APPENDIX B
BOOK LIST
The following list represents a fairly comprehensive cross-section of good literature — books, poems, and plays. There are hundreds of other pieces of literature that might be as good. Ask your parents and teachers for suggestions. These particular selections from the SAT & College Preparation Course for the Christian Student were chosen because a) their vocabulary is challenging, b) they will help you in college, and c) they are interesting to read. Some of them are relatively easy to read, e.g., The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Others are easier than you think, like War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. And others are really difficult but good for you, such as Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham. So . . . start reading and increase your vocabulary!
FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES
Emma
Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen’s most memorable heroines: “Handsome, clever, and rich” as well as self-assured, she believes herself immune to romance, and wreaks amusing havoc in the lives of those around her. A humorous coming-of-age story about a woman seeking her true nature and finding true love in the process.
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the impoverished Dashwood sisters who share the pangs of tragic love. Elinor, practical and conventional, is the perfection of sense. Marianne, emotional and sentimental, is the embodiment of sensibility. Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters — and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility gives way to sense. Austen’s first novel is a lively tale that deftly explores the tensions that exist in society that force people to be at once very private and very sociable.
A Man for All Seasons
Bolt’s classic play is a dramatization of the life of Sir Thomas More, the Catholic saint beheaded by Henry VIII at the birth of the Church of England. More refused to acknowledge the supremacy of England’s king over all foreign sovereigns; he was imprisoned then executed in 1535. This is a compelling portrait of a courageous man who died for his convictions.
The Cost of Discipleship
Bonhoeffer pulls no punches as he relates the Scriptures to real life and expounds upon the teachings of Jesus. He plainly teaches that there is a cost to following in the footsteps of Christ, just as Christ Himself taught that Christ must be first and there is no compromise. This work is so intense that even Dietrich himself, later in life, wondered if he had been too blunt.
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre tells the story of a proud young woman and her journey from an orphanage to her role as governess in the Rochester household. A heartbreaking love story that is also full of mystery and drama: fires, storms, attempted murder, and a mad wife conveniently stashed away in the attic.
The Good Earth
The Good Earth depicts peasant life in China in the 1920s — a time before the vast political and social upheavals transformed an essentially agrarian country into a world power. Buck traces the whole cycle of life — its terrors, its passions, its ambitions, and rewards — by combining descriptions of marriage, parenthood, and complex human emotions with depictions of Chinese reverence for the land and for a specific way of life.
The Age of Fable
Love, jealousy, hatred, passion — the full range of human emotions were experienced by the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece. This is a brilliant reconstruction of the traditional myths which form the backbone of Western culture, including those of ancient Greece and Rome that form a great and timeless literature of the past.
Pilgrim’s Progress
The pilgrim Christian undertakes the dangerous journey to the Celestial City, experiencing physical and spiritual obstacles along the way. The Pilgrim’s Progress captures all of the treacherous dangers and triumphant victories we encounter as we live the Christian life.
Silent Spring
Silent Spring offered the first shattering look at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmental awareness that still exists. Carson’s book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals in the food source. Presented with thorough documentation, the book opened more than a few eyes about the dangers of the modern world and stands today as a landmark work.
Fail-Safe
Fail-Safe is a classic novel of the cold war and the limits we face. Although rather faint and shallow by today’s techno-thriller standards, Fail-Safe was for its day the story of the world on the edge of nuclear war. This is a good example of a best seller from the cold war crazy early sixties.
And Then There Were None
Christie’s mystery novel is the story of ten strangers, each lured to Indian Island by a mysterious host. Once his guests have arrived, the host accuses each person of murder. Unable to leave the island, the guests begin to share their darkest secrets of their past, and then, one by one, they begin to die.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
One of the 19th century’s most enduring narrative poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has also been deemed one of the greatest of all English literary ballads. It is a strange and gripping tale of the ancient mariner who killed the friendly albatross and thereby committed an offense against nature — a ghostly adventure, of terror, retribution, and penance.
Heart of Darkness
This story reflects the physical and psychological shock Conrad himself experienced in 1890, when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo. Compelling, exotic, suspenseful, and far more than just an adventure story, this vivid picture of the moral deterioration and reversion to savagery resulting from prolonged isolation explores deep into the dark heart of its characters’ souls.
Lord Jim
Conrad explores in great depth the perplexing, ambiguous problem of lost honor and guilt, expiation, and heroism. The title character is a man haunted by guilt over an act of cowardice. He becomes an agent at an isolated East Indian trading post, where his feelings of inadequacy and responsibility are played out to their logical and inevitable end.
The Last of the Mohicans
Hawkeye (Natty Bumpo) and his Mohican Indian friend, Chingachgook, share the solitude and sublimity of the wilderness until the savageries of the French and Indian War force them out of exile. They agree to guide two sisters in search of their father through hostile Indian country. Cooper incorporates massacres and raids, innocent settlers, hardened soldiers, and renegade Indians into his classic tale of romance and adventure.
The Deerslayer
A fine combination of romance, adventure, and morality, The Deerslayer follows the adventures of the brave and bold frontiersman Natty Bumpo. The deadly crack of a long rifle and the piercing cries of Indians on the warpath shatter the serenity of beautiful lake Glimmerglass. Danger has invaded the vast forests of upper New York State as Deerslayer and his loyal Mohican friend Chingachgook attempt the daring rescue of an Indian maiden imprisoned in a Huron camp.
The Red Badge of Courage
Crane vividly conveys the terror of battle and the slow-motion torrent of emotions pouring through soldiers under fire through the struggles of a raw recruit, Henry Fleming. Fleming simultaneously lusts for a glorious battle, and worries endlessly about the possibility of his own cowardice. When he finally comes face to face with slaughter, his romantic notions are stripped away as he witnesses brutal deaths and senseless maneuvers.
