ines' library

1984

George Orwell · 1950

<b>Written more than 70 years ago, <i>1984</i> was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...<br><br><b>• Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s <i>The Great American Read •</i></b><br></b><br>“<i>The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.</i>”<br><br>Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...<br><br>A startling and haunting novel, <i>1984</i> creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess · 2019

<p>In Anthony Burgess's influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends' intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess's introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."</p>

Normal People A Novel

Sally Rooney · 2020

<b>NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (<i>People</i>) from the author of <i>Conversations with Friends,</i> “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan).</b><br> <br><b>“[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—<i>The Washington Post</i></b><br><br><b>ONE OF <i>ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY</i>’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE</b><br><br><b>TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>People, Slate,</i> The New York Public Library, <i>Harvard Crimson</i></b><br><br>Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins.<br><br>A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.<br><br><i>Normal People</i> is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.<br> <br><b>WINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, <i>Sunday Times </i>Young Writer of the Year Award</b><br><br><b>BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>The New York Times</i>, <i>The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time,</i> NPR, <i>The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country</i></b>

Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo · 2015

<p><b>See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with the Netflix series,<i> Shadow and Bone</i> -- Season 2 streaming now!</b><br><br><b>Meet Kaz Brekker and his crew: Jesper, Inej, Wylan, and the star-crossed Nina and Matthias, on the heist of a lifetime in <i>Six of Crows </i>from #1 bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo. </b><br><br> Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . .<br><br> <i>A convict with a thirst for revenge.<br><br> A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.<br><br> A runaway with a privileged past.<br><br> A spy known as the Wraith.<br><br> A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. <br><br> A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. </i><br><br> Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first.<br><br> <i>Six of Crows</i> by Leigh Bardugo returns to the breathtaking world of the Grishaverse in this unforgettable tale about the opportunity—and the adventure—of a lifetime.<br><br> Read all the books in the Grishaverse!<br><br> <b><u>The Shadow and Bone Trilogy </u></b><br> (previously published as The Grisha Trilogy)<br> <i>Shadow and Bone</i><br> <i>Siege and Storm</i><br> <i>Ruin and Rising</i><br><br> <b><u>The Six of Crows Duology</u></b><br> <i>Six of Crows</i><br> <i>Crooked Kingdom</i><br><br> <b><u>The King of Scars Duology</u></b><br> <i>King of Scars<br> Rule of Wolves</i><br><br> <i>The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic</i><br> <i>The Severed Moon: A Year-Long Journal of Magic<br> The Lives of Saints</i></p>

Crooked Kingdom

Leigh Bardugo · 2016

<p><b>See the Grishaverse come to life on screen in the Netflix series, <i>Shadow and Bone</i>! </b><br><br><b>Discover what comes next for Kaz, Jesper, Inej, and Wylan, and the star-crossed Nina and Matthias, in <i>Crooked Kingdom, </i>the spectacular sequel to <i>Six of Crows</i>—from #1 <i>New York Times</i>-bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo.<br></b> <i><br> When you can’t beat the odds, change the game.</i><br><br> Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as<i> jurda parem</i>, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets—a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.<br><br> <b><u>The Six of Crows Duology</u></b><br> <i>Six of Crows</i><br> <i>Crooked Kingdom</i><br><br><b>Praise for <i>Crooked Kingdom</i></b><br><br>“Dark, larcenous fun.” —<i>NPR</i><br><br>“Bardugo outdoes herself in this exhilarating follow-up...fans will have their eyes glued to every page.” —<i>Booklist</i>, <b>starred review</b><br><br>“Un-put-down-able excitement from beginning to end.” —<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>, <b>starred review</b></p>

Daisy Jones & The Six A Novel

Taylor Jenkins Reid · 2019

<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous breakup—from the author of <i>The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising, </i>and <i>Carrie Soto Is Back</i><br><br>REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • IN DEVELOPMENT AS AN ORIGINAL STREAMING SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY REESE WITHERSPOON <br>  <br>“An explosive, dynamite, down-and-dirty look at a fictional rock band told in an interview style that gives it irresistible surface energy.”—Elin Hilderbrand<br><br>ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, <i>The Washington Post, Esquire, Glamour, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Parade, Paste, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot<br></i></b><br> <i>Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.<br><br></i>Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.<br><br> Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.<br><br> Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.<br><br> The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with <i>Daisy Jones & The Six, </i>brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

