literature
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To Read
On the Road
Jack Kerouac · 1999
The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition<br/><br/>Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naiveté and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up.
The Essential Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway · 1995
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.
The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
Albert Camus · 1992
The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1869
<p>Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s masterful translation of <b>The Idiot</b> is destined to stand with their versions of <b>Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov</b><i>, </i>and <b>Demons</b> as the definitive Dostoevsky in English.<br><br>After his great portrayal of a guilty man in <b>Crime and Punishment</b><i>,</i> Dostoevsky set out in <b>The Idiot</b> to portray a man of pure innocence. The twenty-six-year-old Prince Myshkin, following a stay of several years in a Swiss sanatorium, returns to Russia to collect an inheritance and “be among people.” Even before he reaches home he meets the dark Rogozhin, a rich merchant’s son whose obsession with the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna eventually draws all three of them into a tragic denouement. In Petersburg the prince finds himself a stranger in a society obsessed with money, power, and manipulation. Scandal escalates to murder as Dostoevsky traces the surprising effect of this “positively beautiful man” on the people around him, leading to a final scene that is one of the most powerful in all of world literature.</p>
Der Antichrist
Friedrich Nietzsche · 1918
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway · 2012
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka · 2009
"The Metamorphosis" (original German title: "Die Verwandlung") is a short novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect.
Finished
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky · 2012
“A timeless story for every young person who needs to understand that they are not alone.” —Judy Blume<br/><br/>“Once in a while, a novel comes along that becomes a generational touchstone. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books.” —R. J. Palacio, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wonder<br/><br/>This #1 New York Times bestselling coming-of-age story with millions of copies in print takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory.<br/><br/>The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.<br/><br/>A #1 New York Times bestseller for more than a year, adapted into a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson (and written and directed by the author), and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2000) and Best Book for Reluctant Readers (2000), this novel for teen readers (or wallflowers of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.
On Cats
Charles Bukowski · 2015
<p>A raw and tenderly funny look at the human-cat relationship, from one of our most treasured and transgressive writers.</p><p>“The cat is the beautiful devil.”</p><p>Felines touched a vulnerable spot in Charles Bukowski’s crusty soul. For the writer, there was something majestic and elemental about these inscrutable creatures he admired, sentient beings whose searing gaze could penetrate deep into our being. Bukowski considered cats to be unique forces of nature, elusive emissaries of beauty and love.</p><p>On Cats offers Bukowski’s musings on these beloved animals and their toughness and resiliency. He honors them as fighters, hunters, survivors who command awe and respect as they grip tightly onto the world around them: “A cat is only ITSELF, representative of the strong forces of life that won’t let go.”</p><p>Funny, moving, tough, and caring, On Cats brings together the acclaimed writer’s reflections on these animals he so admired. Bukowski’s cats are fierce and demanding—he captures them stalking their prey; crawling across his typewritten pages; waking him up with claws across the face. But they are also affectionate and giving, sources of inspiration and gentle, insistent care.</p><p>Poignant yet free of treacle, On Cats is an illuminating portrait of this one-of-a-kind artist and his unique view of the world, witnessed through his relationship with the animals he considered his most profound teachers.</p>
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Leo Tolstoy · 1886
Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?<br/><br/>This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.
Ham on Rye
Charles Bukowski · 1999
The Davinci Code
Dan Brown · 2003
FARENHEIT 451
Ray Bradbury
The Bradbury classic about a future crisis in intellectual freedom and book burning.
The Trial
Franz Kafka · 1999
<b>A brilliant translation of one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, revealing a tale that is as full of energy and power as it was when it was first written. From the author of <i>The Metamorphosis.<br></i></b><br>Written in 1914, <i>The Trial</i> is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.
The Bell Jar (Modern Classics)
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>
A Confession Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy · 2023
The Stranger by Albert Camus: classic novels
Albert Camus · 2022
A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway · 1996
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866
<b>Hailed by <i>Washington Post Book World</i> as “the best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition of <i>Crime and Punishment </i>has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth. • <b>ONE OF <i>TIME MAGAZINE</i>'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME</b></b><br><br>With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of <i>Crime and Punishment, </i>Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel. <br><br>In <i>Crime and Punishment</i>, when Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is almost unequalled in world literature for its excruciating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, and its depth of characterization and vision. Dostoevsky’s drama of sin, guilt, and redemption transforms the sordid story of an old woman’s murder into the nineteenth century’s profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel.
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger · 1951
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy · 1878
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels,- of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence. It ends tragically, and there is much that evokes despair, yet set beside this is an abounding joy in life's many ephemeral pleasures, and a profusion of comic relief.
Reading
Looking for Alaska
John Green · 2006
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and The Fault in Our Stars<br/><br/>Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist • A New York Times Bestseller • A USA Today Bestseller • NPR’s Top Ten Best-Ever Teen Novels • TIME magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time • A PBS Great American Read Selection • Millions of copies sold!<br/><br/>First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.<br/><br/>Last words.<br/><br/>Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.<br/><br/>Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.<br/><br/>Newly updated edition includes a brand-new Readers' Guide featuring a Q&A with author John Green