Life with Father
For everyone who has ever had a father. . . . This is a hilarious book about family life that will make everyone laugh out loud. It was first published by chapters in periodicals, and later produced as a Broadway play and a movie.
Robinson Crusoe
The first and greatest shipwreck/desert island story ever told, Robinson Crusoe is a unique fictional blending of the traditions of Puritan spiritual autobiography with an insistent scrutiny of the nature of men and women as social creatures, and it reveals an extraordinary ability to invent a sustaining modern myth. The title character leaves his comfortable middle-class home in England to go to sea. Surviving shipwreck, he lives on an island for twenty-eight years, alone for most of the time until he saves the life of a savage — an outcast Polynesian man whom he names Friday.
Great Expectations
Pip, an orphan growing up in Victorian England, is a blacksmith’s apprentice who dreams of a better life. Given the means to become a gentleman by an unknown benefactor, he learns from a dangerous escaped convict, a wealthy old woman, and a secret guardian that outward appearances can be deceiving. A mysterious tale of dreams and heartbreak, Great Expectations is widely regarded as one of Dickens’ greatest novels.
Oliver Twist
This story of a street boy on the run is an archetypal adventure. Written shortly after adoption of the Poor Law of 1834, which halted government payments to the poor unless they entered workhouses, Oliver Twist used the tale of a friendless child as a vehicle for social criticism. While the novel is Victorian in its emotional appeal, it is decidedly unsentimental in its depiction of poverty and the criminal underworld, especially in its portrayal of the cruel Bill Sikes.
Nicholas Nickleby
This melodramatic novel tells the story of young Nickleby’s adventures as he struggles to seek his fortune in Victorian England. Dependent on the so-called benevolence of his Uncle Ralph, Nicholas is thrust into the world to care for his mother and sister. Circumstances force Nicholas to enter the nightmarish world of Dotheboys Hall, a school run by the malevolent Wackford Squeers. Comic events are interspersed with Dickens’ moving indictment of society’s ill treatment of children and the cruelty of the educational system; Yet, with his extraordinary gift for social satire, Dickens gives us a light-hearted tale in which goodness and joy easily defeat the forces of evil.
A Tale of Two Cities
Set in the late 18th century against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution, this complex story involves one man’s sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends. While political events drive the story, Dickens takes a decidedly antipolitical tone, lambasting both aristocratic tyranny and revolutionary excess — the latter memorably caricatured in Madame Defarge, who knits beside the guillotine. A Tale of Two Cities underscores many of Dickens’ enduring themes — imprisonment, injustice, and social anarchy, resurrection and the renunciation that fosters renewal.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes, master of deductive reasoning, and his sidekick, Dr. Watson, solve four classic cases. “A Scandal in Bohemia” finds the sleuth committing a crime of his own to protect a royal reputation. Then, in “A Case of Identity,” Holmes must unmask a devious disguise to trace a missing person. “The Red-Headed League” and “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” round out a quartet of diabolical deceptions sure to enthrall readers.
The Three Musketeers
A historical romance, The Three Musketeers relates the adventures of four fictional swashbuckling heroes who lived during the reigns of the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The young and headstrong d’Artagnan, having proven his bravery by dueling with each, becomes a friend of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, members of the King’s Musketeers. He is in love with Constance Bonancieux and, at her urging, he and his friends head for England to reclaim two diamond studs that the queen has imprudently given to her lover, the Duke of Buckingham.
Silas Marner
Silas Marner is a friendless weaver who cares only for his cache of gold. After being wrongly accused of a heinous theft and secluding himself, he is ultimately redeemed through his love for Eppie, an abandoned golden-haired baby girl who mysteriously appears at his cottage.
Murder in the Cathedral
Eliot’s dramatization in verse of the murder of Thomas Beckett at Canterbury was written for the Canterbury Festival of 1935. Like Greek drama, its theme and form are rooted in religion and ritual, purgation and renewal. It is a return to the earliest sources of drama.
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby offers a very human story about a man torn between the various pressures of life: conformity and individualism, facade and substance. Nick is a silent narrator, but he is also a participant as he wades through an insane and typical world, an outsider and a member. Fitzgerald makes no judgment of morality, grace, or sin, nor does he favor idealism or cynicism.
Tender Is the Night
Fitzgerald’s classic story of psychological disintegration is a powerful and moving depiction of the human frailties that affect privileged and ordinary people alike. The world has recently fallen to pieces in what has become known as the Great War. Consequently, most of the characters are falling to pieces, too. Hints about this are to be found everywhere in the book, although Fitzgerald, with his knack for writing about the complicated nature of humans, often hides them in subtle ways.
This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise tells the story of Amory Blaine in his adolescence and undergraduate days at Princeton. Largely autobiographical, this classic novel of youth and alienation was written with a grace that captures the essence of an American generation struggling to define itself in the aftermath of World War I and the destruction of “the old order.”
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
Foxe recounts the lives, suffering, and triumphant deaths of Christian martyrs throughout history with a sense of immediacy and insight into suffering that few church historians can match. Beginning with the first martyr, Jesus Christ, the book also focuses on such men as John Wyclyffe, William Tyndale, and Martin Luther, and it is an exceptional historical record tracing the roots of religious persecution.
The Diary of a Young Girl
In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a 13-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. Cut off from the outside world for two years, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary, Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. It is a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
Autobiography
One of our most inspiring Americans comes to life in this autobiography. Written as a letter to his son, Franklin’s account of his life from his childhood in Boston to his years in Philadelphia ends in 1757 with his first mission to England.
The Miracle Worker
This is the inspiring story of Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan—The Miracle Worker. Deaf, blind, and mute twelve-year-old Helen was like a wild animal. Scared out of her wits but still murderously strong, she clawed and struggled against all who tried to help her. Half-blind herself but blessed with fanatical dedication, Annie began a titanic struggle to release the young girl from the terrifying prison of eternal darkness and silence.
