Our Mutual Friend is a satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, revolving around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich discard their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the dust-heap’s expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes change hands in unexpected ways, elevating "Noddy" Boffin from a low-born but kindly clerk to "the Golden Dustman."
As Charles Dickens’s last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend delves into the great themes of his earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveaux riches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With a flavorful cast of characters and numerous subplots, it stands as one of Dickens’s most complex—and satisfying—novels.
Four decades after it first terrified the world, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is back! An extraordinary classic work of horror and dark paranormal suspense. In this stunning 40th Anniversary Edition, a desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a supernatural entity of pure malevolence.
The novel was inspired by a 1949 case of demonic possession and exorcism that Blatty heard about while he was a student in the class of 1950 at Georgetown University. As a result, the novel takes place in Washington, D.C., near the campus of Georgetown University.
Death on the Installment Plan is the compelling story of young Ferdinand's first 18 years. His life unfolds amidst the grinding struggle of small shopkeepers to survive, filled with childhood sensations and fantasies that are lusty, scatological, violent, yet also imbued with poetry.
Ferdinand battles with his ineffectual insurance clerk father and his mother, who whines around the junkshop she runs for his benefit. He briefly attends the superbly funny Meanwell College in England, a Dickensian nightmare institution.
Humiliation, failure, and boredom are constants until Ferdinand teams up with the "scientist" des Pereires—an inventor, con-man, incorrigible optimist—whose last project is to grow enormous potatoes by electricity. Des Pereires proves to be one of the most lovable charlatans in French literature.
This novel mixes unmitigated despair with Gargantuan comedy, creating a style where invective and obscenity are laced with unforgettable poetry. Céline's influence has revolutionized the contemporary approach to fiction, making this work a forerunner of today’s "black comedy."
Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a story of discovery—personal, historical, and geographical. Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit. What emerges is an enthralling portrait of four generations in the life of an American family.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an epic poem penned by an anonymous 14th-century poet, celebrated for its equal stature with Chaucer's masterworks and the renowned Old English poems, including Beowulf.
This timeless tale weaves a narrative rich in chivalry, adventure, and mystery. It follows the noble Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, as he embarks on a daring quest to confront the enigmatic Green Knight. With themes of honor, bravery, and the testing of one's character, this story has captivated readers for centuries.
This edition features a Preface by Raffel and a fresh Introduction, offering insights into this classic reissue.
The artefact is a circular ribbon of matter six hundred million miles long and ninety million miles in radius. Pierson's puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld.
Greeneland has been described often as a land bleak and severe. A whisky priest dies in one village, a self-hunted man lives with lepers in another. But Greeneland has its summer regions, and in the sunlight everything looks a bit different.
Here Aunt Augusta travels with her black lover, Wordsworth, Curran, the founder of a doggie's church, the CIA, a man obsessed by statistics and his hippie daughter; and old Mr. Visconti, who has been wanted by Interpol for twenty years.
Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, unexpectedly caught up with them, describes their activities at first with shock and bewilderment and finally with the tenderness of a fellow traveler going their way.
Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble provincial origins. Soon realizing that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, he begins to achieve advancement through deceit and self-interest. His triumphant career takes him into the heart of glamorous Parisian society, along the way conquering the gentle, married Madame de Rênal, and the haughty Mathilde. But then Julien commits an unexpected, devastating crime—and brings about his own downfall.
The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical portrayal of French society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed and ennui, and Julien—the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions—is one of the most intriguing characters in European literature.
After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North returns to his village along the Nile in the Sudan. It is the 1960s, and he is eager to make a contribution to the new postcolonial life of his country. Back home, he discovers a stranger among the familiar faces of childhood—the enigmatic Mustafa Sa’eed.
Mustafa takes the young man into his confidence, telling him the story of his own years in London, of his brilliant career as an economist, and of the series of fraught and deadly relationships with European women that led to a terrible public reckoning and his return to his native land.
