Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of the central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.
Views: 4 585

The Dharma Bums

Two ebullient young men search for Truth the Zen way: from marathon wine-drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, and "yabyum" in San Francisco\'s Bohemia to solitude in the high Sierras and a vigil atop Desolation Peak in Washington State. Published just a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums is sparked by Kerouac\'s expansiveness, humor, and a contagious zest for life.
Views: 4 579

The Iliad

Homer's Iliad has captivated readers and influenced writers and artists for more than two thousand years. Reading the poem in its original language provides an experience as challenging as it is rewarding. Most students encountering Homeric Greek for the first time need considerable help, especially with vocabulary and constructions that differ from the more familiar Attic forms. For anyone who has completed studies in elementary Greek, this edition provides the assistance necessary to read, understand, and appreciate the first book of the Iliad in its original language. Structured to maximize reading ease, P. A. Draper's volume stands out among introductions to the Greek Iliad. Readers of this edition will appreciate the positioning of all notes facing the Greek text; the frequent vocabulary entries; the complete glossary; the appendix on basic Homeric forms and grammar; and the copious annotations on vocabulary, grammar, meter, historical and mythological allusions, and literary interpretation. Primarily designed as a textbook, this volume will be an effective classroom tool and a useful acquisition for any library supporting a classics program. The book will find readers among high school and college Greek students, advanced students in Homer or epic poetry classes, graduate students working on reading-list requirements, and anyone interested in maintaining Greek reading skills. P. A. Draper is Humanities Librarian, Cooper Library, Clemson University.
Views: 4 557

Siddhartha

This classic novel of self-discovery has inspired generations of seekers. With parallels to the enlightenment of the Buddha, Hesse's *Siddhartha* is the story of a young Brahmin's quest for the ultimate reality. His quest takes him from the extremes of indulgent sensuality to the rigors of ascetism and self-denial. At last he learns that wisdom cannot be taught — it must come from one's own experience and inner struggle. Steeped in the tenets of both psychoanalysis and Eastern mysticism, *Siddhartha* presents a strikingly original view of man and culture, and the arduous process of self-discovery that leads to reconciliation, harmony, and peace.
Views: 4 474

Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions

When Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855 as a slim tract of twelve untitled poems, Walt Whitman was still an unknown. But his self-published volume soon became a landmark of poetry, introducing the world to a new and uniquely American form. The "father of free verse," Whitman drew upon the cadence of simple, even idiomatic speech to "sing" such themes as democracy, sexuality, and frank autobiography. Throughout his prolific writing career, Whitman continually revised his work and expanded Leaves of Grass, which went through nine, substantively different editions, culminating in the final, authoritative "Death-bed Edition." Now the original 1855 version and the "Death-bed Edition" of 1892 have been brought together in a single volume, allowing the reader to experience the total scope of Whitman's genius, which produced love lyrics, visionary musings, glimpses of nightmare and ecstasy, celebrations of the human body and spirit, and poems of loneliness, loss, and mourning. Alive with the mythical strength and vitality that epitomized the American experience in the nineteenth century, Leaves of Grass continues to inspire, uplift, and unite those who read it.
Views: 4 247

Far from the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd was the first of Hardy's novels to apply the name of Wessex to the landscape of south-west England, and the first to gain him widespread popularity as a novelist. When the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene inherits her own farm, she attracts three very different suitors; the seemingly commonplace man-of-the-soil Gabriel Oak, the dashing young soldier Francis Troy, and the respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. Her choice, and the tragedy it provokes, lie at the centre of Hardy's ambivalent story.
Views: 4 186

A Light in the Attic

> Last night while I lay thinking here Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear And pranced and partied all night long And sang their same old Whatif song: Whatif I flunk that test? Whatif green hair grows on my chest? Whatif nobody likes me? Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?... This 20th anniversary of Shel Silverstein's *A Light in the Attic* includes a CD of highlights from his Grammy Award-winning album. Here in the attic of Shel Silverstein you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel. From the creator of the beloved poetry collections *Where the Sidewalk Ends* and *Falling Up*, here is another wondrous book of poems and drawings.
Views: 4 060

The House on Mango Street

Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.
Views: 4 020

All the King's Men

This dramatic version of the widely known work, which, as a novel, was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, had a highly successful Off-Broadway run during the 1959 season. As told by Atkinson: "Eliminate the story of Huey Long, which Mr. Warren says is not what he is trying to interpret. He is anatomizing the career with nothing but purity in his heart. Discovering that he is being used by a cynical machine, [Willie] adopts their methods, and presently, he is in control of the state. By resorting to corrupt methods he accomplishes things for the people that were only abstract ideals when he was campaigning honestly. As a portrait of politics, this is effective and provocative."
Views: 3 769

Adam Bede

With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts University of Kent at Canterbury 'Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your immediate feelings...' Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the eighteenth century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in 'the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis'. But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost. The movement of the narration between social realism and reflection on its own processes, the exploration of motives, and the constant authorial presence all bespeak an art that strives to connect the fictional with the actual.
Views: 3 644

Just Kids

In Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry.
Views: 3 636

Demian

A powerful new translation of Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse's masterpiece of youthful rebellion—with a foreword by James FrancoA young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse's beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillment. A brilliant psychological portrait, Demian is given new life in this translation, which together with James Franco's personal and inspiring foreword will bring a new generation to Hesse's widely influential coming-of-age novel.
Views: 3 420

Big Sur

"Each book by Jack Kerouac is unique, a telepathic diamond. With prose set in the middle of his mind, he reveals consciousness itself in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous emptiness of his own paranoiac confusion. Such rich natural writing is nonpareil in later half XX century, a synthesis of Proust, Céline, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, Genet, Thelonius Monk, Basho, Charlie Parker & Kerouac's own athletic sacred insight. "Big Sur's humane, precise account of the extraordinary ravages of alcohol delirium tremens on Kerouac, a superior novelist who had strength to complete his poetic narrative, a task few scribes so afflicted have accomplished—others crack up. Here we meet San Francisco's poets & recognize hero Dean Moriarty ten years after On the Road. Jack Kerouac was a 'writer,' as his great peer W.S. Burroughs says, and here at the peak of his suffering humorous genius he wrote through his misery to end with 'Sea,' a brilliant poem appended, on the hallucinatory Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur."—Allen Ginsberg 10/10/91 N.Y.C.
Views: 3 330