The Vicar of Wakefield
This story, a portrait of village life, is narrated by Dr. Primrose, the title character, whose family endures many trials — including the loss of most of their money, the seduction of one daughter, the destruction of their home by fire, and the vicar’s incarceration — before all is put right in the end. The novel’s idealization of rural life, sentimental moralizing, and melodramatic incidents are countered by a sharp but good-natured irony.
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is set in a village in Puritan New England. Hester Prynne, a young woman who has borne an illegitimate child, believes herself a widow, but her husband, Roger Chillingworth, returns to New England very much alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet letter A on her dress as punishment for her adultery, and becomes obsessed with finding the identity of his wife’s former lover. Hawthorne’s greatest novel is a philosophical exploration that delves into guilt and touches upon notions of redemption.
The House of Seven Gables
Set in mid-19th-century Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne’s gothic masterpiece is a somber study in hereditary sin. It is based on the legend of a curse pronounced on Hawthorne’s own family by a woman condemned to death during the infamous Salem witchcraft trials. The greed and arrogant pride of the novel’s Pyncheon family through the generations is mirrored in the gloomy decay of their seven-gabled mansion, in which the family’s enfeebled and impoverished relations live.
A Farewell to Arms
While serving with the Italian ambulance service during World War I, an American lieutenant falls in love with an English nurse who tends him after he is wounded on the Italian front. He deserts during the Italians’ retreat after the Battle of Caporetto, and the reunited couple flee into Switzerland. By turns romantic and harshly realistic, Hemingway’s story of romance set against the brutality and confusion of World War I is full of disillusionment and heartbreak.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of an American in the Spanish War. Robert Jordan has drawn the assignment of blowing up a bridge, but as he flees, a shell explodes, toppling his horse and breaking the soldier’s legs. Thus, Jordan not only faces the loss of his life but the loss of his love for Maria, a woman he met and fell for during his mountain tour of duty.
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea tells a triumphant yet tragic story of an old Cuban fisherman and his relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. In this short novel, Hemingway combines the simplicity of a fable, the significance of a parable, and the drama of an epic.
The Sun Also Rises
Set in the 1920s, Hemingway’s novel deals with a group of aimless expatriates in the cafes of Paris and the bullrings of Spain. They are members of the cynical and disillusioned post-World War I Lost Generation, many of whom suffer psychological and physical wounds as a result of the war. Friendship, stoicism, and natural grace under pressure are offered as the values that matter in an otherwise amoral and often senseless world.
Kon-Tiki
Heyerdahl had heard of a mythical Polynesian hero, Kon-Tiki, who had migrated to the islands from the east. Further investigation led the scientist to believe that the story of the migration of a people across thousands of miles of the Pacific was fact, not a myth, and he decided to duplicate the legendary voyage to prove its accuracy. Limiting himself to a balsa log raft, Kon-Tiki is the record of his outrageous and daring expedition.
Lost Horizon
Hilton’s haunting novel takes place in Shangri-La, the valley of enchantment. Amid the towering peaks of the Himalayas, Conway could think only of his crashed plane and the home he might never see again. He couldn’t fully realize that he was soon to enter a world of love and peace as no Westerner had ever known.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Full of enthusiasm, young English schoolmaster Mr. Chipping came to teach at Brookfield in 1870. It was a time when dignity and a generosity of spirit still existed, and the dedicated new schoolmaster expressed these beliefs to his rowdy students. Nicknamed Mr. Chips, this gentle and caring man helped shape the lives of generation after generation of boys.
The Odyssey
Odysseus wants to go home. But Poseidon, god of oceans, doesn’t want him to make it back across the wine-dark sea to his wife Penelope, son Telemachus, and their high-roofed home at Ithaca. This is the story in Homer’s epic poem written 2,700 years ago. The Odyssey is a gripping read.
The Iliad
Although typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth. The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer and reveals the history of the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.
Green Mansions
An exotic romance set in the jungles of South America, the story is narrated by a man named Abel who as a young man had lived among the Indians. Abel falls in love with Rima, a girl of a magnificent and mystical race, and is led to discover the greatest joy — as well as the darkest despair.
Les Misérables
Set largely in Paris during the politically explosive 1820s and 1830s, this epic follows the life of the former criminal Jean Valjean — an outcast of society — and his unjust imprisonment. Valjean has repented his crimes, but is nevertheless hounded by his nemesis, the police detective Javert. Les Misérables is at once a tense thriller, an epic portrayal of the 19th-century French citizenry, and a vital drama of the redemption of one human being. Hugo achieved the rare imaginative resonance that allows a work of art to transcend its genre.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo’s haunting and tumultuous tale of the horribly deformed bell-ringer, Quasimodo, unfolds in the shadow of Notre Dame cathedral. The hunchback falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful gypsy girl, Esmerelda, and after rescuing her both from hanging and the evil archdeacon Dom Frollo, he reunites her with her mother.
The Sketch Book
The Sketch Book is a collection of short stories, most of them based on folklore. Of these, the tales The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle are the most famous, both of which are Americanized versions of German folktales. In addition to the stories based on folklore, the collection contains travel sketches and literary essays.
Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties
This history explores the events, ideas, and personalities of the seven decades since the First World War. It is a superb discussion of the most relevant aspects of the 20th century — including good discussions on the beginnings of the Soviet Union and its close cousin Nazism, Peronism in Argentina and how it destroyed that prosperous country, and the devastation of the third world by the collectivist ideologues.
Captains Courageous
This novel of maritime adventure takes place on the We’re Here, a small fishing boat whose crew members rescue the son of a multi-millionaire, Harvey Cheyne, when he is washed overboard from an ocean liner. The captain refuses to take him back to port and instead makes Harvey a member of the crew, where he quickly learns respect, toughness, and gratitude — and inspires the audience to do the same.
