Displaying books 9313-9360 of 10492 in total

Absalom, Absalom!

Absalom, Absalom! is considered by many to be William Faulkner's masterpiece. Although the novel's complex and fragmented structure poses considerable difficulty to readers, the book's literary merits place it squarely in the ranks of America's finest novels.

The story concerns Thomas Sutpen, a poor man who finds wealth and then marries into a respectable family. His ambition and extreme need for control bring about his ruin and the ruin of his family. Sutpen's story is told by several narrators, allowing the reader to observe variations in the saga as it is recounted by different speakers. This unusual technique spotlights one of the novel's central questions: To what extent can people know the truth about the past?

The Great Hunt

1990

by Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

For centuries, gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages. And it is stolen.

In pursuit of the thieves, Rand al'Thor is determined to keep the Horn out of the grasp of The Dark One. But he has also learned that he is The Dragon Reborn—the Champion of Light destined to stand against the Shadow time and again. It is a duty and a destiny that requires Rand to uncover and master extraordinary capabilities he never imagined he possessed.

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is a science fiction novel that delves into the dangers of genetic engineering. It depicts the disastrous events that unfold in a theme park where dinosaurs, brought back to life through advanced cloning techniques, are put on display.

The novel explores the concept of chaos theory and its real-world implications, serving as a cautionary tale about the unforeseen consequences of tampering with nature. Jurassic Park became a significant cultural phenomenon, especially after its adaptation into a blockbuster film directed by Steven Spielberg, which sparked the widespread 'dinomania' of the 1990s.

If There Be Thorns

1990

by V.C. Andrews

Christopher and Cathy have made a loving home for their handsome and talented teenager Jory, their imaginative nine-year-old Bart, and a sweet baby daughter. Then an elderly woman and her strange butler move in next door. The Old Woman in Black watches from her window, lures lonely Bart inside with cookies and ice cream, and asks him to call her “grandmother.”

Slowly Bart transforms, each visit pushing him closer to the edge of madness and violence, while his anguished parents can only watch. For Cathy and Chris, the horrors of the past have come home…and everything they love may soon be torn from them.

An Omnibus: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant / The Accidental Tourist / Breathing Lessons

1990

by Anne Tyler

No other writer captures like Anne Tyler, with acerbic affection and compassionate clarity, the shifts and defences of the average family struggling to keep life under control.

This first omnibus edition of three full-length novels, all set in the respectable Baltimore streets she has made so particularly her own, encompasses the range of eccentricities and compromises to which they are driven.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant follows the disintegration and eventual reaffirmation of the Tull family - fierce, embittered Pearl, left by Beck to raise handsome, thrusting Cody, Jenny, the pediatrician losing herself in devotion to others, and docile Ezra, whose attempts to unite them all around a table at his eccentric Homesick Restaurant are the focus of their differences and their bond.

In The Accidental Tourist, Macon - a man of habit and routine, who writes guide books for businessmen who hate to leave home - is confronted by chaos in his own family life. Between aching sadness and glorious absurdity, Macon hesitantly emerges from his sage cocoon into the vibrant, unpredictable world of the outrageous Muriel...

And Breathing Lessons, which lays bare the anatomy of a marriage. On the round trip to a friend's funeral, Maggie and Ira Moran make detours literal and metaphorical - into the lives of grown children, old friends, total strangers, and their own past - and, despite Ira's disappointments and Maggie's optimistic determination to rearrange life as she would like it to be, an old married couple fall in love all over again.

Earth

1990

by David Brin

Time is running out. Decades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth's core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year.

But while they look for an answer, some claim that the only way to save Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to reset the evolutionary clock and start over.

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

1990

by Bill Watterson

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury is a captivating collection of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. This treasury includes fan favorites such as Yukon Ho! and Weirdos From Another Planet, along with a story that has not been in print before, making it a must-have for enthusiasts and new readers alike.

Bill Watterson, the creative genius behind these beloved characters, was honored with the 1986 Reuben Award as Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, showcasing his remarkable talent and contribution to the world of comics.

