Alex's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 16 Jun 2024 11:34:04 -0700 60 Alex's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Gilgamesh: A New English Version]]> 20937910 In the ancient city of Uruk, the tyrannical King Gilgamesh tramples citizens "like a wild bull". The gods send an untamed man named Enkidu to control the ruthless king, but after fighting, Enkidu and Gilgamesh become great friends and embark on a series of adventures. They kill fearsome creatures before Enkidu succumbs to disease, leaving Gilgamesh despondent and alone. Eventually, Gilgamesh moves forward, and his quest becomes a soul-searching journey of self-discovery.

Mitchell's treatment of this extraordinary work is the finest yet, surpassing previous versions in its preservation of the wisdom and beauty of the original.

©2004 Stephen Mitchell (P)2004 Recorded Books LLC]]>
213 Anonymous Alex 1 3.76 -1200 Gilgamesh: A New English Version
author: Anonymous
name: Alex
average rating: 3.76
book published: -1200
rating: 1
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<![CDATA[A Tribe Called Quest's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (33 1/3)]]> 20172217

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127 Shawn Taylor Alex 4 4.00 2007 A Tribe Called Quest's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (33 1/3)
author: Shawn Taylor
name: Alex
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2015/02/07
date added: 2015/02/07
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<![CDATA[A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition]]> 6603103 A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s. A correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe's cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist form; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed Ulysses; Gertrude Stein held court at 27 Rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of une gneration perdue; and T.S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. It was during these years that the as-of-yet unpublished young writer gathered the material for his first novel The Sun Also Rises, and the subsequent masterpieces that followed.

Among these small, reflective sketches are unforgettable encounters with the members of Hemingway's slightly rag-tag circle of artists and writers, some also fated to achieve fame and glory, others to fall into obscurity. Here, too, is an evocation of the Paris that Hemingway knew as a young man - a map drawn in his distinct prose of the streets and cafes and bookshops that comprised the city in which he, as a young writer, sometimes struggling against the cold and hunger of near poverty, honed the skills of his craft.

A Moveable Feast is at once an elegy to the remarkable group for expatriates that gathered in Paris during the twenties and a testament to the risks and rewards of the writerly life.

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257 Ernest Hemingway Alex 5 4.07 1964 A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Alex
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1964
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Importance of Being Earnest]]> 92303
Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gwendolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack's ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack's country home on the same weekend the "rivals" to fight for Ernest's undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds pandemonium breaks loose. Only a senile nursemaid and an old, discarded hand-bag can save the day!

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader appreciate Wilde's wry wit and elaborate plot twists.]]>
89 Oscar Wilde 158049580X Alex 3 4.17 1895 The Importance of Being Earnest
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Alex
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1895
rating: 3
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The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]>
272 Oscar Wilde Alex 4 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Alex
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2015/01/03
date added: 2015/01/08
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Hoot 13083 Roy has most definitely arrived in Carl Hiaasen’s Florida.


From the Hardcover edition.]]>
304 Carl Hiaasen 0440421705 Alex 3 3.83 2002 Hoot
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Alex
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2002
rating: 3
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The Prophet 2547 The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.]]>
127 Kahlil Gibran 000100039X Alex 2 4.27 1923 The Prophet
author: Kahlil Gibran
name: Alex
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1923
rating: 2
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<![CDATA[A Rose for Emily and Other Stories]]> 426025 140 William Faulkner 0675093244 Alex 3 4.08 1930 A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
author: William Faulkner
name: Alex
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1930
rating: 3
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The Giving Tree 370493
So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.]]>
64 Shel Silverstein 0060256656 Alex 3 4.38 1964 The Giving Tree
author: Shel Silverstein
name: Alex
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1964
rating: 3
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The Yellow Wall-Paper 286957
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid� wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.]]>
62 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1558611584 Alex 4 4.11 1892 The Yellow Wall-Paper
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Alex
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1892
rating: 4
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Feed 169756 Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon—a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world—and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.]]>
308 M.T. Anderson 0763622591 Alex 0 to-read 3.55 2002 Feed
author: M.T. Anderson
name: Alex
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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Where Things Come Back 8563789
In the summer before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily, Arkansas. His rediscovery of the so-called Lazarus Woodpecker sparks a flurry of press and woodpecker-mania. Soon all the kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and everyone's eating "Lazarus burgers." But as absurd as the town's carnival atmosphere has become, nothing is more startling than the realization that Cullen’s sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother Gabriel has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.