But what is the meaning of Mustafa’s shocking confession? Mustafa disappears without explanation, leaving the young man—whom he has asked to look after his wife—in an unsettled and violent no-man’s-land between Europe and Africa, tradition and innovation, holiness and defilement, and man and woman, from which no one will escape unaltered or unharmed.
Season of Migration to the North is a rich and sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism. In 2001 it was selected by a panel of Arab writers and critics as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century.
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.
Includes the following stories:
Considerada una obra maestra, esta novela supuso el reconocimiento de Simin Daneshvar como una autora indispensable de la moderna literatura persa. Reeditada en numerosas ocasiones, Suvashun fue una novela valiente, la primera escrita por una mujer iraní y narrada por su protagonista femenina. Ambientada en el Irán de la Segunda Guerra Mundial durante la ocupación de los Aliados, la historia está narrada por Zahra, una joven ama de casa que es testigo de los acontecimientos.
El amor que siente por su marido, sus tres hijos, su casa y su jardín, a los que considera su país, y la educación en el colegio de los misioneros ingleses han hecho de ella una mujer culta pero sumisa, tolerante ante las injusticias que ve a su alrededor, una actitud que choca frontalmente con la personalidad de su marido, Yusef, que se rebela frente a los invasores, como el mítico héroe persa Suvashun.
Dick Young is lent a house in Cornwall by his friend Professor Magnus Lane. During his stay, he agrees to serve as a guinea pig for a new drug that Magnus has discovered in his scientific research. When Dick samples Magnus's potion, he finds himself doing the impossible: traveling through time while staying in place, thrown all the way back into Medieval Cornwall.
The concoction wears off after several hours, but its effects are intoxicating, and Dick cannot resist his newfound powers. As his journeys increase, Dick begins to resent the days he must spend in the modern world, longing ever more fervently to get back into his world of centuries before, and the home of the beautiful Lady Isolda.
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.
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, this book delves deep into the personal and societal struggles of the era, making it a timeless exploration of human connections and the forces that challenge them.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the timeless story of a small, but very ravenous caterpillar who embarks on a journey through an array of delicious foods. Eric Carle's charming tale has touched the hearts of generations, becoming an essential part of a child's literary experience.
One sunny Sunday, the caterpillar comes to life from a tiny egg. He's incredibly hungry, and as the week unfolds, he munches his way through apples, plums, and an assortment of foods. Each day brings a new feast, satisfying his insatiable appetite, until he's finally full. Then, he wraps himself in a cocoon and falls asleep, only to emerge later as a beautiful butterfly.
The book is not only a delight to read but also serves as a gentle introduction to the wonders of nature, specifically the process of metamorphosis. Eric Carle's innovative illustrations and design have made this book a cherished classic, inviting readers to share in the caterpillar's journey again and again.
Sentimental Education is based on Gustave Flaubert’s own youthful passion for an older woman and is described by the author as "the moral history of the men of my generation." It follows the amorous adventures of Frederic Moreau, a law student who, upon returning home to Normandy from Paris, notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. This marks the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime.
Frederic befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and as their paths cross and re-cross over the years, Mme Arnoux remains the constant, unattainable love of Moreau’s life. Blending love story, historical authenticity, and satire, Sentimental Education is one of the great French novels of the nineteenth century.
Vanity Fair is William Makepeace Thackeray's classic tale of class, society, and corruption. No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George.
As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles—military and domestic—are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.
Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time, the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain."
Roquentin's efforts to try and come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenets of his Existentialist creed.
Coward, scoundrel, lover, and cheat, but there is no better man to go into the jungle with. Join Flashman in his adventures as he survives fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world.
Can a man be all bad? When Harry Flashman’s adventures as the reluctant secret agent in Afghanistan lead him to join the exclusive company of Lord Cardigan’s Hussars and play a part in the disastrous Retreat from Kabul, it culminates in the rascal’s finest – and most dishonest – turn.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is a groundbreaking work of science fiction that explores the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. However, to achieve this, he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture he encounters.