Animal Farm 75th Anniversary Edition

George Orwell · 2004

<b>75th Anniversary Edition—Includes a New Introduction by Téa Obreht<br><br>George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.<br><br></b><i>“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”</i><br><br>A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. <br>  <br> When <i>Animal Farm</i> was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides · 2021

<p><b>"These pocket-sized titles are stunning....They make the perfect stocking stuffers!" - <i>Metro<br></i><br>"Bought together or separately, these fiction titles are ideal stocking stuffers for the literature lover." - <i>USA Today<br></i></b><br><b>The national bestseller from Jeffrey Eugenides, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of <i>Middlesex</i> and </b><i><b>The Marriage Plot</b></i><b>. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, <i>The Virgin Suicides</i> is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life. </b> <p>First published in 1993, <i>The Virgin Suicides</i> announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters--beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys--commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. <p><b>For more than twenty years, Picador has been producing beautifully packaged literary fiction and nonfiction books from Manhattan's Flatiron Building. Our Twentieth Anniversary Modern Classics line pairs iconic books - <i>The Virgin Suicides</i> by Jeffrey Eugenides, <i>Steppenwolf</i> by Herman Hesse, <i>Jesus' Son</i> by Denis Johnson, and <i>Housekeeping</i> by Marilynne Robinson - with a design that's both small enough to fit in your pocket and unique enough to stand out on your bookshelf.</b></p>

The Outsiders

S. E. Hinton · 1967

<b><b>50 years of an iconic classic! This international bestseller and inspiration for a beloved movie is a</b> heroic story of friendship and belonging.<br><br></b>Cover may vary.<br><br> No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends—true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up on “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far.<br><br><i>The Outsiders</i> is a dramatic and enduring work of fiction that laid the groundwork for the YA genre. S. E. Hinton's classic story of a boy who finds himself on the outskirts of regular society remains as powerful today as it was the day it was first published.<p><b>"<i>The Outsiders</i> transformed young-adult fiction from a genre mostly about prom queens, football players and high school crushes to one that portrayed a darker, truer world." —<i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i></b></p><b>"Taut with tension, filled with drama."</b> <b>—<i>The Chicago Tribune</i></b><br><br><b>"[A] classic coming-of-age book." —<i>Philadelphia Daily News</i><br><br>A <i>New York Herald Tribune</i> Best Teenage Book<br>A <i>Chicago Tribune</i> Book World Spring Book Festival Honor Book<br>An ALA Best Book for Young Adults<br>Winner of the Massachusetts Children's Book Award</b>

Orbiting Jupiter

Gary D. Schmidt · 2017

<p>In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.</p> <p>Two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at thirteen, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter.</p> <p>After spending time in a juvenile facility, he's placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets twelve-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost.</p> <p>When Jack meets his new foster brother, he knows three things about him:</p> <ul> <li>Joseph almost killed a teacher.</li> <li>He was incarcerated at a place called Stone Mountain.</li> <li>He has a daughter. Her name is Jupiter. And he has never seen her.</li> </ul> <p>What Jack doesn't know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl. Or how urgently he, Jack, will want to help.</p> <p>But the past can't be shaken off. Even as new bonds form, old wounds reopen. The search for Jupiter demands more from Jack than he can imagine.</p> <p>This tender, heartbreaking novel is Gary D. Schmidt at his best. He is the author of the Printz Honor and Newbery Honor Book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy; Okay for Now, a National Book Award finalist; and The Wednesday Wars, a Newbery Honor Book, among his many acclaimed novels for young readers.</p>

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy · 2006

<b>From the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of <i>The Road </i>comes a "profoundly disturbing and gorgeously rendered" novel (<i>The Washington Post</i>) that returns to the Texas-Mexico border, setting of the famed <i>Border Trilogy</i>. <br></b><br>The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, a good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law—in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell—can contain.<br><br> As Moss tries to evade his pursuers—in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives—McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines.<br> <i><br>No Country for Old Men</i> is a triumph.<br><br><b>Look for Cormac McCarthy's new novel, <i>The Passenger</i>, coming October '22.</b>