While Cullen navigates his way through a summer of finding and losing love, holding his fragile family together, and muddling his way into adulthood, a young missionary in Africa, who has lost his faith, is searching for any semblance of meaning wherever he can find it. As distant as the two stories seem at the start, they are thoughtfully woven ever closer together and through masterful plotting, brought face to face in a surprising and harrowing climax.

Complex but truly extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and emerges as ultimately hopeful. It's about a lot more than what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.� It’s about the dream of second chances.]]>
228 John Corey Whaley 1442413336 Alex 4 3.80 2011 Where Things Come Back
author: John Corey Whaley
name: Alex
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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I Am the Messenger 19057 protect the diamonds
survive the clubs
dig deep through the spades
feel the hearts

Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery.

That's when the first ace arrives in the mail.

That's when Ed becomes the messenger.

Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission?]]>
357 Markus Zusak Alex 4 4.03 2002 I Am the Messenger
author: Markus Zusak
name: Alex
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1) 50
Brian had been distraught over his parents' impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day's challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?

Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage--an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.

A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader's interest in venturing into the wild.]]>
208 Gary Paulsen 0689840926 Alex 3 3.77 1987 Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1)
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Alex
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1987
rating: 3
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The Iliad 1371
Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls “an astonishing performance.”]]>
614 Homer 0140275363 Alex 2 3.88 -800 The Iliad
author: Homer
name: Alex
average rating: 3.88
book published: -800
rating: 2
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To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]>
323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Alex 5 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Alex
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 5
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Three Early Stories 22314610 But other magazines were quick to recognize a new talent, a fresh voice at a time when the world verged on madness. Story magazine, an esteemed and influential small circulation journal devoted exclusively to the art of the short story and still active and respected today, was the first publication to publish the name J.D. Salinger and the story “The Young Folks� in 1940, an impressive view of New York’s cocktail society and two young people talking past one another, their conversation almost completely meaningless and empty.
His next short story was published in a college journal, The University of Kansas City Review, “Go See Eddie,� a tale of quiet menace as an unsavory male character gradually turns up the pressure on a young lady to see a man named Eddie. Also published in 1940, the story is notable for the backstory that is omitted � a technique that Hemingway used to great effect.
Four years later toward the end of Salinger’s war experience saw the publication of “Once A Week Won’t Kill You,� again in Story magazine. Ostensibly about a newly minted soldier trying to tell an aging aunt he is going off to war, some may see the story as a metaphor for preparing one’s family for the possibility of wartime death.
Three Early Stories is the first legitimately published book by J.D. Salinger in more than 50 years. Devault-Graves Digital Editions, a publisher that specializes in reprinting the finest in American period literature, is proud to bring you this anthology by one of America’s most innovative and inspiring authors.]]>
47 J.D. Salinger 0989671453 Alex 0 to-read 3.73 1940 Three Early Stories
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Alex
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Boy in the Striped Pajamas]]> 39999
Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.]]>
224 John Boyne 0385751079 Alex 0 to-read 4.17 2006 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
author: John Boyne
name: Alex
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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Looking for Alaska 99561 Before. Miles “Pudge� Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps� even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.]]>
221 John Green 1435249151 Alex 0 to-read 3.97 2005 Looking for Alaska
author: John Green
name: Alex
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
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Maniac Magee 139463 Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.]]> 184 Jerry Spinelli 0590452037 Alex 3 3.89 1990 Maniac Magee
author: Jerry Spinelli
name: Alex
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1990
rating: 3
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Walk Two Moons 53496 Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned.
"Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!"
And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.

As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold � the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.