Embracing aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness is celebrated as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction. The novel delves into complex themes involving gender and sexuality, challenging readers' perceptions of human nature and societal constructs. It is not only an adventure story but also a profound thought experiment that invites contemplation about the fluidity of gender and the potential for understanding amidst cultural differences.
During his earthly ministry, Jesus performed many miracles, including healing numerous diseased and disabled bodies. But perhaps his greatest miracle was the healing of people's souls, - the forgiveness of sin. Jesus offers us that same miracle on the same terms- sincere repentance.
In The Miracle of Forgiveness, President Spencer W Kimball gives a penetrating explanation of repentance and forgiveness and clarifies their implications for Church members. His in-depth approach shows that the need for forgiveness is universal; portrays the various facets of repentance, and emphasizes some of the more serious errors, particularly sexual ones, which afflict both modern society and Church members. Most important, he illuminates his message with the brightness of hope that even those who have gone grievously astray may find the way back to peace and security. Never before has any book brought this vital and moving subject into so sharp a focus. This classic book is a major work of substance and power. After, all who does not need the miracle of forgiveness.
First published in 1949, A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.
Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere.
In a final section, Leopold addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. As the forerunner of such important books as Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finch's The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was when first published.
Tokyo, 1912. The closed world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders - rich provincial families, a new and powerful political and social elite.
Kiyoaki has been raised among the elegant Ayakura family - members of the waning aristocracy - but he is not one of them. Coming of age, he is caught up in the tensions between the old and the new, and his feelings for the exquisite, spirited Satoko, observed from the sidelines by his devoted friend Honda.
When Satoko is engaged to a royal prince, Kiyoaki realises the magnitude of his passion.
The story of a remarkable spiritual journey, the first awesome steps on the road to becoming a man of knowledge, the road that continues with A Separate Reality and Journey To Ixtlan. Includes The Teachings and A Structural Analysis.
من هذا الطفل الذي يناديه الجميع بالشيطان الصغير ويصفونه بقط المزاريب؟ وأي طفل هذا الذي يحمل في قلبه عصفورا يغني؟ "شجرتي شجرة البرتقال الرائعة" للكاتب خوسيه ماورو دي فاسكونسيلوس عمل يدرس في المدارس البرازيلية وينصح الأساتذة في المعاهد الفرنسية طلبتهم بقراءته... إنه عمل مؤثر وإنساني على لسان شاعر طفل لم يتجاوز عمره خمس سنوات... عمل لا يروي حكاية خرافية ولا أحلام الصغار في البرازيل فحسب، بل يروي مغامرات الكاتب في طفولته، مغامرات الطفل الذي تعلم القراءة في سن الرابعة دون معلم، الطفل الذي يحمل في قلبه عصفورا وفي رأسه شيطانا يهمس له بأفكار توقعه في المتاعب مع الكبار... هذه رواية عذبة عذوبة نسغ ثمرة برتقال حلوة... رواية إنسانية تصف البراءة التي يمكن لقلب طفل أن يحملها، وتعرفنا إلى روح الشاعر الفطرية... حكاية طفل يحمل دماء سكان البرازيل الأصليين، طفل يسرق كل صباح من حديقة أحد الأثرياء زهرة لأجل معلمته... وهو يتساءل بمنتهى البراءة: ألم يمنح الله الزهور لكل الناس؟
En créant le personnage de Zénon, alchimiste et médecin du XVIe siècle, Marguerite Yourcenar, l'auteure des Mémoires d'Hadrien, ne raconte pas seulement le destin tragique d'un homme extraordinaire. C'est toute une époque qui revit dans son infinie richesse, comme aussi dans son âcre et brutale réalité. Un monde contrasté où s'affrontent le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, et où pointent déjà les temps modernes.
Un monde dont Zénon est issu, mais dont peu à peu cet homme libre se dégage, et qui pour cette raison même finira par le broyer.
