NATIONAL BESTSELLER In 1951, the second year of the KoreanWar, a studious, law-abiding, and intense youngster from Newark,New Jersey, Marcus Messner, begins his sophomore year on thepastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And whyis he there and not at a local college in Newark where heoriginally enrolled? Because his father, the sturdy, hardworkingneighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad-mad with fear andapprehension of the dangers of adult life, the dangers of theworld, the dangers he sees in every corner for his beloved boy. Farfrom Newark, Marcus has to find his way amid the customs andconstrictions of another American world. Indignation, Philip Roth'stwenty-ninth book, is a startling departure from the hauntednarratives of old age and experience in Roth's recent books and apowerful exploration of a remarkable moment in Americanhistory.
Mike Gayle has carved a whole new literary niche out of the male confessional novel. He's a publishing phenomenon'EVENING STANDARD 'Delightfully observant nostalgia.., will strike a chord with both sexes' SHE 'A warm, funny romantic comedy' DAILY MAIL 'Gayle's chatty style sustains a cracking pace' THE TIMES "Thirty means only going to the pub if there,s somewhere to sit down, Thiity means owning at least one classical CD, even if it's New That's What I Call Classical Vol 6. Thirty means calling off the search for the perfect partner because now, after al! thee years in the wilderness, you've finally found what you've been looking for." Unlike most people Matt Beckford is actually looking forward to turning thirty. After struggling through most of his twenties he thinks his career, finances and love life are finally sorted. But when he splits up with his girlfriend, he realises that life has different plans for him.and Matt temporarily moves back home to his parents. Within hours,his mum and dad
"The Moonstone is a page-turner, " writes Carolyn Heilbrun. "Itcatches one up and unfolds its amazing story through therecountings of its several narrators, all of them enticing andsingular." Wilkie Collins's spellbinding tale of romance, theft,and murder inspired a hugely popular genre-the detective mystery.Hinging on the theft of an enormous diamond originally stolen froman Indian shrine, this riveting novel features the innovativeSergeant Cuff, the hilarious house steward Gabriel Betteridge, alovesick housemaid, and a mysterious band of Indian jugglers. ThisModern Library Paperback Classic is set from the definitive 1871edition.
Philip Roth’s instant New York Times hardcover bestseller nowavailable in mass market paperback!
When Sir Francis Drake returned to England in 1580, manyquestions concerning his momentous voyage were left unanswered—hisjournals were impounded and his men were forbidden, on pain ofdeath, to divulge where they had been. Drawing on newly uncoveredevidence, geographer and maritime historian Samuel Bawlfmasterfully reconstructs Francis Drake’s historic round-the-worldexpedition, exploring the drama surrounding the voyage and offeringintriguing insights into life at sea in the sixteenth century. Butit is Bawlf’s assertion of Drake’s whereabouts in the summer of1579 that gives the book even greater originality: from anintensive study of maps of the period, Bawlf shows with certaintythat Drake sailed all the way to Alaska—much farther than anyonehas heretofore imagined—thereby rewriting the history ofexploration in North America.
This brilliant new verse translation by Allen Mandelbaumcaptures the consummate beauty of the third and last part ofDante's Divine Comedy. The Paradiso is a luminous poem of love andlight, of optics, angelology, polemics, prayer, prophecy, andtranscendent experience. As Dante ascends to the Celestial Rose, inthe tenth and final heaven, all the spectacle and splendor of agreat poet's vision now becomes accessible to the modern reader inthis highly acclaimed, superb dual language edition. With extensivenotes and commentary.
In this superb translation with an introduction and commentaryby Allen Mandelbaum, all of Dante's vivid images--the earthly,sublime, intellectual, demonic, ecstatic--are rendered withmarvelous clarity to read like the words of a poet born in our ownage.
Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665remains as vivid as it is harrowing. Based on Defoe's own childhoodmemories and prodigious research, A Journal of the Plague Yearwalks the line between fiction, history, and reportage. Inmeticulous and unsentimental detail it renders the daily life of acity under siege; the often gruesome medical precautions andpractices of the time; the mass panics of a frightened citizenry;and the solitary travails of Defoe's narrator, a man who decides toremain in the city through it all, chronicling the course of eventswith an unwavering eye. Defoe's Journal remains perhaps thegreatest account of a natural disaster ever written. This ModernLibrary Paperback Classic is set from the original editionpublished in 1722.
On the 150th anniversary of its publication, a new edition ofthe nature classic First published in 1854, Henry David Thoreau'sgroundbreaking book has influenced generations of readers andcontinues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind and a loveof nature. With Bill McKibben providing a newly revisedIntroduction and helpful annotations that place Thoreau firmly inhis role as cultural and spiritual seer, this beautiful edition ofWalden for the new millennium is more accessible and relevant thanever. " Thoreau] says so many pithy and brilliant things, andoffers so many piquant, and, we may add, so many just, comments onsociety as it is, that this book is well worth the reading, bothfor its actual contents and its suggestive capacity." --A. P.Peabody, North American Review, 1854 " Walden] still seems to methe best youth's companion yet written by an American, for itcarries a solemn warning against the loss of one's valuables, itadvances a good argument for traveling light and trying newadventures,
Robert Louis Stevenson's cherished, unforgettable adventuremagically captures the thrill of a sea voyage and a treasure huntthrough the eyes of its teenage protagonist, Jim Hawkins. Crossingthe Atlantic in search of the buried cache, Jim and the ship's crewmust brave the elements and a mutinous charge led by thequintessentially ruthless pirate Long John Silver. Brilliantlyconceived and splendidly executed, it is a novel that has seizedthe imagination of generations of adults and children alike. And asDavid Cordingly points out in his Introduction, Treasure Island isalso the best and most influential of all the stories aboutpirates.
Perhaps Willa Cather's most autobiographical work, The Song ofthe Lark charts the story of a young woman's awakening as an artistagainst the backdrop of the western landscape. Thea Kronborg, anaspiring singer, struggles to escape from the confines her smallColorado town to the world of possibility in the Metropolitan OperaHouse. In classic Cather style, The Song of the Lark is thebeautiful, unforgettable story of American determination and itsinextricable connection to the land. "The time will come whenshe'll be ranked above Hemingway." -- Leon Edel
Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most peopleeven knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the Englishlanguage's most extraordinary anatomy of love in all itsdimensions-desire and despair, longing and loss, adoration anddisgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in thesame breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of JonathanBate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplishedShakespearean scholars, The Sonnets and Other Poems includes all ofShakespeare's sonnets, the long narrative poems "Venus and Adonis"and "The Rape of Lucrece," and several other shorter works.Incorporating definitive texts and authoritative notes from WilliamShakespeare: Complete Works, this unique volume also includes anexpanded Introduction by Jonathan Bate that places the poems inliterary and historical context and illuminates their relationshipto Shakespeare's dramatic writing. Also featured are key factsabout the individual selections; an index of the first lines of thesonnets; a chron
In 1880 Dostoevsky completed "The Brothers Karamazov," theliterary effort for which he had been preparing all his life.Compelling, profound, complex, it is the story of a patricide andof the four sons who each had a motive for murder: Dmitry, thesensualist, Ivan, the intellectual; Alyosha, the mystic; andtwisted, cunning Smerdyakov, the bastard child. Frequently lurid,nightmarish, always brilliant, the novel plunges the reader into asordid love triangle, a pathological obsession, and a grippingcourtroom drama. But throughout the whole, Dostoevsky searhes forthe truth--about man, about life, about the existence of God. Aterrifying answer to man's eternal questions, this monumental workremains the crowning achievement of perhaps the finest novelist ofall time.