In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.]]>
280 Sharon Creech 0060739495 Alex 4 3.99 1994 Walk Two Moons
author: Sharon Creech
name: Alex
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1994
rating: 4
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Holes (Holes, #1) 38709
It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.]]>
272 Louis Sachar 0439244196 Alex 5 4.01 1998 Holes (Holes, #1)
author: Louis Sachar
name: Alex
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]>
325 Toni Morrison Alex 0 to-read 3.96 1987 Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1)
author: Toni Morrison
name: Alex
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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The Shining (The Shining, #1) 11588 497 Stephen King 0450040186 Alex 4 4.28 1977 The Shining (The Shining, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: Alex
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1977
rating: 4
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Fight Club 5759 218 Chuck Palahniuk 0393327345 Alex 4 4.19 1996 Fight Club
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Alex
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1996
rating: 4
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The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]>
241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Alex 0 to-read 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Alex
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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Life of Pi 4214 460 Yann Martel 0770430074 Alex 0 to-read 3.94 2001 Life of Pi
author: Yann Martel
name: Alex
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]>
374 Suzanne Collins Alex 3 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Alex
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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This Side of Paradise 46165 This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the "Lost Generation."]]> 275 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684843781 Alex 0 to-read 3.66 1920 This Side of Paradise
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Alex
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1920
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1)]]> 6310 (back cover)]]> 176 Roald Dahl 0142403881 Alex 5 4.16 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1)
author: Roald Dahl
name: Alex
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1964
rating: 5
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Columbine 5632446
What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.]]>
417 Dave Cullen 0446546933 Alex 0 to-read 4.28 2009 Columbine
author: Dave Cullen
name: Alex
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]>
343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Alex 5 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Alex
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 5
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Invisible Man 16981 Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.]]>
581 Ralph Ellison Alex 0 to-read 3.91 1952 Invisible Man
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Alex
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Complete Stories and Poems]]> 23919 821 Edgar Allan Poe 0385074077 Alex 5 4.39 1849 The Complete Stories and Poems
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Alex
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1849
rating: 5
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Ulysses 338798
According to Declan Kiberd, "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking". Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early 20th-century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland's relationship to Britain.

The novel is highly allusive and also imitates the styles of different periods of English literature. Since its publication, the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921 to protracted textual "Joyce Wars." The novel's stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, and allusions—as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works in history; Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.']]>
783 James Joyce Alex 0 to-read 3.72 1922 Ulysses
author: James Joyce
name: Alex
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1)]]> 1554
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex has never been surpassed for the raw and terrible power with which its hero struggles to answer the eternal question, "Who am I?" The play, a story of a king who acting entirely in ignorance kills his father and marries his mother, unfolds with shattering power; we are helplessly carried along with Oedipus towards the final, horrific truth.

To make Oedipus more accessible for the modern reader, our Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics includes a glossary of the more difficult words, as well as convenient sidebar notes to enlighten the reader on aspects that may be confusing or overlooked. We hope that the reader may, through this edition, more fully enjoy the beauty of the verse, the wisdom of the insights, and the impact of the drama.]]>
75 Sophocles 1580495931 Alex 2 3.73 -429 Oedipus Rex  (The Theban Plays, #1)
author: Sophocles
name: Alex
average rating: 3.73
book published: -429
rating: 2
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Flowers for Algernon 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.

Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]>
311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Alex 4 4.19 1966 Flowers for Algernon
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Alex
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 4
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Twenty and Ten 1069576 76 Claire Huchet Bishop 0140310762 Alex 3 4.17 1952 Twenty and Ten
author: Claire Huchet Bishop
name: Alex
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1952
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[My Father's Dragon (My Father's Dragon, #1)]]> 34898 96 Ruth Stiles Gannett 0440421217 Alex 5 4.09 1948 My Father's Dragon (My Father's Dragon, #1)
author: Ruth Stiles Gannett
name: Alex
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1948
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)]]> 100915
Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor's mysterious old house. At first her brothers and sister don't believe her when she tells of her visit to the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund, then Peter and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves. In Narnia they find a country buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch. When they meet the Lion Aslan, they realize they've been called to a great adventure and bravely join the battle to free Narnia from the Witch's sinister spell.]]>
206 C.S. Lewis Alex 4 4.24 1950 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Alex
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1950
rating: 4
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The Phantom Tollbooth 378 Librarian's Note: For an alternate cover edition of the same ISBN, click here.