Kim
Kim is an orphan, living from hand to mouth in the teeming streets of Lahore. One day he meets a man quite unlike anything in his wide experience, a Tibetan lama on a quest. Kim’s life suddenly acquires meaning and purpose as he becomes the lama’s guide and protector — his chela. Other forces are at work as Kim is sucked into the intrigue of the Great Game and travels the Grand Trunk Road with his lama. How Kim and the lama meet their respective destinies on the road and in the mountains of India forms a compelling adventure tale.
A Separate Peace
Knowles’ beloved classic is a story of friendship, treachery, and the confusions of adolescence. Looking back to his youth, Gene Forrester reflects on his life as a student at Devon School in New Hampshire in 1942. Although he is an excellent student, he envies the athleticism and vitality of his friend Finny. Unable to cope with this insecurity, Forrester causes Finny to break his leg, sabotaging his athletic career. A Separate Peace looks at this tragic accident involving the two young men and how it forever tarnishes their innocence.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Lewis’s mystical tale of adventure takes the reader on an extraordinary journey to far-off lands. The Chronicles of Narnia consists of seven books: The Magician’s Nephew; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader”; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle. An allegorical saga great for all ages.
The Screwtape Letters
Written in defense of Christian faith, this popular satire consists of a series of thirty-one letters in which Screwtape, an experienced devil, instructs his young charge, Wormwood, in the art of temptation. Confounded by church doctrines and a faithful Christian woman, their efforts are defeated when their subject — a World War II pilot — dies in a bombing raid with his soul at peace. The Screwtape Letters is a classic treatise on a human nature that is as old as the world. Through his satiric use of the demonic narrative persona, Lewis examines the opposing sides in the battle between good and evil.
Mere Christianity
In 1943 Great Britain, when hope and the moral fabric of society were threatened by the relentless inhumanity of global war, an Oxford don was invited to give a series of radio lectures addressing the central issues of Christianity. Mere Christianity never flinches as it sets out a rational basis for Christianity and builds an edifice of compassionate morality atop this foundation. As Lewis clearly demonstrates, Christianity is not a religion of flitting angels and blind faith, but of free will, an innate sense of justice and the grace of God. Lewis’s lucid apologetics will challenge the faithful and convince those who have not previously heard the gospel.
How Green Was My Valley
In this nostalgic tale of a young man’s coming-of-age, the Morgan family experiences the simple, vital pleasures of life in the coal fields of south Wales in the late 1800s. However, industrial capitalism takes its toll on the family and community. The Morgan boys are driven from their family home because of the stresses and wild cycles of early industrialism, and the town, once a community of friends, gradually becomes a mean, brutal place. Llewellyn looks critically at industrial capitalism from a conservative point of view.
The Call of the Wild
In his classic survival story of Buck, a courageous dog fighting for survival in the Alaskan wilderness, London vividly evokes the harsh and frozen Yukon during the Gold Rush. As Buck is ripped from his pampered, domestic surroundings and shipped to Alaska to be a sled dog, his primitive, wolflike nature begins to emerge. Savage struggles and timeless bonds between man, dog, and wilderness are played to their heartrending extremes, as Buck undertakes a journey that transforms him into the legendary “Ghost Dog” of the Klondike.
White Fang
White Fang is a wolf dog, the offspring of an Indian dog and a wolf, alone in the savage world of the desolate, frozen wilds of the Yukon territory. Weedon Scott rescues the fiercely independent dog from a cruel, ignorant master, training him to be a loving companion. When an escaped convict threatens violence, a savage beast transformed by human kindness must confront a man brutalized by society.
The Curate’s Awakening
Originally published as Thomas Wingfold, Curate in 1876, MacDonald’s tale is retold for today’s readers in The Curate’s Awakening. MacDonald masterfully weaves together an old abandoned house, a frightened young fugitive, a tragic murder, and a sister’s love, as the Curate’s confidence and faith are shaken.
Le Morte D’Arthur
The legendary deeds of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table follows Arthur’s magical birth and accession to the throne as well as the stories of knights Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristram, and Sir Galahad. Malory’s unique and splendid version of the Arthurian legend tells an immortal story of love, adventure, chivalry, treachery, and death.
Short Stories
De Maupassant was indeed a great influence. His short stories are considered little masterpieces and have been followed as a model for short story writers since his time.
Billy Budd
It is a time of war between nations, but on one ship, a smaller battle is being fought between two men. Jealous of Billy Budd, known as the “Handsome Sailor,” the envious Master-At-Arms Claggart torments the young man until his false accusations lead to a charge of treason against Billy.
Moby Dick
Melville tells this story through the eyes of Ishmael. A giant white whale took Captain Ahab’s leg on a previous voyage, and now, driven on by the Captain’s obsessive revenge, the crew and the outcast Ishmael find themselves caught up in a maniacal pursuit which leads inexorably to an apocalyptic climax.
The Cruel Sea
The Cruel Sea presents the lives of Allied sailors who must protect the cargo ships and destroy the German submarines. Monsarrat vividly describes the savage submarine battles of the North Atlantic during World War II.
Mutiny on the Bounty
In this stirring sea adventure, Nordhoff and Hall tell the story of the historic voyage of the H.M.S. Bounty — a journey that culminated in Fletcher Christian’s mutiny against Captain Bligh. This unforgettable, fictional tale of the high seas is so realistic it reads like truth.
Poems
Poe revolutionized the horror tale, giving it psychological insight and a consistent tone and atmosphere. He invented the modern detective story, penned some of the world’s best-known lyric poetry, and wrote a major novella of the fantastic. Some of his more famous works include: “The Raven”; “The Pit and the Pendulum”; “Annabel Lee”; “The Fall of the House of Usher”; and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul Bäumer and his classmates enlist in the German army of World War II, and they become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other.