The Doll's House

A being who has existed since the beginning of the universe, Dream of the Endless rules over the realm of dreams. In The Doll's House, after a decades-long imprisonment, the Sandman has returned to find that a few dreams and nightmares have escaped to reality. Looking to recapture his lost possessions, Morpheus ventures to the human plane only to learn that a woman named Rose Walker has inadvertently become a dream vortex and threatens to rip apart his world.

Now, as Morpheus takes on the last escaped nightmare at a serial killers convention, the Lord of Dreams must mercilessly murder Rose or risk the destruction of his entire kingdom.

Liar's Poker

1990

by Michael Lewis

In this shrewd and wickedly funny book, Michael Lewis describes an astonishing era and his own rake's progress through a powerful investment bank. From an unlikely beginning (art history at Princeton?) he rose in two short years from Salomon Brothers trainee to Geek (the lowest form of life on the trading floor) to Big Swinging Dick, the most dangerous beast in the jungle, a bond salesman who could turn over millions of dollars' worth of doubtful bonds with just one call.

With the eye and ear of a born storyteller, Michael Lewis shows us how things really worked on Wall Street. In the Salomon training program, a roomful of aspirants is stunned speechless by the vitriolic profanity of the Human Piranha; out on the trading floor, bond traders throw telephones at the heads of underlings and Salomon chairman Gutfreund challenges his chief trader to a hand of liar's poker for one million dollars; around the world in London, Tokyo, and New York, bright young men like Michael Lewis, connected by telephones and computer terminals, swap gross jokes and find retail buyers for the staggering debt of individual companies or whole countries.

The bond traders, wearing greed and ambition as badges of honor, might well have swaggered straight from the pages of Bonfire of the Vanities. But for all their outrageous behavior, they were in fact presiding over enormous changes in the world economy. Lewis's job, simply described, was to transfer money, in the form of bonds, from those outside America who saved to those inside America who consumed. In doing so, he generated tens of millions of dollars for Salomon Brothers, and earned for himself a ringside seat on the greatest financial spectacle of the decade: the leveraging of America.

Sorceress of Darshiva

1990

by David Eddings

The Endless Quest...

Troubles and delays continued to mount as Garion, Belgarath, Polgara, and the company pursued Zandramas across the known world. Possessed by the Dark Destiny, she had stolen Garion's infant son for a ritual that would destroy all that men valued. She was always one step ahead, taunting and spying on them, flying over in the form of a great dragon.

Her armies, led by a Demon Lord, threatened on one side; on the other were the forces of Emperor Zakath, seeking to capture them. Somehow, as the Seeress of Kell had warned, they had to be at the Place Which Is No More for the ritual at the same time as Zandramas, or face disaster. But where that might be they still had no clue.

To Dance with the White Dog

1990

by Terry Kay

A moving story of love, grief, and coming to terms with death, this is the story of the elderly Sam Peek, who is mourning the death of his beloved wife when a mysterious white dog appears.

Seen only by Sam, the White Dog becomes a part of Sam's journey through grief. Though it's unclear if the White Dog is real or a phantom, the creature eases Sam's grief, brings him closer to his family, and helps him reconcile with his own mortality.

Author Terry Kay brings North-East Georgia to life through his elegant prose, and the thought-provoking themes of family, love, and loss will make readers come back to this touching story over and over.

Carrion Comfort

1990

by Dan Simmons

The Past... Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves...


The Present... Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression.


Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself...

Light in August

Light in August, a novel set in the American South during Prohibition, contrasts stark tragedy with hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality. This work features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters:

  • Guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child;
  • Reverend Gail Hightower, plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen;
  • And Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” —William Faulkner

The Witching Hour

1990

by Anne Rice

From the author of the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles comes a huge, hypnotic novel of witchcraft and the occult through four centuries. Demonstrating, once again, her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches—a family given to poetry and to incest, to murder and to philosophy; a family that, over the ages, is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being.

On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking... and The Witching Hour begins. It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.

As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV. An intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.

From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien—the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers—provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing. And always—through peril and escape, tension and release—there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death. With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.