This beloved story -first published more than fifty years ago- introduces readers to Milo and his adventures in the Lands Beyond.

For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams. . . .]]>
248 Norton Juster 0394820371 Alex 4 4.19 1961 The Phantom Tollbooth
author: Norton Juster
name: Alex
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1961
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)]]> 18131
It was a dark and stormy night.

Out of this wild night, a strange visitor comes to the Murry house and beckons Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe on a most dangerous and extraordinary adventure—one that will threaten their lives and our universe.

A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in Madeleine L'Engle's classic Time Quintet.]]>
211 Madeleine L'Engle 0440498058 Alex 4 4.04 1962 A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)
author: Madeleine L'Engle
name: Alex
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1962
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Chocolate War (Chocolate War, #1)]]> 17162 Do I dare disturb the universe? Refusing to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser may not seem like a radical thing to do. But when Jerry challenges a secret school society called The Vigils, his defiant act turns into an all-out war. Now the only question is: Who will survive? First published in 1974, Robert Cormier's groundbreaking novel, an unflinching portrait of corruption and cruelty, has become a modern classic.

A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
]]>
267 Robert Cormier 0375829873 Alex 0 to-read 3.50 1974 The Chocolate War (Chocolate War, #1)
author: Robert Cormier
name: Alex
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1974
rating: 0
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Tuck Everlasting 84981 148 Natalie Babbitt 0374480095 Alex 5 3.90 1975 Tuck Everlasting
author: Natalie Babbitt
name: Alex
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1975
rating: 5
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Where the Red Fern Grows 10365 Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann—a boy and his two dogs...

A loving threesome, they ranged the dark hills and river bottoms of Cherokee County. Old Dan had the brawn, Little Ann had the brains—and Billy had the will to train them to be the finest hunting team in the valley. Glory and victory were coming to them, but sadness waited too. And close by was the strange and wonderful power that's only found...

Where the Red Fern Grows—An exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget.

(from the back cover)]]>
272 Wilson Rawls 0375806814 Alex 5 4.11 1961 Where the Red Fern Grows
author: Wilson Rawls
name: Alex
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1961
rating: 5
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The Outsiders 231804 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.

Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.]]>
208 S.E. Hinton 0670532576 Alex 4 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Alex
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 4
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The Giver (The Giver, #1) 3636 208 Lois Lowry 0385732554 Alex 3 4.12 1993 The Giver (The Giver, #1)
author: Lois Lowry
name: Alex
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 3
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<![CDATA[All Quiet on the Western Front]]> 355697
In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war�. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young ‘unknown soldier� experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.]]>
296 Erich Maria Remarque 0449213943 Alex 0 to-read 4.04 1928 All Quiet on the Western Front
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Alex
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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A Farewell to Arms 10799 A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.]]> 293 Ernest Hemingway 0099910101 Alex 5 3.83 1929 A Farewell to Arms
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Alex
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1929
rating: 5
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A Clockwork Orange 227463 A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"

This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."]]>
192 Anthony Burgess Alex 0 to-read 3.98 1962 A Clockwork Orange
author: Anthony Burgess
name: Alex
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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Robinson Crusoe 2932 320 Daniel Defoe Alex 0 to-read 3.69 1719 Robinson Crusoe
author: Daniel Defoe
name: Alex
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1719
rating: 0
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Tender Is the Night 46164 Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.]]> 430 F. Scott Fitzgerald Alex 0 to-read 3.81 1934 Tender Is the Night
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Alex
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1934
rating: 0
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The Sun Also Rises 3876 The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.]]> 189 Ernest Hemingway Alex 5 3.81 1926 The Sun Also Rises
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Alex
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1926
rating: 5
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East of Eden 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]>
601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Alex 0 to-read 4.41 1952 East of Eden
author: John Steinbeck
name: Alex
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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Nine Stories 4009
The stories are:

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish"
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos"
"The Laughing Man"
"Down at the Dinghy"
"For Esmé � with Love and Squalor"
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes"
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period"
"Teddy"]]>
302 J.D. Salinger 0316767727 Alex 0 to-read 4.20 1953 Nine Stories
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Alex
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.�

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]>
275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Alex 4 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Alex
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 4
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The Reivers 210825 305 William Faulkner 0679741925 Alex 0 to-read 3.78 1962 The Reivers
author: William Faulkner
name: Alex
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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The Stories of John Cheever 11686
Goodbye, my brother --
The common day --
The enormous radio --
O city of broken dreams --
The Hartleys --
The Sutton Place story --
The summer farmer --
Torch song --
The pot of gold --
Clancy in the Tower of Babel --
Christmas is a sad season for the poor --
The season of divorce --
The chaste Clarissa --
The cure --
The superintendent --
The children --
The sorrows of gin --
O youth and beauty! --
The day the pig fell into the well --
The five-forty-eight --
Just one more time --
The housebreaker of Shady Hill --
The bus to St. James's --
The worm in the apple --
The trouble of Marcie Flint --
The bella lingua --
The Wrysons --
The country husband --
The duchess --
The scarlet moving van --
Just tell me who it was --
Brimmer --
The golden age --
The lowboy --
The music teacher --
A woman without a country --
The death of Justina --
Clementina --
Boy in Rome --
A miscellany of characters that will not appear --
The chimera --
The seaside houses --
The angel of the bridge --
The brigadier and the golf widow --
A vision of the world --
Reunion --
An educated American woman --
Metamorphoses --
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin --
Montraldo --
The ocean --
Marito in città --
The geometry of love --
The swimmer --
The world of apples --
Another story --
Percy --
The fourth alarm --
Artemis, the honest well digger --
Three stories --
The jewels of the Cabots.]]>
693 John Cheever 0375724427 Alex 0 to-read 4.27 1978 The Stories of John Cheever
author: John Cheever
name: Alex
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1622 298 William Shakespeare 0743477545 Alex 3 3.95 1595 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
author: William Shakespeare
name: Alex
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1595
rating: 3
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The Old Man and the Sea 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.]]>
96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 Alex 5 3.81 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Alex
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1952
rating: 5
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The Diary of a Young Girl 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe� of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]>
283 Anne Frank Alex 0 to-read 4.19 1947 The Diary of a Young Girl
author: Anne Frank
name: Alex
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 0
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Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]>
268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Alex 0 to-read 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Alex
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 0
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Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]>
453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 Alex 0 to-read 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Alex
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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Fahrenheit 451 17470674
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

--back cover]]>
227 Ray Bradbury 0007491565 Alex 5 4.01 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Alex
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1953
rating: 5
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Frankenstein 18490 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439471

'Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart ...'

Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.

Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's 'The Vampyre: A Tale'.]]>
288 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Alex 0 to-read 3.77 1818 Frankenstein
author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
name: Alex
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1818
rating: 0
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 24583
Unlike his brother Sid, Tom receives "lickings" from his Aunt Polly; ever the mischief-maker, would rather play hooky than attend school and often sneaks out his bedroom window at night to adventure with his friend, Huckleberry Finn ­ the town's social outcast. Tom, despite his dread of schooling, is extremely clever and would normally get away with his pranks if Sid were not such a "tattle-tale."

As punishment for skipping school to go swimming, Aunt Polly assigns Tom the chore of whitewashing the fence surrounding the house. In a brilliant scheme, Tom is able to con the neighborhood boys into completing the chore for him, managing to convince them of the joys of whitewashing. At school, Tom is equally as flamboyant, and attracts attention by chasing other boys, yelling, and running around. With his usual antics, Tom attempts to catch the eye of Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. But their romance collapses when she learns Tom has been "engaged" previously to Amy Lawrence. Shortly after Becky shuns him, he accompanies Huckleberry Finn to the graveyard at night, where they witness the murder of Dr. Robinson.