One of the last plays Shakespeare penned on his own, TheWinter’s Tale is a transcendent work of death and rebirth,exploring irrational sexual jealousy, the redemptive world ofnature, and the magical power of art. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and EricRasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars,this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts andauthoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Eachplay includes an Introduction as well as an overview ofShakespeare’s theatrical career; commentary on past and currentproductions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, anddesigners; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about the work; achronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; and black-and-whiteillustrations. Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers,these modern and accessible editions from the Royal ShakespeareCompany set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for thetwenty-first century
Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of thegreatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessiblepaperback editions. “It was Nabokov’s gift to bring paradise wherever he alighted.”—John Updike, The New York Review of Books Novelist, poet, critic, translator, and, above all, a peerlessimaginer, Vladimir Nabokov was arguably the most dazzling prosestylist of the twentieth century. In novels like Lolita, Pale Fire,and Ada, or Ardor, he turned language into an instrument ofecstasy. Vintage Nabokov includes sections 1-10 of his most famous andcontroversial novel, Lolita; the stories “The Return of Chorb,”“The Aurelian,” “A Forgotten Poet,” “Time and Ebb,” “Signs andSymbols,” “The Vane Sisters,” and “Lance”; and chapter 12 from hismemoir Speak, Memory.
Fashioned from the same experiences that would inspire themasterpiece Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi isMark Twain’s most brilliant and most personal nonfiction work. Itis at once an affectionate evocation of the vital river life in thesteamboat era and a melancholy reminiscence of its passing afterthe Civil War, a priceless collection of humorous anecdotes andfolktales, and a unique glimpse into Twain’s life before he beganto write. Written in a prose style that has been hailed as among thegreatest in English literature, Life on the Mississippi established Twain as not only the most popular humorist of his timebut also America’s most profound chronicler of the humancomedy.
EXCITEMENT AND SUSPENSE FROM THE HEART OF THE JUNGLE Archaeologist Leo Mallory is on a dig. But this is no ordinary assignment. He’s deep in the heart of the Mexican jungle uncovering another centuries-old Mayan city. Like a surgeon performing a most-intricate operation, Leo and his team skilfully remove each crumb of earth with the utmost precision. THE JAGUAR MASK In France, Declan Carberry is busy trying to solve a string of ritual serial murders. Horrific in the extreme, the questions are who and why? Declan needs to move fast, for time is running out. Delving into the history of the Conquistadors and the Maya of South America, this vertiginous tale of snaring and netting, old rituals and modern codes, blood-letting and immortality is Easterman at his dizzying best. “A master of spooky suspense and of the chapter cliffhanger”THE SCOTSMAN 'The Jaguar Mask' will satisfy anyone who appreciates an old-fashioned well plotted adventure thriller which has been given a hard moder
An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespearewith these features: Illustrated with photographs from NewYork Shakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readableintroductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, alively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on theplay in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-dateannotated bibliographies, and convenient listing of keypassages.
Pip, a poor orphan being raised by a cruel sister, does not havemuch in the way of great expectations between his terrifyingexperience in a graveyard with a convict named Magwitch and hishumiliating visits with the eccentric Miss Havisham's beautiful butmanipulative niece, Estella, who torments him until he is elevatedto wealth by an anonymous benefactor. Full of unforgettablecharacters, Great Expectations is a tale of intrigue, unattainablelove, and all of the happiness money can't buy. Great Expectationshas the most wonderful and most perfectly worked-out plot for anovel in the English language, according to John Irving, and J.Hillis Miller declares, Great Expectations is the most unified andconcentrated expression of Dickens's abiding sense of the world,and Pip might be called the archetypal Dickens hero.
After traveling the world to exotic lands, Alexandra, Jane,and Sukie–now widowed but still witches–return to the Rhode Islandseaside t own of Eastwick, “the scene of their primes,” site oftheir enchanted mischief more than three decades ago. DiabolicalDarryl Van Horne is gone, and what was once a center of license andliberation is now a “haven of wholesomeness” populated by hockeymoms and househusbands acting out against the old ways of their ownabsent, experimenting parents. With spirits still willing but fleshweaker, the three women must confront a powerful new counterspellof conformity. In this wicked and wonderful novel, John Updike isat his very best–a legendary master of literary magic up to his olddelightful tricks.
