Catalog Search Results
1) The stranger
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. In the story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched...
2) Ulysses
Author
Language
English
Description
Serialized first in the Little Review in 1918 and published first in Paris in 1922, although its censorship for obscenity in America and England were not lifted until the mid-1930s. In terms of its story it defies abridgement or explanation except that it all takes place on one day, 16 June 1904, or Bloomsday, which was the anniversary of Joyce's first walk with his beloved Nora Barnacle. It (very) loosely follows the episodes of Ulysses from the...
4) The plague
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"The people of Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, are in the grip of a deadly plague that condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. The plague begins with a series of unheeded warnings: panic, isolation, and claustrophobia soon follow, as the townspeople are force into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror."--Provided by publisher.
"The...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"This is the saddest story," the narrator notes of his friend Edward Ashburham's life. A superb soldier and the perfect English gentleman, the Ashburham has one fatal flaw with regard to affairs of love. Ford weaves a brilliant tale-long recognized as one of the masterpieces of twentieth century fiction-in which nothing is quite what it seems, including the narrator's telling of the tale.
7) Swann's way
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Presents the first book of Proust's monumental work "Remembrance of Things Past", introducing such themes as the destructive force of obsessive love, the allure and the consequences of transgressive sex, and the selective eye that shapes memories.
Author
Language
English
Description
A 1942 collection of seven related pieces of short fiction by American author William Faulkner, sometimes considered a novel. The most prominent character and unifying voice is that of Isaac McCaslin, "Uncle Ike", who will live to be an old man; "uncle to half a county and father to no one." Though originally published as a short story collection, Faulkner considered the book to be a novel in the same way The Unvanquished is considered a novel. Because...
9) The tin drum
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Contemporary German novel, the subject of much controversy when it was first published in 1959, focuses on the years of Nazi control in Germany as seen through the eyes of an intelligent dwarf, masquerading as a retarded lunatic.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In this famous postwar Japanese novel, the first of Abe's to be translated into English, Niki Jumpei, an amateur entomologist in pursuit of a rare specimen of beetle, wanders into a strange seaside village, whose residents all live in sandpits. He is taken prisoner, and, along with a widow cast out by the community, he is forced to move into her sandpit and continually shovel away the sand that threatens to take over the village. In Niki's struggles...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"As Japan rebuilds her cities after the calamity of World War II, the celebrated painter Masuji Ono should be enjoying a tranquil retirement. But as his memories continually return to a life and career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism, a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity." --
13) I, Claudius: from the autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, born 10 B.C., murdered and deified A.D. 54
Author
Publisher
Vintage International
Pub. Date
1989.
Language
English
Description
"The first of Robert Graves's two-part account of the life of Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius, written in the form of Claudius's autobiography, covering the years from his early childhood through his election as Emperor in 41 A.D."--
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
The story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him." Faulkner's classic story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness, is now available...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"At the heart of this 1930 novel is the Bundren family's bizarre journey to Jefferson to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Faulkner lets each family member--including Addie--and others along the way tell their private responses to Addie's life. As I Lay Dying is the harrowing, darkly comic tale of the Bundren family's trek across Mississippi to bury Addie, their wife and mother, as told by each of the family members--including Addie herself." --
16) The defense
Author
Series
Publisher
Vintage Books
Pub. Date
1990.
Language
English
Description
"As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen--an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life. His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster--but at a cost: in Luzhin' s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants the world of reality. His own world falls apart during a crucial championship match, when the...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Joe Christmas does not know whether he is black or white. Faulkner makes of Joe's tragedy a powerful indictment of racism; at the same time Joe's life is a study of the divided self and becomes a symbol of 20th century man. Light in August is the story of Lena Grove's search for the father of her unborn child, and features one of Faulkner's most memorable characters: Joe Christmas, a desperate drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.
19) Dead babies
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Blitzed on uppers, downers, blue movies and bellinis, the bacchanalia bent bon-vivants ensconced at Appleseed Rectory for the weekend are reeling in an hallucinatory haze of sex and seduction. But as Friday melts into Saturday and Saturday spirals into Sunday and sobriety sets in, the orgiastic romp descends to disastrous depths.
20) The gift
Author
Series
Publisher
Vintage Books
Pub. Date
1991.
Language
English
Description
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native Russian and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write--a book very much like The Gift itself.
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Try our Materials Request Service. Submit Request