a la Stanislaw Lem, and a gift for satirizing bureaucracy that recalls Heller of Catch 22 --all in a Chaucerian framework. But in the end it is the author's unique voice that emerges. A Japanese-American who has lived in Los Angeles and Brazil, Yamashita seems to have thrown into the pot everything she knows and most that she can imagine--all to good effect. The cast includes: the unusual narrator, a small ball that whirls near the forehead of a Japanese living in Brazil; American Jonathan B. Tweep, a three-armed businessman who develops the Theory of Trialectics; Mane Pena, who makes his fortune through "Featherology," the art of healing with feathers; and a couple whose pigeon-raising hobby turns into a national obsession and big business. The seemingly disparate plot lines converge explosively in the rain forest on the Matacao, a mysterious shiny plateau that at first offers wealth and miracles, and eventually death and disaster. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
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Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson's third novel, published in 1992. It follows in the footsteps of cyberpunk novels by such authors as William Gibson and Rudy Rucker, but differs from its predecessors in that it includes much satire and black humor. Like that of many postmodernist novels, Snow Crash's chaotic structure can confuse readers unfamiliar with the genre. It contains many references to history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, geography and philosophy. Set in a world with a political-economic system that has been radically transformed, the novel examines religion along with its social importance, perception of reality versus virtual reality, and the violent and physical nature of humanity. The book also reflects ideas from Julian Jaynes's The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976). |
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Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra (also published as Voyage to Venus) and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The Dark Tower. The trilogy was inspired and influenced by David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus (1920). |
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Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death is a 1969 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. One of his most popular works and widely regarded as a classic, it combines science fiction elements with an analysis of the human condition from an uncommon perspective, using time travel as a plot device. The bombing of Dresden in World War II, the aftermath of which Vonnegut witnessed, is the starting point. |
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Dune, Frank Herbert Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert and published in 1965. A joint winner of the 1966 Hugo Award and the winner of the first Nebula Award for Best Novel, Dune is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history, and was the first bestselling hardcover science fiction novel ever. |
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The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises is the first serious novel by Ernest Hemingway.[1] Published in 1926, the plot centers on a group of expatriate Americans in Europe during the 1920s. The book's title, selected by Hemingway (at the recommendation of his publisher) is taken from Ecclesiastes 1:5: "the sun also ariseth." Hemingway's original title for the work was Fiesta, which was used in the UK, German and Spanish edition of the novel. |
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The Human Stain, Philip Roth Set in the summer of 1998, with Bill Clinton's impeachment hovering in the background, The Human Stain chronicles the disgrace and downfall of Coleman Silk, an eminent classics professor at New England's small Athena College. When Silk asks about two absent students, "Do they exist or are they spooks?" a specious charge of racism is brought against him, and in the bitter fight that follows, his life begins to unravel. |
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The Bluest Eyes, Toni Morrison Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her. |
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Tracks, Louise Erdrich This "beautifully fashioned, powerful novel," set in North Dakota in the early 1900s, limns Fleur Pillager, a Native American woman who is rumored to be a witch, and whose life mirrors that of crumbling Indian culture and community. "This is a stunning story about people caught in the grip of passion and in the inexorable flow of history |
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My Ántonia, Willa Cather My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through that lens. |
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Atonement (movie version), Ian McEwan Ian McEwan's Booker Prize-nominated Atonement is his first novel since Amsterdam took home the prize in 1998. But while Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, more ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think, and experiment. We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Ammo" chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present.... |
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain Based in the mid 1800s before the Civil War, the novel chronicles the journey of and relationship between Huckleberry Finn and a runaway southern slave, Jim, as they flee south on the Mississippi River. The pair have a journey that bring them together and that shows Mark Twain's dislike for slavery in the southern culture. |
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Beloved, Toni Morrison The book follows the story of African Americans Sethe (pronounced "Seth-uh") and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after having escaped from slavery. One day, a young lady shows up at their house, saying that her name is "Beloved." Sethe comes to believe that the girl is another of her daughters, whom Sethe murdered by slitting her throat with a handsaw when she was only two years old to save her from a life of slavery, and whose tombstone reads "Beloved." Beloved's return consumes Sethe to the point where she ignores her other daughter and even her own needs, while Beloved becomes more and more demanding. |
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Catfish and Mandala, Andrew Pham Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland. |
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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip Dick A 1968 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. It tells of the moral crisis of Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who stalks androids in a fallout-clouded, partially deserted future San Francisco. |
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Dreams of My Father, Barack Obama Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is the autobiography of United States Senator Barack Obama. It was published in 1995 after Obama was elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, but before his political career began. |
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Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Mohja Kahf The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, a new novel by Mohja Kahf, is about a Syrian girl transplanted to the American Midwest in the 1970s. Kahf borrowed details from her own life -- she moved from Syria to the United States as a child -- but she insists that the book is not autobiograpical. |
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Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck The narrative, interrupted by prose-poem interludes, chronicles the struggles of the Joad family's life on a failing Oklahoma farm during the Dust Bowl years, their difficult journey to California, and their disillusionment once they arrive there and become migrant farmworkers. The Joad's insularity—Ma's obsession with family togetherness, her son Tom's self-centeredness, and her daughter Rose of Sharon's materialism—ultimately gives way to a sense of universal community. The work did much to publicize the injustice of migrant labor. |
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Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson The book is centered around Harold, a curious four-year-old who, with his purple crayon, has the power to create a world of his own by simply drawing it. He has many adventures looking for his room, but in the end he draws his own house and bed and goes to sleep. The character Harold is based on the legendary fox hunter Harold Blum. Harold, however, blew his purple crayon at the end of the story and ended up with a friendly pet dragon. |
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K.