Excerpt:
"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never lookedthroughthem for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll�"
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
"I never did see the beat of that boy!"]]>
244 Mark Twain Alex 0 to-read 3.92 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
author: Mark Twain
name: Alex
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1876
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]> 7442 416 Tom Wolfe 0553380648 Alex 0 to-read 3.93 1968 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
author: Tom Wolfe
name: Alex
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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The Grapes of Wrath 18114322
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]>
496 John Steinbeck 067001690X Alex 0 to-read 4.06 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Alex
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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Go Tell It on the Mountain 17143 Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.]]> 256 James Baldwin 0141185910 Alex 0 to-read 4.06 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain
author: James Baldwin
name: Alex
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy � the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]>
325 Ken Kesey Alex 4 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Alex
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 4
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Night 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 Alex 0 to-read 4.38 1956 Night
author: Elie Wiesel
name: Alex
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]>
107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Alex 5 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Alex
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 5
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Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Alex 4 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Alex
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 4
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The Gift of the Magi 143534 O. Henry's classic tale of the wisest gifts of Christmas is itself a gift to share and treasure.

In a shabby New York flat, Della sobs as she counts the few coins she has saved to buy a Christmas present for her husband, Jim. One dollar and eighty-seven cents is all the money she has in the world. A gift worthy of her devotion will require a great sacrifice: selling her long, beautiful hair. Set in New York at the turn of the twentieth century, this classic piece of American literature tells the story of a young couple and the value of love.

Jim, meanwhile, has made a sacrifice for Della that is no less difficult. As they exchange gifts on Christmas Eve, the discovery of what each has done fills them with despair, until they realize that the true gifts of Christmas can be found more readily in their humble apartment than in any fine store. Set in New York at the turn of the twentieth century, this classic piece of American literature tells the story of a young couple and the value of love.

O. Henry paints a masterly portrait of unfaltering love, a haven from the harsh world outside. The poignancy of his story is captured in Zwerger's eloquent art, wherein every glance, every gesture, tells a subtle truth.]]>
26 O. Henry 141693586X Alex 0 to-read 4.10 1905 The Gift of the Magi
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average rating: 4.10
book published: 1905
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<![CDATA[The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings]]> 391729
-The Tell-Tale Heart
-The Black Cat
-The Cask of Amontillado
-The Fall of the House of Usher
-The Masque of the Red Death
-The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
-Ligeia
-The Murders in the Rue Morgue
-The Purloined Letter
-A Descent into the Maelstrom
-The Pit and the Pendulum
-Ms. Found in a Bottle
-The Premature Burial
-William Wilson
-Eleonara
-Silence-A Fable
-The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

Here too is a major selection of what Poe characterized as the passion of his life, his poems:

-Stanzas
-Romance
-To Helen
-Israfel
-The City in the Sea
-The Sleeper
-The Valley of Unrest
-Lenore
-The Raven
-A Valentine
-Ulanume-A Ballad
-For Annie
-Annabel Lee
-The Bells
-Alone]]>
448 Edgar Allan Poe 0553212281 Alex 5 4.19 1843 The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Alex
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1843
rating: 5
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Animal Farm 7613
The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. Old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals � inspired by his philosophy of Animalism � plot a rebellion against Jones.

Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall...]]>
129 George Orwell Alex 4 3.90 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Alex
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 4
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Romeo and Juliet 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]>
281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 Alex 5 3.74 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Alex
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 5
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Breakfast of Champions 4980 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.]]>
303 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334206 Alex 4 4.08 1973 Breakfast of Champions
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Alex
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1973
rating: 4
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For Whom the Bell Tolls 46170 For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.]]> 471 Ernest Hemingway Alex 0 to-read 3.98 1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Alex
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1940
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1984 5470 328 George Orwell Alex 5 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Alex
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 5
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The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]>
180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Alex 3 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Alex
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 3
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