Lloyd James
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English
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The shy and sweet daughter of a well-to-do physician, Catherine Sloper seems destined for lifelong spinsterhood until the sudden appearance of a dashing suitor who proposes marriage. Her adored father suspects the would-be fiance of fortune-hunting and threatens her with disinheritance, forcing Catherine to choose between lover and father. Setting his novel in New York City of the 1840s, James masterfully explores the moral consequences of a tender...
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On a sultry summer night in 1915, Jay Follet leaves his house in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tend to his father, whom he believes is dying. The summons turns out to be a false alarm, but on his way back to his family, Jay has a car accident and is killed instantly. Dancing back and forth in time and braiding the viewpoints of Jay's wife, brother, and young son, Rufus, Agee creates an overwhelmingly powerful novel of innocence, tenderness and loss.
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"Spanning thirty years and three continents, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigan family, and her four children" --
"Ardeevin, County Clare, Ireland. 1980. When her oldest brother Dan announces he will enter the priesthood, young Hanna watches her mother howl in agony and retreat to her room. In the years that follow, the Madigan children leave one by one: Dan for the frenzy of New York under the shadow of AIDS; Constance...
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"A rich and captivating novel set amid the witty, high-spirited literary society of 1850s New England, offering a new window on Herman Melville's emotionally charged relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and how it transformed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end--his last three novels have been commercial failures and the critics...
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The American president has come to be the most powerful figure in the world--and in the nineteenth century, a great man held that office. Lincoln scholar Miller's new book closely examines that great man in that hugely important office, analyzing the commander in chief who coped with the profound moral dilemmas of America's bloodiest war. In this sequel to Lincoln's Virtues Miller completes his "ethical biography," showing the inexperienced backcountry...
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In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them, in works that readers of all kinds could admire. This book is their story, a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker in New York; Flannery O'Connor a "Christ-haunted" literary...
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A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege....Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle,...
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Tom Stone went to Greece one summer to write a novel--and stayed twenty-two years. On the tiny idyllic island of Patmos, he fell in love with a beautiful French painter, married, and had two children. Seven years later, he moved his family to Crete for a teaching job, but his heart was still in Patmos; so when a Patmian friend offered him a summer partnership at his taverna, he jumped at the chance. But his wife warned him not to forget the old adage...
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An anthology of all of the Brown Dog novellas includes a previously unpublished story and follows the down-on-his-luck Michigan Native American's misadventures with an overindulgent lifestyle, his two adopted children, and an ersatz activist who steals his bearskin.
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Cabbages and Kings (1904) is a novel by American writer O. Henry. Inspired by his experiences as a fugitive in Honduras, the interconnected stories that make up Cabbages and Kings-the title refers to a line from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass-address themes of revolution, imperialism, exploitation, and greed. The novel is significant not only for launching O. Henry's career as a successful professional writer, but for coining the term "banana...
12) South sea tales
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Featuring eight works of short fiction, South Sea Tales by Jack London is an adventurous collection with a nautical theme. With settings on islands or ships, South Sea Tales tell the exciting, but often heartbreaking tales of violence, colonialism, and racism. The House of Mapuhi follows the son of a trading magnate, who travels from island to island buying valuable items for his mother's business. When he learns of a brilliant pearl owned by one...
13) Jennie Gerhardt
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Novel by Theodore Dreiser, published in 1911. It exemplifies the naturalism of which Dreiser was a proponent, telling the unhappy story of a working-class woman who accepts all the adversity life visits on her and becomes the mistress of two wealthy and powerful men in order to help her impoverished family. --The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature.
14) The Europeans
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Signet classics volume CP232
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English
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Two Europeans, an English brother and sister, come to America to seek their fortune. A delightful fable of culture in collision.
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Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town. Jared Whitcomb is a chain-smoking sixteen-year-old heart-transplant recipient who befriends Sebastian, and begins to teach him about all the things he has been missing, including...
17) Stranger room
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2018 Macavity Award winner for Best Nonfiction
2018 Anthony Award nominee for Best Critical/Nonfiction Book
This book tells the story of crime fiction published during the first half of the twentieth century. The diversity of this much-loved genre is breathtaking, and so much greater than many critics have suggested. To illustrate this, the leading expert on classic crime discusses one hundred books ranging from The Hound of the Baskervilles to...
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"Ruth Harris, Sherriff Ike Schwartz's fiancée, is involved in a near fatal automobile accident. But Ike is convinced the crash was rigged. Even though he is embroiled in a close election, has no jurisdiction over the investigation, and can find no support in the usual law enforcement community, he places himself on leave and goes rogue to investigate and seek the person or persons responsible for putting Ruth in a coma. His efforts attract help from...
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Joshua Speed, the enterprising second son of a wealthy plantation owner, has struck off on his own. But before long, he makes a surprising and crucial new acquaintance--a freshly minted lawyer by the name of Abraham Lincoln. When an orphaned girl from a neighboring town is found murdered and suspicion falls on her aunt, Speed makes it his mission to clear her good name. Of course, he'll need the legal expertise of his unusual new friend. Together,...
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In the years after World War II, Georgetown's leafy streets were home to an unlikely group of Cold Warriors: a coterie of affluent, well-educated, and connected civilians who helped steer American strategy from the Marshall Plan through McCarthyism, Watergate, and the endgame of Vietnam. The Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishers of The Washington Post; Joe and Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the...