Rowling This is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring the fictional character Harry Potter, a young wizard. Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, Harry proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. |
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House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros Despite Esperanza's spoken desire to move out of her house on Mango Street, her actions and descriptions of her street show a strong sense of community and affection for the people living there. |
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet
Jacobs Published in 1861, this was one of the first personal narratives by a slave and one of the few written by a woman. Jacobs (1813-97) was a slave in North Carolina and suffered terribly, along with her family, at the hands of a ruthless owner. She made several failed attempts to escape before successfully making her way North, though it took years of hiding and slow progress. Eventually, she was reunited with her children. For all biography and history collections. |
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The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan As the novel opens Jing-Mei "June" Woo has just lost her mother, Suyuan, to an aneurysm. She is asked by her mother's three friends to take Suyuan's place in their Mah-Jong foursome and their 'Joy Luck Club.' The novel unfolds with interspersed chapters by each of the three remaining members of the Club and their American-born daughters. Lindo and Waverly Jong began their war over Waverly's childhood chess stardom and the effects it has on every aspect of Waverly's adult life. An-Mei Hsu recounts the tragedy that gave her strength, and worries that her daughter, Rose, lacks the same determination. Lena St. Clair tries to care for her eccentric mother, while her mother recounts a secret history that has allowed her to see more deeply than her daughter imagines. Through it all, June Woo tries to piece together the stories that her own mother can no longer tell, and to be faithful to her mother's memory despite their sometimes rocky relationship. |
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Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness is the account of the efforts of a man named Genly Ai, a representative from a galactic federation of worlds (the Ekumen), who seeks to bring the world of Gethen into that society. It forms part of a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe. The inhabitants of Gethen are androgynes, biologically hermaphroditic humans; for twenty-four days of each twenty-six day lunar cycle they are biologically neuter, and for the remaining two days (kemmer) are male or female, as determined by pheromonal negotiation with an interested sex partner. Thus each individual can both sire and bear children. |
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Life of Pi, Yann Martel The protagonist Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores the issues of religion and spirituality from an early age and survives 227 days shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean. |
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Love That Dog, Sharon Creech Love That Dog is the story of Jack, his dog, his teacher, and words. The story develops through Jack's responses to his teacher, Miss Stretchberry, over the course of a school year. At first, his responses are short and cranky: "I don't want to" and "I tried. Can't do it. Brain's empty." But as his teacher feeds him inspiration, Jack finds that he has a lot to say and he finds ways to say it. |
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Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf The novel follows Clarissa Dalloway throughout a single day in post-Great War England in a stream of consciousness style narrative. Constructed out of two short stories that Woolf had previously written ("Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" and her unfinished "The Prime Minister") the basic story is that of Clarissa's preparations for a party she is to host that evening. Using the interior perspective of the novel, Woolf moves back and forth in time, and in and out of the various characters' minds to construct a complete image, not of just Clarissa's life, but capturing the Edwardian social structure in the space of a single day. |
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Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell The story of one man's nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory, 1984 is a prophetic, haunting tale. |
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Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking, pitch-perfect novel -- namely, Stevens' own ability to allow some bit of life-affirming love into his tightly repressed existence. |
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Strangers from a Different Shore, Ronald Takaki
In an extraordinary blend of eloquent narrative history, vivid personal recollection, and oral testimony, Ronald Takaki relates the diverse 150-year history of Asian Americans. Through richly detailed vignettes--by turns bitter, funny, and inspiring--he offers a stunning panorama of a neglected part of Americanhistory. |
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Tale of Despereaux, Kate Dicamillo Despereaux Tilling is a mouse. He has big dreams and gets out of the world of mice and into the world of people and rats. He learns a lot about himself and the world around him. He learns that even a tiny mouse can be brave as a knight. |