Jo’s Boys

Louisa May Alcott · 2021

Complete and unabridged hardcover edition.<br/>First published in 1886.<br/><br/>"Jo's Boys" is a beloved classic novel written by Louisa May Alcott. Published in 1886, the book is the final installment in the "Little Women" series, which follows the lives of the March sisters as they grow up and navigate the challenges of adulthood. In "Jo's Boys," the focus shifts to the next generation, as readers follow the lives of the students at Jo's Plumfield School.<br/><br/>The novel explores themes of friendship, love, and personal growth as the boys navigate their teenage years and discover their passions and paths in life. With its rich and memorable characters, "Jo's Boys" is a timeless and captivating read that has enchanted generations of readers.<br/><br/>As a sequel to "Little Women," "Jo's Boys" is a must-read for fans of Alcott's earlier works, but it also stands on its own as a classic coming-of-age tale. Whether you're a long-time fan of Alcott's writing or new to her work, "Jo's Boys" is sure to be a delightful and enriching reading experience. So if you're looking for a heartwarming and timeless novel, look no further than "Jo's Boys" by Louisa May Alcott.

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath · 2000

<b>The complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath—essential reading for anyone who has been moved and fascinated by the poet's life and work.<br><br>"A genuine literary event.... Plath's journals contain marvels of discovery." <b>—<i>The New York Times Book Review <br></i></b></b><br>Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version authorized by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes. This new edition is an exact and complete transcription of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life. Sixty percent of the book is material that has never before been made public, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet's personal and literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons.

Nightbitch

Rachel Yoder · 2021

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING AMY ADAMS • In this blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. • "A must-read for anyone who can’t get enough of the ever-blurring line between the psychological and supernatural that Yellowjackets exemplifies." —Vulture One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else... An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms. As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, and meets a group of mommies involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem. An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want.

Eileen

Ottessa Moshfegh · 2015

Now a major motion picture streaming on Hulu, starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize “Eileen is a remarkable piece of writing, always dark and surprising, sometimes ugly and occasionally hilarious. Its first-person narrator is one of the strangest, most messed-up, most pathetic—and yet, in her own inimitable way, endearing—misfits I’ve encountered in fiction. Trust me, you have never read anything remotely like Eileen.” —Washington Post So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back. This is the story of how I disappeared. The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings. Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue.

Lapvona

Ottessa Moshfegh · 2022

An Instant New York Times Bestseller! “Lapvona flips all the conventions of familial and parental relations, putting hatred where love should be or a negotiation where grief should be . . . Through a mix of witchery, deception, murder, abuse, grand delusion, ludicrous conversations, and cringeworthy moments of bodily disgust, Moshfegh creates a world that you definitely don’t want to live in, but from which you can’t look away.” —The Atlantic In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh’s most exciting leap yet Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.    Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, will prove to be very thin indeed.

Valley of the Dolls

Jacqueline Susann · 2016

<p><b>The 50th Anniversary Edition of Jacqueline Susann's All-Time Pop-Culture Classic</b></p> <p><b>The perfect gift for any <i>Valley</i> fan or your favorite Doll, featuring a new cover design * introduction by Simon Doonan * never-before-seen archival material * an essay from Jackie, "My Book Is <i>Not</i> Dirty!"</b></p> <p>At a time when women were destined to become housewives, Jacqueline Susann let us dream. Anne, Neely, and Jennifer become best friends as struggling young women in New York City trying to make their mark. Eventually, they climb their way to the top of the entertainment industry only to find that there's no place left to go but down, into the <i>Valley of the Dolls</i>.</p>

Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami · 2010

Franny and Zooey

J. D. Salinger · 1991

"Perhaps the best book by the foremost stylist of his generation" (New York Times), J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey collects two works of fiction about the Glass family originally published in The New Yorker.<br/><br/>"Everything everybody does is so--I don't know--not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and--sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way."<br/><br/>A novel in two halves, Franny and Zooey brilliantly captures the emotional strains and traumas of entering adulthood. It is a gleaming example of the wit, precision, and poignancy that have made J. D. Salinger one of America's most beloved writers.