2001: A Space Odyssey is a classic work of science fiction that remains an influential part of the genre fifty years after its original publication. The story begins with the discovery of a black monolith on the moon, an event that leads humanity to send a manned expedition deep into the solar system in hopes of establishing contact with an alien intelligence. As the crew embarks on their momentous journey, they encounter unforeseen and inexplicable disasters.
Arthur C. Clarke's novel is not only compelling and prophetic but also addresses the perennial question of mankind's place in the universe. With Clarke's extensive knowledge of physics and astronomy, the narrative is both scientifically informed and richly imaginative, offering readers a gripping adventure that extends to the very limits of time and space.
Dedicated as few men have been to the life of reason, Bertrand Russell has always been concerned with the basic questions to which religion also addresses itself—questions about man's place in the universe and the nature of the good life, questions that involve life after death, morality, freedom, education, and sexual ethics.
He brings to his treatment of these questions the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other work as philosopher, writer, and teacher has been famous. These qualities make the essays included in this book perhaps the most graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker's position since the days of Hume and Voltaire.
"I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue," Russell declares in his Preface, and his reasoned opposition to any system or dogma which he feels may shackle man's mind runs through all the essays in this book, whether they were written as early as 1899 or as late as 1954.
The book has been edited, with Lord Russell's full approval and cooperation, by Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department of New York University. In an Appendix, Professor Edwards contributes a full account of the highly controversial "Bertrand Russell Case" of 1940, in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York.
Whether the reader shares or rejects Bertrand Russell's views, he will find this book an invigorating challenge to set notions, a masterly statement of a philosophical position, and a pure joy to read.
Mrityunjaya is an outstanding literary masterpiece by contemporary Marathi novelist Shivaji Sawant. It explores the eternal quest for the meaning of Being through the personae of the Mahabharata protagonists.
Mrityunjaya is the autobiography of Karna, and yet it is not just that. Sawant employs an exceptional stylistic innovation by combining six dramatic soliloquies to form the nine books of this novel of epic dimensions.
Four books are spoken by Karna. These are interspersed with a book each from the lips of his unwed mother Kunti, Duryodhana (who considers Karna his mainstay), Shon (Shatruntapa, his foster-brother, who hero-worships him), his wife Vrishali to whom he is like a god, and, last of all, Krishna.
Sawant depicts an uncanny similarity between Krishna and Karna and hints at a mystic link between them, investing his protagonist with a more-than-human aura to offset the un-heroic and even unmanly acts which mar this tremendously complex and utterly fascinating creation of Vyasa.
Capital, one of Marx's major and most influential works, was the product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode of production in England, the most advanced industrial society of his day. This new translation of Volume One, the only volume to be completed and edited by Marx himself, seeks to do justice to the literary qualities of the work.
The introduction is by Ernest Mandel, author of Late Capitalism, one of the only comprehensive attempts to develop the theoretical legacy of Capital.
Cien años de soledad es una obra clave en la literatura hispanoamericana, una magnífica creación del escritor colombiano Gabriel Garcíaa Márquez. Reconocida como una de las más importantes novelas del siglo XX, esta obra se considera un pilar del realismo mágico, un estilo literario que mezcla lo maravilloso con la realidad.
La novela se centra en la historia de la familia Buendía a lo largo de siete generaciones, en el pueblo ficticio de Macondo. Este relato épico abarca diversos temas como el amor, la muerte, la soledad, la riqueza, la guerra y la paz, creando un universo literario donde lo cotidiano y lo fantástico se entrelazan de manera natural y poética.
Con su poderosa narrativa y su rica imaginación, Gabriel García Márquez teje una historia que no solo cuenta la vida de los personajes, sino que también refleja la historia y el espíritu de toda una época y cultura.
The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.
Wind, Sand and Stars captures the grandeur, danger, and isolation of flight. Its exciting account of air adventure, combined with lyrical prose and the spirit of a philosopher, makes it one of the most popular works ever written about flying. Translated by Lewis Galantière.