Number the Stars

1990

by Lois Lowry

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are relocated, Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family.

Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

The Remains of the Day

1990

by Kazuo Ishiguro

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past...

A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love.

Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spends a day on a country drive and embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's greatness and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.

The Complete Works

The Complete Works by William Shakespeare is an extensive collection that brings together the celebrated works of one of the most influential writers in the English language. This comprehensive edition includes Shakespeare's timeless plays, sonnets, and poems, offering readers a unique opportunity to explore the breadth and depth of his literary genius.

From the tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet to the comedic twists of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and from the political machinations of Julius Caesar to the haunting contemplations of Hamlet, this volume presents an array of Shakespeare's most renowned works. Also featured are his lesser-known poems, such as Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, as well as his profound sonnets that delve into themes of love, beauty, and mortality.

Whether you are a dedicated scholar or a casual reader, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is an essential addition to any library, providing endless hours of engagement with the words of the Bard himself.

Tigana

1990

by Guy Gavriel Kay

Tigana is the magical story of a beleaguered land struggling to be free. It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannot be spoken or remembered...

But years after the devastation, a handful of courageous men and women embark upon a dangerous crusade to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the dark world the brilliance of a long-lost name...Tigana. Against the magnificently rendered background of a world both sensuous and barbaric, this sweeping epic of a passionate people pursuing their dream is breathtaking in its vision, changing forever the boundaries of fantasy fiction.

Wiseguy

Wiseguy is Nicholas Pileggi's remarkable bestseller, offering the most intimate account ever printed of life inside the deadly high-stakes world of what some people call the Mafia. This is the story of Henry Hill, shared in fascinating and brutal detail, revealing the never-before-revealed day-to-day life of a working mobster.

Explore his violence, wild spending sprees, his wife and mistresses, and his code of honor. Discover the true-crime bestseller that was the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film masterpiece GoodFellas. Experience the secret life inside the mob—from one who’s lived it.

Precious Bane

1990

by Mary Webb

Precious Bane is a compelling story of passion, with an enduring air of enchantment throughout. This novel haunts us with its beauty and its timeless truths about our deepest hopes. Set in Shropshire in the 1800s, it is alive with the many moods of Nature, both benevolent and violent, and the equally varied moods of the people making lives there.

Prue Sarn is an unlikely heroine, born with a facial disfiguration which the Fates have dictated will deny her love. But Prue has strength far beyond her handicap, and this woman, suspected of witchcraft by her fellow townspeople, rises above them all through an all-encompassing sweetness of spirit.

Precious Bane is also the story of Gideon, Prue's doomed brother, equally strong-willed but with different motives. Determined to defeat the poverty of their farm, he devotes all his energies to making money. His only diversion from this ambition is abandoned for the stronger drive of his money lust.

Finally, it is the story of Kester Woodseaves, whose steady love for all created things leads him to resist people's cruelty toward nature and each other. His love for Prue Sarn enables him to discern her natural loveliness beneath her blighted appearance.

Mary Webb's narrative is one of beauty and resonance, capturing the reader with its lyrical prose and profound insights into human nature.

मधुशाला

Dr. Harivanshrai Bachchan is India's leading Hindi poet, a confidante of the Nehrus. His son is India's best-known cinema superstar, Amitabh Bachchan.

The core of this book is a long sequence called Madhushala (the house of wine), which could be compared to the Rubaiyat in imagery and metre.

Master and Commander

1990

by Patrick O'Brian

As the Royal Navy takes part in the wars against Napoleonic France, young Jack Aubrey receives his first command, the small, old, and slow HMS Sophie. Accompanied by his eccentric new friend, the physician and naturalist Stephen Maturin, Aubrey does battle with the naval hierarchy, with his own tendency to make social blunders, and with the challenges of forging an effective crew -- before ultimately taking on enemy ships in a vivid, intricately detailed series of sea battles.

Post Captain

1990

by Patrick O'Brian

Post Captain is a thrilling adventure set during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1803, as Napoleon shatters the Peace of Amiens, Captain Jack Aubrey, R. N., finds himself in a precarious position. Taking refuge in France to escape his creditors, he becomes interned.

