"Gabriel Syme must infiltrate and try to thwart an anarchist cell, at whose heart is the mysterious and ambiguous Sunday, a man whose powers seem almost godlike. Syme's mission leads him through the back ways of Victorian London and on a wild chase through the French countryside." --

"First published in 1913 and regarded by many critics as her most substantial novel, The Custom of the Country is Edith Wharton's powerful saga about the beautiful, ruthless Undine Spragg. A woman of extraordinary ambition and exuberant vitality, Undine is consigned by virtue of her sex to the shadow world of the drawing room and boudoir. Marriage remains the one institution through which she can exercise her will as she entrances man after man, marrying...

"Rachel Vinrace, Woolf's first heroine, is a motherless young woman who, at twenty-four, embarks on a sea voyage with a party of other English folk to South America. Guileless, and with only a smattering of education, Rachel is taken under the wing of her aunt Helen, who desires to teach Rachel "how to live." Arriving in Santa Marina, a village on the South American coast, Rachel and Helen are introduced to a group of English expatriates. Among them...

The cycle follows the life of Kristin Lavransdatter, a fictitious Norwegian woman living in the 14th century. Kristin grows up in Sil in Gudbrandsdalen, the daughter of a well-respected and affluent farmer. She experiences a number of conflicts in her relationships with her parents, and her husband Erlend, in medieval Norway. She finds comfort and conciliation in her Catholic faith.

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, John Steinbeck created a “Camelot” on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur’s castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging—men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil...

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out...

Pulitzer Prize-winning play concerned with the despair of a 63-year-old traveling salesman when he is forced to face the reality he has evaded all his life.

A grim portrait of World War I army life that set the standard for Hemingway, Mailer, and other acclaimed chroniclers of warfare.
They come to the army from different Americas: Fuselli, a San Francisco store clerk bucking for promotion; Chrisfield, a laid-back Indiana farm boy; and Andrews, a Harvard graduate and promising New York City musician. In basic training, they are told it doesn’t matter where a man is born or what he wants...