Reading List

Women Without Men

Shahrnush Parsipur · 2000

Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality

Gail Dines · 2011

The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Original 1890 Edition (A Oscar Wilde Classic Novel)

Oscar Wilde · 2023

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray<br/><br/>The Picture of Dorian Gray is a 1891 gothic and philosophical novel by Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde. First published as a serial story in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, the editors feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde's knowledge, deleted five hundred words before publication.<br/><br/>Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press.<br/><br/>Wilde revised and expanded the magazine edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) for publication as a novel; the book edition (1891) featured an aphoristic preface — an apologia about the art of the novel and the reader. The content, style and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own literary right, as social and cultural criticism. In April 1891, the editorial house Ward, Lock and Company published the revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray.<br/><br/>A True Classic that Belongs on Every Bookshelf!

The Metamorphosis: by Franz Kafka | Deluxe Edition

Franz Kafka · 2021

The Metamorphosis: A Captivating Journey into the Unknown!<br/>Immerse yourself in the extraordinary world of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," a timeless piece of classic literature that has enchanted and inspired readers for generations. This masterfully woven tale, celebrated for its profound exploration of the human condition, takes you on an unforgettable journey of transformation, alienation, and identity. One morning, Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect, thrusting him into a nightmarish reality that challenges the very fabric of his existence. As he struggles to adapt to his new form, Gregor faces the harsh realities of societal rejection and familial betrayal.<br/><br/>Kafka's genius lies in his seamless blend of surreal fiction and stark reality, crafting a deeply unsettling and profoundly moving narrative. This hauntingly beautiful novella delves into themes of isolation, existential fiction, and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent world. Each page draws you deeper into a web of mystery and philosophical reflection, leaving you questioning the nature of humanity and the essence of self.<br/><br/>"The Metamorphosis" is more than just a story; it's an experience that resonates with anyone who has ever felt out of place or misunderstood. Perfect for fans of classic novels, psychological thrillers, and thought-provoking literary fiction, this book is a must-read that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page. Unlock the mystery, embrace the transformation, and discover why "The Metamorphosis" remains one of the most compelling and enduring works of literature.

The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

Donna Tartt · 2015

A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner from the author of The Secret History that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review).<br/><br/>Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community.<br/><br/>As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love — and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.<br/><br/>The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention. From the streets of New York to the dark corners of the art underworld, this "soaring masterpiece" examines the devastating impact of grief and the ruthless machinations of fate (Ron Charles, Washington Post).

The Fall

Albert Camus · 1991

NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR • One of the most widely read novels of all time—from one of the best-known writers of all time—about a lawyer from Paris who brilliantly illuminates the human condition.<br/><br/>Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.

All About Love: New Visions

bell hooks · 2018

A New York Times bestseller and enduring classic, All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" trilogy. All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.<br/>“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, renowned scholar, cultural critic and feminist bell hooks offers a proactive new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness--not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity. People are divided, she declares, by society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love.<br/>As bell hooks uses her incisive mind to explore the question “What is love?” her answers strike at both the mind and heart. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the “100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.” All About Love is a powerful, timely affirmation of just how profoundly her revelations can change hearts and minds for the better.

Nausea

Jean-Paul Sartre · 1969

The diary of Antoine Roquentin follows his thoughts as he gradually sinks into a metaphysical crisis of despair, in this the first novel by the leader of French Existentialism

White Nights

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 2019

White Nights is the classic novella by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It follows the story of a man who is alone and isolated in St. Petersburg. He is desperate for companionship, and when he meets a young woman he believes may be his soulmate, he is filled with hope. Through his conversations with her, he attempts to understand the meaning of love, loneliness and friendship. White Nights is a timeless story of love, longing and human connection. Its beautiful prose and thought-provoking themes have resonated with readers for generations. This edition is based on the 1918 translation by Constance Garnett (1861-1946).<br/><br/>Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and philosopher whose psychological depth and insight into the human condition made him one of the most celebrated authors of all time. His works, including Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from the Underground, and The Idiot, have been translated into more than 170 languages and are considered to be some of the greatest works of literature in the world. Dostoevsky explored the depths of human emotions and experience, focusing on themes such as morality, suffering, and redemption. His works are often credited with pioneering existentialism and introducing the theme of nihilism to literature. Dostoevsky was also an influential political thinker, advocating for social justice and challenging the status quo of the time. His writing continues to inspire readers around the world and his legacy lives on as one of the greatest authors of all time.