Flowers for Algernon

Daniel Keyes · 1994

Charlie embarks on a compelling but dangerous journey from retardation to genius. Oscar-winning film Charly starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom -- a mentally challenged man receives an operation that turns him into a genius ... and introduces him to heartache. When we first meet Charlie he is about to embark on a compelling but dangerous journey from retardation to genius. He has only a vague understanding of what will happen, but he is aware that knowledge and the ability to write are of paramount importance. So he doesn't hesitate for a moment to cooperate in a radical experiment designed to increase his intelligence, the key -- he hopes -- to being valued as a human being and to being loved. Daniel Keyes's powerful and highly original story of a young man whose quest for intelligence and knowledge parallels that of Algernon (the mouse who is an earlier subject of a similar experiment) remains unique in imaginative literature. We follow Charlie Gordon's mental, emotional, and spiritual growth. We watch with excitement as he becomes the focus of attention by the scientific world, his intellectual capacities far surpassing those of the psychologists and neurosurgeons who engineered his metamorphosis. We also follow the progress of his romance with two women, one who knew him before the experiment as well as with another, who knows him only as the attractive, bright, and sympathetic man he has become. And, finally, we hope against hope that what happens suddenly, unexpectedly, to Algernon will not happen to Charlie.

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy · 2014

Tolstoy's epic novel of love, destiny and self-destruction, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition from Penguin Classics. Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself. This acclaimed modern translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky won the PEN/ Book of the Month Club Translation Prize in 2001. Their translation is accompanied in this edition by an introduction by Richard Pevear and a preface by John Bayley 'The new and brilliantly witty translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is a must' - Lisa Appignanesi, Independent, Books of the Year 'Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English, and their superb rendering allows us, as perhaps never before, to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy's "characters, acts, situations"' - James Wood, New Yorker

The Stranger

Albert Camus · 1989

<b>The masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, now in a striking American English translation, <i>The Stranger </i>remains vital for its unsettling insights into the impossibility of moral certainty in the face of violence.</b><br><br><b>“Matthew Ward has done Camus and us a great service. <i>The Stranger </i>is now a different and better novel for its American readers; it is now our classic as well as France’s.”—<i>Chicago Sun-Times</i></b><br><br>Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camus’s first novel, <i>The Stranger </i>(L’etranger), has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed “the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.”<br><br>Now, in this illuminating translation, extraordinary for its exactitude and clarity, the original intent of <i>The Stranger </i>is made more immediate. This haunting novel has been given a new life for generations to come.

The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 2010

The most influential book of the past seventy-five years: a groundbreaking exploration of everything we know about what we don’t know, now with a new section called “On Robustness and Fragility.” A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.   Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”   For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb will change the way you look at the world, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,” which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde · 1993

Celebrated novel traces the moral degeneration of a handsome young Londoner from an innocent fop into a cruel and reckless pursuer of pleasure and, ultimately, a murderer. As Dorian Gray sinks into depravity, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait reflects the ravages of crime and sensuality.

Fahrenheit 451 A Novel

Ray Bradbury · 2012

"Sixty years after the original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel 'Fahrenheit 451' stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. This sixtieth-anniversary edition commemorates Ray Bradbury's masterpiece with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman ; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author ; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Nelson Algren, Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others ; rare manuscript pages and sketches from Ray Bradbury's personal archive ; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature."--taken from back cover.

M Train

Patti Smith · 2015

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: a “sublime collection of true stories … and wild imaginings that take us to the very heart of who Patti Smith is” (Vanity Fair), told through the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. Patti Smith calls this bestselling work “a roadmap to my life.” M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to the fertile moon terrain of Iceland; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; to the West 4th Street subway station, filled with the sounds of the Velvet Underground after the death of Lou Reed; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer’s craft and on artistic creation. Here, too, are singular memories of Smith’s life in Michigan and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith.     Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today. Featuring a postscript with five new photos from Patti Smith

Lolita

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov · 1989

Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in <b>Lolita</b>, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. <b>Lolita</b> is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath · 2005

<p><i>The Bell Jar</i> chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made <i>The Bell Jar</i> a haunting American classic.</p> <p>This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.</p>