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo". Con estas palabras empieza una novela ya legendaria en los anales de la literatura universal, una de las aventuras literarias más fascinantes de nuestro siglo. Millones de ejemplares de Cien años de Soledad leídos en todas las lenguas y el premio Nobel de Literatura coronando una obra que se había abierto paso "boca a boca".
Mito por derecho propio, saludada por sus lectores como la obra en español más importante después de la Biblia, Cien años de soledad cuenta la saga de la familia Buendía y su maldición, que castiga el matrimonio entre parientes dándoles hijos con cola de cerdo. Como un río desbordante, a lo largo de un siglo se entretejerán sus destinos por medio de sucesos maravillosos en el fantástico pueblo de Macondo, en una narración que es la cumbre indiscutible del realismo mágico y la literatura del boom. Alegoría universal, es también una visión de Latinoamérica y una parábola sobre la historia humana.
He was a fully grown man, alone in dense forest, with no trail to show where he had come from and no memory to tell who — or what — he was. His eyes were not the eyes of a human.
The forest people took him in and raised him almost as a child, teaching him to speak, training him in forest lore, giving him all the knowledge they had. But they could not solve the riddle of his past, and at last he had to set out on a perilous quest to Es Toch, the City of the Shining, the Liars of Earth, the Enemy of Mankind. There he would find his true self ... and a universe of danger.
The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe is a monumental collection that compiles the entirety of Poe's literary works. This volume shines a light on the myriad facets of Poe's brilliance, showcasing him as one of the most significant and pioneering figures in the annals of American literature.
Readers are invited to delve into the depths of human emotion and experience the genius that has captivated and influenced countless individuals through Poe's mesmerizing tales and verses.
ثرثرة فوق النيل is set in the late sixties, a time of significant social change. The story follows a group of friends who gather night after night on a houseboat on the Nile. Under the moonlight, they smoke, chat, and inhabit a cozy and enchanted world. However, one night, Art and Reality collide with unforeseen consequences.
In this thrilling and deeply serious tale, Mahfouz exposes the human and artistic dilemmas of modern times, skillfully blending philosophical musings with social commentary.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of a former penal colony on the Moon against its masters on the Earth. It is a tale of a culture whose family structures are based on the presence of two men for every woman, leading to novel forms of marriage and family. It is the story of the disparate people, a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic who become the movement's leaders, and of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to the revolt's inner circle, who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.
Dolls: red or black; capsules or tablets; washed down with vodka or swallowed straight—for Anne, Neely, and Jennifer, it doesn't matter, as long as the pill bottle is within easy reach. These three women become best friends when they are young and struggling in New York City and then climb to the top of the entertainment industry—only to find that there is no place left to go but down—into the Valley of the Dolls.
A Man for All Seasons is a classic play that vividly portrays the dramatic events surrounding the life of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who stood firm in his beliefs and faced execution under the reign of Henry VIII.
This compelling narrative captures the intense conflict between church and state, as well as the personal and political turmoil faced by More. His unwavering eloquence and endurance, coupled with his pure and saintly nature, earn him a place as one of modern drama's greatest tragic heroes.
The play, first staged in 1960 at the Globe Theatre in London, has been celebrated for its sparse yet powerful writing, confirming Robert Bolt as a significant force in modern theatre.
The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years—and ten of Werel's years are over 600 terrestrial years. The lonely and dwindling human settlement is beginning to feel the strain. Every winter—a season that lasts for 15 years—the Earthmen have neighbors: the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell.
The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they think of as witches and call the farborns. But hilfs and farborns have common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians called gaals and eerie preying snow ghouls. Will they join forces or be annihilated?
Second only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome, introducing the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout to the world and Vonnegut to the collegiate audience which would soon make him a cult writer.
Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption.
It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference--an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania--and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition.