With daring and ingenuity, Aubrey escapes from France, evades debtors' prison, and navigates the turbulent waters of a possible mutiny. His relentless pursuit of his quarry leads him straight into the heart of a French-held harbor. This installment of the Aubrey & Maturin series brilliantly surpasses expectations set by Master and Commander.

Patrick O'Brian's masterful storytelling captures the essence of the era, weaving together themes of friendship, loyalty, and the high-stakes drama of naval warfare. Readers are in for an exhilarating journey on the high seas, filled with epic battles and rich historical detail.

The Optimist's Daughter

1990

by Eudora Welty

The Optimist's Daughter is a profound exploration of familial bonds and self-discovery. The novel follows Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who returns to the South from Chicago when her father is on his deathbed in New Orleans.

After his passing, Laurel embarks on a journey back to her roots in a small Mississippi town. Accompanied by her father's naive and much younger wife, Fay, Laurel confronts the memories of her past.

In the solitude of her childhood home, she gains a deeper understanding of her parents and herself, making peace with her past to embrace her future.

Wayside School Is Falling Down

1990

by Louis Sachar

Louis, the yard teacher, starts off 30 tales of unusual students. Comic sketches precede every chapter.

Todd brings a cute adorable plastic puppy who bites back when Joy steals it. Cafeteria Mrs. Mush serves Mushroom Surprise that changes Ron. When Paul falls out the window, Leslie offers her pigtails to pull him back. On the 19th floor, invisible Allison finds Miss Zarves' class.

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

1990

by Bill Bryson

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson—the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent—brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language.

From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

The English Teacher

1990

by R.K. Narayan

Krishna, an English teacher in the town of Malgudi, is constantly nagged by the feeling that he's doing the wrong work. Despite this, he is delighted by his domestic life, where his wife and young daughter wait for him outside the house every afternoon.

Devastated by the death of his wife, Krishna comes to realize what he truly wants to do. He makes a decision that will change his life forever.

The Best of Roald Dahl

1990

by Roald Dahl

The Best of Roald Dahl is a collection of 25 of Roald Dahl's short stories. This collection brings together Dahl’s finest work, illustrating his genius for the horrific and grotesque which is unparalleled.

Contents:

- Madame Rosette
- Man from the South
- The Sound Machine
- Taste
- Dip in the Pool
- Skin
- Edward the Conqueror
- Lamb to the Slaughter
- Galloping Foxley
- The Way Up to Heaven
- Parson's Pleasure
- The Landlady
- William and Mary
- Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat
- Royal Jelly
- Georgy Porgy
- Genesis and Catastrophe
- Pig
- The Visitor
- Claud's Dog (The Ratcatcher, Rummins, Mr. Hoddy, Mr. Feasey, Champion of the World)
- The Great Switcheroo
- The Boy Who Talked with Animals
- The Hitchhiker
- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
- The Bookseller

The Call of the Wild

1990

by Jack London

The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck.

The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively more primitive and wild in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, and relies on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

1990

by Willa Cather

Willa Cather's best known novel is an epic--almost mythic--story of a single human life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert. In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows--gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness.

Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter

1990

by Elizabeth Moon

Paksenarrion — Paks for short — is somebody special. She knows it, even if nobody else does yet. No way will she follow her father's orders to marry the pig farmer down the road. She's off to join the army, even if it means she can never see her family again.

And so her adventure begins... the adventure that transforms her into a hero remembered in songs, chosen by the gods to restore a lost ruler to his throne. Here is her tale as she lived it.

The Aeneid

1990

by Virgil

The Aeneid – thrilling, terrifying and poignant in equal measure – has inspired centuries of artists, writers and musicians. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is translated by J. W. Mackail and has an afterword by Coco Stevenson.

Virgil’s epic tale tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who flees his city after its fall, with his father Anchises and his young son Ascanius – for Aeneas is destined to found Rome and father the Roman race. As Aeneas journeys closer to his goal, he must first prove his worth and attain the maturity necessary for such an illustrious task. He battles raging storms in the Mediterranean, encounters the fearsome Cyclopes, falls in love with Dido, Queen of Carthage, travels into the Underworld and wages war in Italy.