The Promise
The Promise follows the story of Reuven Malter in his choices between traditionalism and his feelings. As Potok explores the themes of adolescence, morality, and our collective nature, he captures the essence of the Jewish customs and conflicts and puts them in laymen’s term. This is an uplifting story realistically and dramatically told.
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, and The War Years
The definitive biography of one of America’s greatest presidents recounts the fascinating log-cabin-to-the-White House success story. Sandburg aptly describes the complex individual who rose to become an outstanding leader.
The Human Comedy
Saroyan’s autobiographical story centers around a family whose struggles and dreams reflect those of America’s second-generation immigrants. Set in California during World War II, it shows us a boy caught between reality and illusion as delivering telegraphs of wartime death, love, and money brings him face-to-face with human emotion at its most raw.
Ivanhoe
Set in 12th-century England, Ivanhoe captures the noble idealism of chivalry along with its often cruel and impractical consequences. It follows the heroic adventures of Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe as he and his fellow captives are rescued from Knight Templar’s castle by Robin Hood; the wounded Ivanhoe’s trial by combat with the powerful Knight to save the beautiful Jewess Rebecca from the stake; and King Richard the Lionhearted’s aid in Ivanhoe’s triumph at evil King John’s tournament.
Words by Heart
Hoping to make her adored Papa proud of her and make her white classmates notice her “Magic Mind” and not her black skin, Lena vows to win the Bible-quoting contest. Winning does not bring Lena what she expected. Instead of honor, violence and death erupt and strike the one she loves most dearly. Lena, who has believed in vengeance, must now learn how to forgive.
The Killer Angels
This novel reveals more about the Battle of Gettysburg — in which 50,000 people died — than any piece of learned nonfiction on the same subject. Shaara’s account of the three most important days of the Civil War features deft characterizations of all of the main actors, including Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Buford, and Hancock. In the three most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two dreams — one dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life.
Hamlet
This powerful tale of ghosts, murder, and revenge takes on new meaning with each reading. The play begins as a ghost story, full of mystery and suspense. Then in Acts II and III, it becomes a detective story with Prince Hamlet seeking to find the murderer of his father. Finally, in Acts IV and V, it becomes a revenge story, as Hamlet seeks the ultimate revenge.
Macbeth
Shakespeare’s tragedy revolves around destiny, ambition, and murder. It is prophesied that a Scottish lord “shall never vanquished be until great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.” Macbeth luxuriates in his invincibility, knowing that woods don’t climb hills. Or do they? As he and Lady Macbeth move from one heinous crime to another, a day of reckoning awaits them.
Julius Caesar
A crafty and ambitious Cassius, envious of Caesar’s political and military triumphs, forms a conspiracy against him. After Caesar’s assassination, Antony, seeking retribution against the murderers, drives them out of Rome. Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s greatest works.
Pygmalion
The inspiration behind the popular musical and movie My Fair Lady, Pygmalion is a perceptive comedy of wit and grit about the unique relationship that develops between spunky cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, and her irascible speech professor, Henry Higgins. The flower girl teaches the egotistical phonetics professor that to be a lady means more than just learning to speak like one.
Frankenstein
After being rescued from an iceberg, Dr. Frankenstein relates his autobiography to the ship’s captain. Dr. Frankenstein has been consumed by his desire to create a fully-grown living creature. When he reaches his goal, he perceives his creation as a monster, immediately regrets his work, and promptly abandons it. A story within a story, Frankenstein is a subtle and ironic prophecy that raises the question of who exactly is the real monster in this story.
The Jungle
In Sinclair’s book we enter the world of Jurgis Rudkus, a young Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America fired with dreams of wealth, freedom, and opportunity. And we discover, with him, the astonishing truth about “packingtown,” the busy, flourishing, filthy Chicago stockyards, where new world visions perish in a jungle of human suffering. Sinclair explores the workingman’s lot at the turn of the century: the backbreaking labor; the injustices of “wage-slavery”; and the bewildering chaos of urban life.
Of Mice and Men
This tragic story, given poignancy by its objective narrative, is about the complex bond between two migrant laborers. The plot centers on George Milton and Lennie Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is large and simpleminded, calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength.
East of Eden
This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California’s Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families — the Trasks and the Hamiltons — whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is the epic chronicle of man’s struggle against injustice and inhumanity. It tells the story of the Joads and their journey to “the golden land.” It is not so much just the story of one family and one time, but the story of the courage and passion of all men throughout history.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson’s supernatural story of good versus evil centers around the well-intentioned, wealthy physician Dr. Jekyll. As he drinks the potion that is the culmination of his research, he unleashes the dark side of his nature, turning into the hideous Mr. Hyde. This book is one of the most horrific depictions of the human potential for evil ever written.
Treasure Island
When young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map in Captain Flint’s chest, he must outwit the dead Captain’s collaborators if he is to keep it for himself. Only his two companions, Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey, share Jim’s secret, and the three decide to set off on a seafaring adventure in this classic tale of exploits on the high seas.
Kidnapped
In this spirited saga, a young heir is seized by his villainous uncle and sold into slavery. Saved ironically in a shipwreck, he travels with a Scot expatriate until they become suspects in a murder. More than just a “boy’s story,” this is the tale of a brave young man and the amazing odyssey that takes him halfway around the world.
Lust for Life
Vincent Van Gogh was a tragic figure in his time, beseiged by uncertainty, disappointment, and a tortured mind. The heroic devotion of his brother was the most important sustaining influence on his life. In Lust for Life, Stone uses the techniques of a fiction writer and the approach of a biographer in recreating the storm and stress of this artist’s life.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
This is a book that changed history. Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to 19th century women who wanted to affect public opinion: She wrote a novel — a huge, enthralling narrative that claimed the heart, soul, and politics of pre-Civil War Americans. It is unabashed propaganda and overtly moralistic, an attempt to make whites — North and South — see slaves as mothers, fathers, and people with (Christian) souls. In a time when many whites claimed slavery had “good effects” on blacks, Uncle Tom’s Cabin paints pictures of three plantations, each worse than the other, where even the best plantation leaves a slave at the mercy of fate or debt.