The novel was adapted for a 1979 Alan Menken musical. The novel is told mostly through a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. The antagonist's tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion. The stories reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the spice melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.
A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to sanity.
Chronicles the three-year battle of a mentally ill, but perceptive, teenage girl against a world of her own creation, emphasizing her relationship with the doctor who gave her the ammunition of self-understanding with which to help herself.
Joanne Greenberg wrote this novel, which is a fictionalized autobiography, to give a picture of what being schizophrenic feels like and what can be accomplished with a trusting relationship between a gifted therapist and a willing patient. It is not a case history or study. She likes to think it is a hymn to reality.
A collection of powerful stories by one of the masters of Russian literature, illustrating the author's thoughts on political philosophy, religion and above all, humanity. This volume includes Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead.
The compelling works presented in this volume were written at distinct periods in Dostoyevsky's life, at decisive moments in his groping for a political philosophy and a religious answer. From the primitive peasant who kills without understanding that he is destroying life to the anxious antihero of Notes from Underground—who both craves and despises affection—the writer's often-tormented characters showcase his evolving outlook on our fate.
Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as "an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul" and Notes from Underground as "an awe- and terror- inspiring example of this sympathy."
حالا همهچیز به رنگ خاکستری بنفش متمایل بود و برف شل و چسبنده.
سرما به همه جای آدم سر میکشید و دنبال قلب میگشت. در اطرافشان کوچکترین اثری از حرکت محسوس نبود. سکونی بود که انسان را فرو میبلعید و مغز را که هنوز زنده بود و آنها همه در شخص دیگری میگذشت.
دیگر نه در درون انسان اثری از کثافتکاریهای روانی بود نه در بیرون. لنی کمکم داشت به قدری به این مسائل بیاعتنا میشد که حتی امکان داشت برگردد و...
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is Rilke’s major prose work and was one of the earliest publications to introduce him to American readers. The very wide audience which Rilke’s work commands today will welcome the reissue in paperback of this extremely perceptive translation of the Notebooks by M. D. Herter Norton.
A masterly translation of one of the first great modernist novels by one of the German language's greatest poets, in which a young man named Malte Laurids Brigge lives in a cheap room in Paris while his belongings rot in storage. Every person he sees seems to carry their death within them and with little but a library card to distinguish him from the city's untouchables, he thinks of the deaths, and ghosts, of his aristocratic family, of which he is the sole living descendant. Suffused with passages of lyrical brilliance, Rilke's semi-autobiographical novel is a moving and powerful coming-of-age story.
As I Lay Dying is Faulkner's harrowing account of the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos.
Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.
This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.
Revelación literaria en los años cincuenta, Kenzaburo Oé quedó consagrado como el mejor novelista japonés de la generación posterior a Yukio Mishima desde los años sesenta y se ha afirmado que recuerda a Dante, William Blake y Malcom Lowry.
"Una cuestión personal", una de sus mejores y más crueles novelas, animada de una extraña violencia interior, cuenta la terrible odisea de Bird, un joven profesor de inglés abrumado por una cenagosa existencia cotidiana en el Japón contemporáneo. Su anhelo secreto es redimirse a través de un mítico viaje por África, donde, según cree, su vida renacerá plena de sentido. Pero tales proyectos sufren un vuelco de ciento ochenta grados: su esposa da a luz un monstruoso bebé, condenado a una muerte inminente o, en el mejor de los casos, a una vida de vegetal. Este hecho convulsiona el lánguido e indolente existir de Bird y, durante tres días y tres noches, se arrastra por un implacable recorrido hacia lo más profundo de su abismo interior. Descenso a los infiernos en el que le acompañará Himiko, una vieja compañera de estudios. Bird buscará refugio en el alcohol, en los brazos de Himiko y, principalmente, en su propia vergüenza y humillación: ¿debe aceptar la fatalidad, cargar para siempre con un hijo anormal y renunciar a sus planes de una vida mejor o, por el contrario, debe desembarazarse del bebé provocando un desenlace fatal?