The Diamond Throne

1990

by David Eddings

After a long spell of exile, Sparhawk, Pandion Knight and the Queen's champion, returns to his native land to find it overrun with evil and intrigue. His young queen, Ehlana, is grievously ill, magically entombed within a block of crystal, doomed to die unless a cure can be found within a year.

As Sparhawk and his allies seek to save Ehlana, they discover the evil is even greater than they feared, leading them on a daring quest filled with magic, danger, and heroic battles.

L.A. Confidential

1990

by James Ellroy

Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers.

The novel takes these cops on a sprawling epic of brutal violence and the murderous seedy side of Hollywood. One of the best crime novels ever written, it is the heart of Ellroy's four-novel masterpiece, the LA Quartet, and an example of crime writing at its most powerful.

Mirror Image

1990

by Sandra Brown

When a TV reporter is injured in a Dallas-bound jet crash, she enters a world of mistaken identity and political intrigue in this action-packed romantic suspense novel.


The crash of a Dallas-bound jet isn't just a tragedy for TV reporter Avery Daniels; it's an act of fate that hands her a golden opportunity to further her career. But it also makes her the crucial player in a drama of violent passions and deadly desires. After plastic surgery transforms her face, Avery is mistaken for the glamorous, selfish wife of Tate Rutledge, the famous senatorial candidate and member of a powerful Texas dynasty.


As she lays helpless in the hospital, Avery makes a shattering discovery: someone close to Tate planned to assassinate him. Now, to save him, she must live another woman's life — and risk her own.

Hawaii

Pulitzer Prize–winning author James A. Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959. As the volcanic Hawaiian Islands sprout from the ocean floor, the land remains untouched for centuries—until, little more than a thousand years ago, Polynesian seafarers make the perilous journey across the Pacific, flourishing in this tropical paradise according to their ancient traditions. Then, in the early nineteenth century, American missionaries arrive, bringing with them a new creed and a new way of life.

Based on exhaustive research and told in Michener’s immersive prose, Hawaii is the story of disparate peoples struggling to keep their identity, live in harmony, and, ultimately, join together.

Ellen Foster

1990

by Kaye Gibbons

"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, the brave and engaging heroine of Kay Gibbons's first novel, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise, funny, affectionate, and true, Ellen Foster is, as Walker Percy called it, "The real thing. Which is to say, a lovely, sometimes heartwrenching novel. . . . [Ellen Foster] is as much a part of the backwoods South as a Faulkner character—and a good deal more endearing."

Kon-Tiki

1990

by Thor Heyerdahl

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure — a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage.

On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed from Peru on a balsa log raft. After three months on the open sea, encountering raging storms, whales, and sharks, they sighted land — the Polynesian island of Puka Puka.

Translated into sixty-five languages, Kon-Tiki is a classic, inspiring tale of daring and courage — a magnificent saga of men against the sea.

Message from Nam

1990

by Danielle Steel

As a journalist, Paxton Andrews would experience Vietnam firsthand. We follow her from high school in Savannah to college in Berkeley and then to work in Saigon.

For the soldiers she knew and met there, Viet Nam would change their lives in ways they could never have imagined. For the men in her life, Viet Nam would change their lives in ways they could not escape or deny. Peter Wilson, fresh from law school, was a new recruit who would confront his fate in Da Nang. Ralph Johnson, a seasoned AP correspondent, had been in Saigon since the beginning. He knew Vietnam and the war inside out. Bill Quinn, captain of the Cu Chi tunnel rats, was on his fourth tour of duty and it seemed nothing could touch him. Sergeant Tony Campobello had come to Vietnam from the streets of New York to vent a rage that had followed him all the way to Saigon.

For seven years, Paxton Andrews would write an acclaimed newspaper column from the front before finally returning to the States and then attending the Paris peace talks. But for her and the men who fought in Viet Nam, life would never be the same again.