Beyond Good and Evil

Friedrich Nietzsche · 2018

The Second Sex

Simone de Beauvoir · 2012

The essential masterwork that has provoked and inspired generations of men and women. “From Eve’s apple to Virginia Woolf’s room of her own, Beauvoir’s treatise remains an essential rallying point, urging self-sufficiency and offering the fruit of knowledge.” —Vogue This unabridged edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.

Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke · 2018

<p>Facsimile of 1943 Edition. Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, ten in all, remain a fresh source of inspiration and insight to the poetic sensibility to this day.</p>

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Toshikazu Kawaguchi · 2020

*NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER*<br/><br/>*OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD*<br/><br/>*AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*<br/><br/>If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?<br/><br/>In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.<br/><br/>Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.<br/><br/>Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?<br/><br/>Meet more wonderful characters in the next captivating novel in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye!<br/><br/>Read the rest of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series:<br/>Tales from the Cafe Before Your Memory Fades

A Happy Death

Albert Camus · 1995

The first novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author lays the foundation for The Stranger, telling the story of an Algerian clerk who kills a man in cold blood.<br/><br/>In A Happy Death, written when Albert Camus was in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in 1960, revealed himself to an extent that he never would in his later fiction. For if A Happy Death is the study of a rule-bound being shattering the fetters of his existence, it is also a remarkably candid portrait of its author as a young man.<br/><br/>As the novel follows the protagonist, Patrice Mersault, to his victim's house -- and then, fleeing, in a journey that takes him through stages of exile, hedonism, privation, and death -it gives us a glimpse into the imagination of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. For here is the young Camus himself, in love with the sea and sun, enraptured by women yet disdainful of romantic love, and already formulating the philosophy of action and moral responsibility that would make him central to the thought of our time.<br/><br/>Translated from the French by Richard Howard

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman • 2013

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong · 2021

A New York Times bestseller • Nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction • Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universal…Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post “This is one of the best novels I’ve ever read...Ocean Vuong is a master. This book a masterpiece.”—Tommy Orange, author of There There and Wandering Stars On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years. Named a Best Book of the Year by: GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME, Esquire, The Washington Post, Apple, Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, The Guardian, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, and more!

Ocean Vuong Time is a Mother

VUONG OCEAN · 2022

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Angela Y. Davis · 2016

In this collection of essays, interviews, and speeches, the renowned activist examines today’s issues—from Black Lives Matter to prison abolition and more.   Activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis has been a tireless fighter against oppression for decades. Now, the iconic author of Women, Race, and Class offers her latest insights into the struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.   Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.   Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build a movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that “freedom is a constant struggle.”   This edition of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle includes a foreword by Dr. Cornel West and an introduction by Frank Barat.

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess · 1997

If Cats Disappeared From The World

Kawamura Genki · 2018

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The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides · 2011

Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion · 2005

The Stranger

Albert Camus · 2012

I Who Have Never Known Men

Jacqueline Harpman · 2019

<p><b>SISTERHOOD. SECRETS. SURVIVAL.</b><br> <br> <b>Discover the haunting, heart-breaking post-apocalyptic TikTok sensation.</b><br> <br> Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus?<br> <br> Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. But, as the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone an outcast in the corner.<br> <br> Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. The woman who will never know men.<br> <br> <b>WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, BOOKER PRIZE-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE <i>WATER CURE</i><br> <br> **<i>Orlanda</i>, the next sensation from Jacquline Harpman, is available now**</b></p>

Still Born

Guadalupe Nettel · 2022

Still Born is the story of two friends who make diametrically opposite choices in life. Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have ever built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilised, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. When Alina’s daughter survives childbirth – after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite – and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions. With her signature candour and insight, Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon’s touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.