Gulliver’s Travels
This four-part, satirical novel is the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and sea captain who visits remote regions of the world. Gulliver is shipwrecked on Lilliput, where people are six inches tall. His second voyage takes him to Brobdingnag, where lives a race of giants of great practicality who do not understand abstractions. Gulliver’s third voyage takes him to the flying island of Laputa and the nearby continent and capital of Lagado, where he finds pedants obsessed with their own specialized areas of speculation and utterly ignorant of the rest of life. At Glubdubdrib, the Island of Sorcerers, he speaks with great men of the past and learns from them the lies of history. He also meets the Struldbrugs, who are immortal and, as a result, utterly miserable. In the extremely bitter fourth part, Gulliver visits the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent, virtuous horses served by brutal, filthy, and degenerate creatures called Yahoos.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Tolkien’s trilogy of fantasy novels, drawn from his extensive knowledge of philology and folklore, consists of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The novels, set in the Third Age of Middle Earth, formed a sequel to Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The trilogy is the saga of a group of sometimes reluctant heroes who set forth to save their world from consummate evil. At 33, the age of adulthood among hobbits, Frodo Baggins receives a magic Ring of Invisibility from his uncle Bilbo. A Christlike figure, Frodo learns that the ring has the power to control the entire world and, he discovers, to corrupt its owner. A fellowship of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and men is formed to destroy the Ring; they are opposed on their harrowing mission by the evil Sauron and his Black Riders.
War and Peace
This epic, historical novel is a panoramic study of early 19th-century Russian society. War and Peace is primarily concerned with the histories of five aristocratic families, the members of which are portrayed against a vivid background of Russian social life during the war against Napoleon (1805–14). The theme of war, however, is subordinate to the story of family existence, which involves Tolstoy’s optimistic belief in the life-asserting pattern of human existence. The novel also sets forth a theory of history, concluding that there is a minimum of free choice; all is ruled by an inexorable historical determinism.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain’s book tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious. This book’s humor is found mostly in Huck’s unique worldview and his way of expressing himself. Underlying Twain’s good humor, however, is a dark subcurrent of cruelty and injustice that makes this a frequently funny book with a serious message.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Twain’s story of a mischievous Missouri schoolboy combines humor, terror, and astute social criticism in a delightful tale of life on the Mississippi. Written in 1876, Tom Sawyer became the model for an ideal of American boyhood in the 19th century, and many story elements — such as the fence-painting episode — are now woven into the fabric of our culture.
Master of the World
“It was seen first in North Carolina, or something was, smoking up from a mountain crater. With blinding speed, it roared past cars on a Pennsylvania road. It skimmed the Atlantic, then at the flick of its captain’s will dove beneath the waves. . . . It was the ‘Terror’ . . . ship, sub, plane, and land vehicle in one and a letter from its inventor claimed that with it, he would rule the world.” Long recognized as a truly prophetic science fiction classic, this adventure was also Verne’s last novel.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Professor Pierre Aronnax, the narrator, boards an American frigate commissioned to investigate a rash of attacks on international shipping by what is thought to be an amphibious monster. The supposed sea creature, which is actually the submarine Nautilus, sinks Aronnax’s vessel and imprisons him along with his devoted servant Conseil and Ned Land, a temperamental harpooner. The survivors meet Captain Nemo, an enigmatic misanthrope who leads them on a worldwide, yearlong underwater adventure. The novel is noted for its exotic situations and the technological innovations it describes.
Ben-Hur
This historical novel depicts the oppressive Roman occupation of ancient Palestine and the origins of Christianity. The Jew Judah Ben-Hur is wrongly accused by his former friend, the Roman Messala, of attempting to kill a Roman official. He is sent to be a slave and his mother and sister are imprisoned. Years later he returns, wins a chariot race against Messala, and is reunited with his now leprous mother and sister.
Up From Slavery
Illustrating the human quest for freedom and dignity, Washington’s American classic recounts his triumph over the legacy of slavery, his founding of Tuskegee Institute, and his emergence as a national spokesman for his race.
Collected Works of H.G. Wells
Wells is the founder of modern science-fiction. His stories include “The Crystal Egg,” “The Strange Orched,” and “The Invisible Man” — a serious study of egotism.
The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II
Generally, books about war fit their stereotype quite well — the hero is the commanding officer who leads his men courageously into battle. However, Wouk showed that even our most heralded commanders are human and make mistakes like the rest of us. Captain Queeg was unbalanced, but was he so unbalanced as to warrant a mutiny? That is one of the central themes of The Caine Mutiny, along with Willie Keith’s change from an immature mama’s boy into a man capable of commanding an entire ship in the United States Navy. Wouk shows how most men are vulnerable, and military men are no exception.
JUNIORS
Looking Backward
Bellamy’s story, first published in 1888, is a passionate attack on the social ills of 19th century industrialism, Bellamy makes a plea for social reform and moral renewal; however, the action takes place in the year 2000. Julian West awakens after more than a century of sleep to find himself in twentieth century America — a land full of employment, material abundance, and social harmony.
John Brown’s Body
This is not the history of John Brown, nor a verse history of the civil war, but a narrative of the great and complex struggles between civilization, where nearly everyone is right and wrong. Benet’s saga is an epic poem of the civil war.
Wuthering Heights
The tempestuous and mythic story of Catherine Earnshaw, the precocious daughter of the house, and the ruggedly handsome, uncultured foundling her father brings home and names Heathcliff. Brought together as children, Catherine and Heathcliff quickly become attached to each other. As they grow older, their companionship turns into obsession. Family, class, and fate work cruelly against them, as do their own jealous and volatile natures, and much of their lives is spent in revenge and frustration. Wuthering Heights is a classic tale of possessive and thwarted passion, and it embodies Bronte’s philosophy and spiritual quality.