The Stand

1990

by Stephen King

The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King. It expands upon the scenario of a world decimated by a pandemic. The novel outlines the total breakdown of society after the accidental release of a strain of influenza that had been modified for biological warfare causes an apocalyptic pandemic, which kills off the majority of the world's human population.

Survivors struggle to establish new social systems and engage in confrontation between good and evil. The narrative follows groups of people on both sides of the emerging conflict and their moral, philosophical, and psychological journey in the aftermath of the catastrophe.

The Story of My Life

1990

by Helen Keller

When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880–1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps-with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan-is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables, her education at Radcliffe (from which she graduated cum laude), and-underlying all-her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan, who showed a remarkable genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil.

The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction

1990

by Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex. This book delves into the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

Foucault challenges the norms and invites readers to rethink the complex relationships between sex, power, and identity. Through this work, he provides a critical lens on how sexuality is perceived and its impact on society.

Another Roadside Attraction

1990

by Tom Robbins

What if the Second Coming didn’t quite come off as advertised? What if “the Corpse” on display in that funky roadside zoo is really who they say it is—what does that portend for the future of western civilization? And what if a young clairvoyant named Amanda reestablishes the flea circus as popular entertainment and fertility worship as the principal religious form of our high-tech age? Another Roadside Attraction answers those questions and a lot more.

It tells us, for example, what the sixties were truly all about, not by reporting on the psychedelic decade but by recreating it, from the inside out. In the process, this stunningly original seriocomic thriller is fully capable of simultaneously eating a literary hot dog and eroding the borders of the mind.

Gold Coast

1990

by Nelson DeMille

Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision:

John Sutter, a Wall Street lawyer, holds fast to a fading aristocratic legacy, while Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don, seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief. He draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world.

Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

Moon Palace

1990

by Paul Auster

Marco Stanley Fogg is an orphan, a child of the sixties, a quester tirelessly seeking the key to his past, the answers to the ultimate riddle of his fate. As Marco sets out on a journey from the canyons of Manhattan to the deserts of Utah, he encounters a gallery of characters and a series of events as rich and surprising as any in modern fiction.

Beginning during the summer that men first walked on the moon, and moving backward and forward in time to span three generations, Moon Palace is propelled by coincidence and memory, and illuminated by marvelous flights of lyricism and wit. Here is the most entertaining and moving novel yet from an author well known for his breathtaking imagination.

When Rabbit Howls

1990

by Truddi Chase

A woman diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder reveals her harrowing journey from abuse to recovery in this #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography written by her own multiple personalities.

Successful, happily married Truddi Chase began therapy hoping to find the reasons behind her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What emerged from her sessions was terrifying: Truddi’s mind and body were inhabited by the Troops—ninety-two individual voices that emerged to shield her from her traumatizing childhood.

For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain of the ritualized sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her own stepfather—abuse that began when she was only two years old. It was a past that Truddi didn’t even know existed, until she and her therapist took a journey to where the nightmare began...

Written by the Troops themselves, When Rabbit Howls is told by the very alter-egos who stayed with Truddi Chase, watched over her, and protected her. What they reveal is a spellbinding descent into a personal hell—and an ultimate, triumphant deliverance for the woman they became.

The Hunt for Red October

1990

by Tom Clancy

Here is the runaway bestseller that launched Tom Clancy's phenomenal career. A military thriller so gripping in its action and so convincing in its accuracy that the author was rumored to have been debriefed by the White House. Its theme: the greatest espionage coup in history. Its story: the chase for a top-secret Russian missile sub. Lauded by the Washington Post as "breathlessly exciting." The Hunt for Red October remains a masterpiece of military fiction by one of the world's most popular authors, a man whose shockingly realistic scenarios continue to hold us in thrall.

Somewhere under the 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. And the most incredible chase in history is on...

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Published two weeks after his seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest. It is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue. Ada, or Ardor is no less than the supreme work of an imagination at white heat.

This is the first American edition to include the extensive and ingeniously sardonic appendix by the author, written under the anagrammatic pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom.

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