" ... Are the small freeholders of the Icelandic countryside--operators of the one-man, one-family farm got by inheritance or purchase and held with grim tenacity against all connivances of nature and man by folk whose ruling passion is to be their own masters on their own acres." [Dust jacket].

"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...

The story of three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after WWII. A couple, drawn by desire to the Sahara, follow their passionate obeseeions in an attempt to recapture the love they once shared. This psychological terror examines the ways in which Americans apprehend an alien culture.

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence,...

"In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude," an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws, who lug their furniture with them into his cell. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed, he simply wills his executioners...

Nabokov's parody, half poem and half commentary on the poem, deals with the escapades of the deposed king of Zemala in a New England college town.

"The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language 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"--Page 4 of cover....

Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965--thirty years after its original publication--Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime--his own murder.

"Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero - sullen, gawky Hugh Person - to Switzerland... As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride... Eight years later - following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment - Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his...