Peculiar Treasures
In these short, pithy portraits of 125 Bible characters, Buechner has put together a humorous and entertaining bunch of folks who in most ways are just like ourselves. Buechner writes with a light touch, and his witty yet solidly instructive characterizations of these Biblical figures underscore lessons for Christians today.
My Antonia
Cather’s novel honors the immigrant settlers of the American plains. Narrated by the protagonist’s lifelong friend, Jim Burden, the novel recounts the history of Antonia Shimerda, the daughter of Bohemian immigrants who settled on the Nebraska frontier. The book contains a number of poetic passages about the disappearing frontier and the spirit and courage of frontier people.
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Death Comes for the Archbishop traces the friendship and adventures of Bishop Jean Latour and vicar Father Joseph Vaillant as they organize the new Roman Catholic diocese of New Mexico. Latour is patrician, intellectual, introverted; Vaillant, practical, outgoing, sanguine. Friends since their childhood in France, the clerics triumph over corrupt Spanish priests, natural adversity, and the indifference of the Hopi and Navajo to establish their church and build a cathedral in the wilderness. The novel, essentially a study of character, is considered emblematic of the author’s moral and spiritual concerns.
Don Quixote
Humor, insight, compassion, and knowledge of the world underlie the antic adventures of the lanky knight clad in rusty armor and his earthy squire, Sancho Panza. The unforgettable characters they encounter on their famous pilgrimage form a brilliant panorama of society and human behavior.
Crime and Punishment
Dostoyevsky’s first masterpiece, the novel is a psychological analysis of the poor student Raskolnikov, whose theory that humanitarian ends justify evil means leads him to murder a St. Petersburg pawnbroker. The act produces nightmarish guilt in Raskolnikov. The narrative’s feverish, compelling tone follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov’s emotions and elaborates his struggle with his conscience and his mounting sense of horror as he wanders the city’s hot, crowded streets. In prison, Raskolnikov comes to the realization that happiness cannot be achieved by a reasoned plan of existence but must be earned by suffering.
The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion
The trilogy follows the origin, rise, and dominance of the Snopes family. The Snopes took root in Yoknapatawpha County and proliferated through and beyond it until they outmaneuvered and overpowered a society that had little defense against their invincible rapacity.
Go Down, Moses
Go Down, Moses consists of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites and between man and nature.
The Bear
The Bear is the story of a boy’s coming to terms with the adult world. By learning how to hunt, he is taught the real meaning of pride, humility, and courage — virtues that Faulkner feared would be almost impossible to learn with the destruction of the wilderness.
The Forsythe Saga
Galsworthy’s saga chronicles the lives of three generations of a monied, middle-class English family at the turn of the century. Soames Forsythe, a solicitor and “the man of property,” is married to the beautiful, penniless Irene, who falls in love with Philip Bosinney, the French architect whom Soames had hired to build a country house. The rest of the saga concerns itself with Soames, Irene, and Philip, and the generations that follow.
Justice
Justice is Galsworthy’s tragic play about the irony of punishing by rule rather than helping or training the individual. It is full of irony, justice, and injustice.
Loyalties
Loyalties treats incidentally the clash of classes and social groups. Its main purpose is to throw up into relief the incessant clash of differing loyalties, which makes the path of right action so difficult.
Raisin in the Sun
When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life.
The Return of the Native
This novel sets in opposition two of Hardy’s most unforgettable characters: his heroine, the sensuous, free-spirited Eustacia Vye, and the solemn, majestic stretch of upland in Dorsetshire he called Egdon Heath. The famous opening reveals the haunting power of that dark, forbidding moon where proud Eustacia fervently awaits a clandestine meeting with her lover, Damon Wildeve. But Eustacia’s dreams of escape are not to be realized — neither Wildeve nor the returning native Clym Yeobright can bring her salvation. Injured by forces beyond their control, Hardy’s characters struggle vainly in the net of destiny.
Mayor of Casterbridge
This is a classic tale of a successful man who cannot escape his past nor his own evil nature. Michael Henchard is the respected mayor of Casterbridge, a thriving industrial town — but years ago, under the influence of alcohol, he sold his wife Susan to a sailor at a country fair. Although repentant and sober for 21 years, Henchard cannot escape his destiny when Susan and her daughter return to Casterbridge.
Hiroshima
When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Hersey recorded the stories of Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion, giving the world firsthand accounts from people who had survived it. The words of Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamara, Father Kleinsorg, Dr. Sasaki, and the Reverend Tanimoto gave a face to the statistics that saturated the media and solicited an overwhelming public response.
The Turn of the Screw
One of the most famous ghost stories, the tale is told mostly through the journal of a governess and depicts her struggle to save her two young charges from the demonic influence of the eerie apparitions of two former servants in the household. The story inspired critical debate over the question of the “reality” of the ghosts and of James’s intentions. Whether accepted as a simple ghost story or an exercise in the literary convention of the unreliable narrator, this story is classically, relentlessly horrifying.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Through the eyes of young Scout Finch, one of the most endearing and enduring characters of Southern literature, Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man’s struggle for justice.
The Essays of Elia
Lamb’s personality is projected in all his literary work, but in The Essays of Elia it shines through. This collection of essays contains a vast deal of autobiographical material, and it is candidly personal in atmosphere and structure.
Babbitt
Babbitt, a conniving, prosperous real-estate man, is one of the ugliest figures in American fiction. A total conformist, he can only receive self-esteem from others, and is loyal to whoever serves his need of the moment. Babbitt gives consummate expression to the glibness and irresponsibility of the hardened, professional social climber.