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.

An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

Clarice Lispector · 2022

Now in paperback, a romantic love story by the great Brazilian writer Lóri, a primary school teacher, is isolated and nervous, comfortable with children but unable to connect to adults. When she meets Ulisses, a professor of philosophy, an opportunity opens: a chance to escape the shipwreck of introspection and embrace the love, including the sexual love, of a man. Her attempt, as Sheila Heti writes in her afterword, is not only “to love and to be loved,” but also “to be worthy of life itself.” Published in 1968, An Apprenticeship is Clarice Lispector’s attempt to reinvent herself following the exhausting effort of her metaphysical masterpiece The Passion According to G. H. Here, in this unconventional love story, she explores the ways in which people try to bridge the gaps between them, and the result, unusual in her work, surprised many readers and became a bestseller. Some appreciated its accessibility; others denounced it as sexist or superficial. To both admirers and critics, the olympian Clarice gave a typically elliptical answer: “I humanized myself,” she said. “The book reflects that.”

The Myth of Sisyphus (Vintage International)

Albert Camus · 2018

A Nobel Prize-winning author delivers one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, showing a way out of despair and reaffirming the value of existence.<br/><br/>Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide—the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly presents a crucial exposition of existentialist thought.

The Right to Sex

Amia Srinivasan · 2021

Thrilling, sharp, and deeply humane, philosopher Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century upends the way we discuss—or avoid discussing—the problems and politics of sex.<br/><br/>How should we think about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart.<br/><br/>How should we talk about sex? Since #MeToo many have fixed on consent as the key framework for achieving sexual justice. Yet consent is a blunt tool. To grasp sex in all its complexity—its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power—we need to move beyond yes and no, wanted and unwanted.<br/><br/>We do not know the future of sex—but perhaps we could imagine it. Amia Srinivasan’s stunning debut helps us do just that. She traces the meaning of sex in our world, animated by the hope of a different world. She reaches back into an older feminist tradition that was unafraid to think of sex as a political phenomenon. She discusses a range of fraught relationships—between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, students and teachers, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation.<br/><br/>The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century is a provocation and a promise, transforming many of our most urgent political debates and asking what it might mean to be free.

Of Human Freedom

Epictetus · 2010

In this personal and practical guide to moral self-improvement and living a good life, the second-century philosopher Epictetus tackles questions of freedom and imprisonment, stubbornness and fear, family, friendship and love, and leaves an intriguing document of daily life in the classical world. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1869

The Master and Margarita

Михаил Булгаков · 1967

<p><b>A "soaring, dazzling novel" (<i>The New York Times</i>), Mirra Ginsburg's critically-acclaimed translation of one of the most important and best-loved modern classics in world literature</b></p> <p><i>The Master and Margarita</i> has been captivating readers around the world ever since its first publication in 1967. Written during Stalin's time in power but suppressed in the Soviet Union for decades, Bulgakov's masterpiece is an ironic parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil, and on human frailty and the strength of love.</p> <p>In <i>The Master and Margarita</i>, the Devil himself pays a visit to Soviet Moscow. Accompanied by a retinue that includes the fast-talking, vodka-drinking, giant tomcat Behemoth, he sets about creating a whirlwind of chaos that soon involves the beautiful Margarita and her beloved, a distraught writer known only as the Master, and even Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. <i>The Master and Margarita</i> combines fable, fantasy, political satire, and slapstick comedy to create a wildly entertaining and unforgettable tale that is commonly considered the greatest novel to come out of the Soviet Union. It appears in this edition in a translation by Mirra Ginsburg that was judged "brilliant" by <i>Publishers Weekly</i>.</p>

Crime and Punishment (Vintage Classics)

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1993

<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.