Arrowsmith
Lewis’ book follows the life of Martin Arrowsmith, a rather ordinary fellow who gets his first taste of medicine at 14 as an assistant to the drunken physician in his home town. He is forced to give up his trade for reasons ranging from public ignorance to the publicity-mindedness of a great foundation, and becomes an isolated seeker of scientific truth.
The Late George Apley
The Late George Apley is a wicked, brilliantly etched satire. A portrait of a Bostonian and of the tradition-bound, gilded society in which he lived, it is the story of three generations of Apley men, the maturing America, and the golden era of American security from 1866 to 1933.
A Spoon River Anthology
Masters introduces the reader to a selection of souls who describe their lives and their relationships (or lack thereof) through simplistic, poetic epitaphs. The collection of dramatic monologues by over 200 former inhabitants of the fictional town of Spoon River topples the myth of moral superiority in small-town America, as the dead give testimony to their shocking scandals and secret tragedies. Masters seems to place the reader in St. Peter’s wings, inviting — almost daring — that reader to decide eternal placement for his characters.
Of Human Bondage
Maugham uses the tale of Phillip Carey, an innocent, sensitive crippled man in Victorian-era Europe as a front for his own autobiography. Phillip was left an orphan at a young age and was continually taunted for his club-foot and the limp that resulted. His early rejection from society gives him time to seek out his purpose in life and travel across Europe. This book is truly great for the in-depth examination of love and the human animal.
The Emperor Jones
This play, as well as Anna Christie and The Hairy Ape, deals with the misery of man — not immediate, physical, or social, but metaphysical. The central character, a Negro, is insulted and injured. The “emperor” Brutus Jones, typifies all men with their raw ignorance and hysterical fear under the layers of intellect.
Animal Farm
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for a telling anti-utopian satires — a razor-edged fable that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism dictatorship even more oppressive and heartless than that of their former human masters.
The Rights of Man
The Rights of Man is unquestionably one of the great classics on the subject of democracy. Paine’s vast influence on our system of government is due less to his eloquence and literary style, than to his steadfast bravery and determination to promote justice and equality.
Cry, the Beloved Country
Set in the troubled South Africa of the 1940s amid a people riven by racial inequality and injustice, Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautiful and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom. Everyone can relate to the pathos of Rev. Kumalo in his journey to reunite the tribe and his gradual awakening to the fact that there are changes that are occurring that his compassion and tears can do nothing for.
The Republic
In Plato’s Republic exists a guide to life and living for every person alive. By trying to describe the ideal state, Plato creates the first “Utopia” and in the meantime questions our perceptions of reality. Through Plato’s thought we can see the only way to judge fairness and equality is through the ideal state and what man could be, not what man is. Plato’s look on justice and reality is unmatched despite hundreds of attempts to replicate his thought and style in the past few millennia.
Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie
This refreshingly stark view of pioneer life reflects the hardships, fear, and depression that one woman experiences when her husband takes her from her Norwegian homeland and moves her steadily westward across the northern plains. This novel is gothic in dimensions — the physical landscape becomes the characters’ mental landscape — the vast expanse of snow in winter and grass in summer become a metaphor for boredom and isolation. Rolvaag writes of a lifestyle and of motivations unimaginable to the modern American, and yet, he writes of a time that was shockingly recent in the history of the Midwest.
Cyrano de Bergerac
Set in 17th-century Paris, the action revolves around the emotional problems of the noble, swashbuckling Cyrano, who, despite his many gifts, feels that no woman can ever love him because he has an enormous nose. Secretly in love with the lovely Roxane, Cyrano agrees to help his inarticulate rival, Christian, win her heart by allowing him to present Cyrano’s love poems, speeches, and letters as his own work, and Cyrano remains silent about his own part in Roxane’s courtship.
The Three Theban Plays
Oedipus Rex
Oedipus at Colonus
Antigone
This trilogy is Greek tragedy and compelling drama. It is the eloquent story of a noble family moving toward catastrophe, and dragged down by pride from wealth and power. Oedipus Rex raises basic questions about human behavior. Antigone examines the conflicting obligations of civic duties versus personal loyalties and religious mores.
Bless the Beasts and the Children
Swarthout gives readers an opportunity to view six adolescents whom society has already labeled misfits from the inside out. As the book progresses, you gradually learn the history of each member of the group from past incidents, namely unintentional mental abuse by parents. The teenagers set out on a quest to free a herd of buffaloes from a senseless slaughter. Ironically, the freedom and fate of these animals parallel that of the young men. Their freeing the buffaloes symbolizes their own self-discovery, initiation into manhood, and entry into a realm of humanity that transcends the violent, “dog-eat-dog” society that has excluded them.
Fathers and Sons
Fathers and Sons concerns the inevitable conflict between generations and between the values of traditionalists and intellectuals. The physician Bazarov, the novel’s protagonist, is a nihilist, denying the validity of all laws save those of the natural sciences. He scorns traditional Russian values, shocks respectable society and, for the young, represents the spirit of rebellion. Uncouth and forthright in his opinions, Bazarov is nonetheless susceptible to love and by that fact doomed to unhappiness.
Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair is a story of two heroines — one humble, the other scheming and social-climbing — who meet in boarding school and embark on markedly different lives. Amid the swirl of London’s posh ballrooms and affairs of love and war, their fortunes rise and fall. Through it all, Thackeray lampoons the shallow values of his society, reserving the most pointed barbs for the upper crust. What results is a prescient look at the dogged pursuit of wealth and status — and the need for humility.
Cat’s Cradle
Cat’s Cradle is Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. These assorted characters chase each other around in search of the world’s most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature.
Ethan Frome
Although Ethan Frome, a gaunt, patient New Englander, seems ambitious and intelligent, his wife, Zeena, holds him back. When her young cousin Mattie comes to stay on their New England farm, Ethan falls in love with her. But the social conventions of the day doom their love and their hopes. Ethan is tormented by a passionate love for Mattie, and his desperate quest for happiness leads to pain and despair.