Classics
Jane Austen
Pride
and Prejudice
The classic and much-loved romance between proud Mr Darcy and prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet.
Emma
Synopsis
Emma Wodehouse has led a simple life, but during the course of this she
at last reaps her share of the world's vexations. In this comedy of manners,
the heroine learns to come to terms with the reality of other people,
and with her own erring nature.
Emily Brontë
WUTHERING
HEIGHTS
Synopsis
The saga of two Yorkshire families in the remote Pennine Hills. The book
has been interpreted as an historical romance, a ghostly thriller, a psychological
love-story, a religious allegory and a nature poem. This is the author's
only novel.
Joseph Conrad
HEART
OF DARKNESS
Synopsis
Marlow voyages into the wildness and jungle of the Belgian Congo to meet
Kurtz, a company agent, and having found him, realizes that Kurtz has
won supremacy over the natives through unrestrained violence. The story
explores the workings of the subconscious, and addresses political imperialism.
Right from the opening paragraph it is obvious that this book is going
to be special. Conrad's Russian background gives his use of language a
robust economical style, and he often conjures powerful vivid images in
two or three words. The world around the character, in particular the
jungle, seems to be more than just a backdrop. People enter the jungle
and are swallowed up as if it is a living malignant force, but as you
progress you realise that it is the Europeans who are the real source
of darkness. Conrad's style of writing has real impact on the surface,
but it is only when you delve deeper than the surface that you realise
what Conrad is really writing about. I would go as far as saying that
this is a must read for anyone interested in literature. Few writers ever
attain such skill with the English language and it was not even Conrad's
first language.
George Elliot
MIDDLEMARCH
Synopsis
The first World's Classics were introduced by some of the greatest writers
of their day, including Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene and T.S. Eliot.
In these hardback editions, contemporary novelists including A.S. Byatt
and Joyce Carol Oates introduce their favourite classics in original pocketbook
size. Echoing the original World's Classics series, the books are produced
to gift-book standard with stitched binding, head and tail bands, printed
on 60msg paper and featuring matt laminated jackets in a "retro-look"
design. Writing at the moment when the foundations of Western thought
were being challenged, George Eliot fashions in "Middlemarch"
(1871-2) the quintessential Victorian novel; a concept of life and society
free from the dogma of the past yet able to confront the scepticism that
was taking over the age.
William Faulkner
The
Sound and the Fury
Synopsis
A novel which describes the dissolution of the once aristocratic Compson
family in the American South, told through the eyes of three of its members.
In different ways they prove unable to deal with either the responsibility
of the past or the imperatives of the present.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The
Great Gatsby
Synopsis
Everybody who is anybody is seen at Gatsby's glittering parties. None
of the socialites understand Gatsby. He seems to always be watching and
waiting, though no one knows what for. But as the tragic story unfolds,
Gatsby's destructive dreams and passions are revealed.
Tender is the Night
Book Description
Set in the hedonistic society of the 'Roaring Twenties,' the novel chronicles
the tale of a wealthy mental patient, Nicole Warren, and her marriage
to her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the troubled marriage and their
circle of friends highlights the perception of problems inherent in great
wealth. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Synopsis
The story of Dick and Nicole Divers, rich Americans holding court in their
villa on the French Riviera during the 1920s. Into their circle comes
Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands
little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that bind them.
E.M. Forster
A
Room with a View
Synopsis
In this piece of social comedy, Forster is concerned with one of his favourite
themes - "the undeveloped heart" of the English middle classes,
who are here represented by a group of tourists and expatriates in Florence.
Howards
End
Synopsis
The classic novel explores the divisions of culture and class in late-Victorian
England through the story of a disputed inheritance.
Maurice
Synopsis
This is the story of a man's discovery of his true sexuality. Maurice
is born into a privileged way of life, conforming to social conventions,
yet he finds himself increasingly attracted to his own sex. Through Clive,
a Cambridge friend, and Alec, the gamekeeper, he experiences a sexual
awakening.
William Golding
Lord
of the Flies
Synopsis
Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after
a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited
island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts
arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and
more primitive.
Graham Greene
The
heart of the Matter
Synopsis
Scobie, a police officer serving in a war-time West African state, is
distrusted, being scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then
he falls in love, and in doing so he is forced to betray everything he
believes in, with drastic and tragic consequences.
The
Quiet American
Synopsis
Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic
American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious "Third Force".
As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend, Fowler, a
cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch.
Joseph Heller
Catch-22
A classic.
Aldous Huxley
Brave
New World
Brave
New World by Aldous Huxley is set in a technology-rich future where test-tube
babies and subconscious learning dominate people’s lives. At first,
the reader is introduced to the method and capabilities of genetic engineering,
where scientists are able to design babies, changing their attributes
(intelligence, physical strength, etc) in order to tailor a person to
a specific job. Later on, we find out about subconscious learning and
the effects and uses it has on the populace. Apparently this has all been
going on for generations, and so the majority of people have been bio-engineered
and brainwashed.
We soon find another side of the population, people who have been left
out of the technological world, people who live as themselves and with
freedom. When a man decides to take a holiday there (a type of quarantined
park for the savage humans), he meets one of them and manages to sneak
him back to the city.
Jack Kerouac
On the Road
Synopsis
Love, jazz and excitement - these are all part of Sal Paradise's adventures
"on the road" with his wild friend Dean Moriarty and other crazy
companions as they travel together across the US.
This counterculture classic records the escapades of members of the beat
generation as they seek pleasure and meaning while traveling coast to
coast.
D.H. Lawrence
Sons
and Lovers
Synopsis
Living on the Nottinghamshire coalfields, the Morel family is beset with
conflict. Gertrude, disillusioned with her inarticulate working class
husband, pours her energies and aspirations into her son, Paul. Tensions
develop when Paul falls in love and seeks to escape from his family ties.
Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca
Synopsis
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ... Working as a lady's
companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look
very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de
Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her
by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the
ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed
man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by
the forbidding Mrs Danvers ... Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced
such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that
has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young
girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.
George Orwell
Ninety
Eighty Four
Synopsis
A satire on the horrors of totalitarianism, "Nineteen Eighty-Four"
is set in a society run by Big Brother where people are made to conform
to orthodoxy by the Thought Police. Winston Smith yearns for truth and
liberty, but he comes to realize that he cannot outwit the forces at work.
Animal
Farm
Book Description
At once an allegory for both utopia and totalitarianism, Animal Farm is
a story that expresses a dismal view of humans and their attempts to create
a just society without compassion, history, and nonviolence. Orwell's
book is decidedly anti-utopian and yet an unforgettable morality tale
that entertains as it teaches.
J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye
Since
his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been
synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story
of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled
from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this
novel on banned book lists. It begins:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want
to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and
how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that
David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if
you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and
in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece
if I told anything pretty personal about them.
His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers
to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the
essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. --Amazon.com
Synopsis
A 16-year old American boy relates in his own words the experiences he
goes through at school and after, and reveals with unusual candour the
workings of his own mind. What does a boy in his teens think and feel
about his teachers, parents, friends and acquaintances?
Nine Stories
John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men
Synopsis
Recounts the travails of the Joad family as they struggle to reach California
from Oklahoma during the Depression years.
The Grapes of Wrath
Synopsis
A parable of commitment, loneliness, hope and loss, OF MICE AND MEN is
a powerful and moving portrayal of two men striving to understand their
own unique place in the world. Drifters in search of work, George and
his simple-minded friend Lennie have nothing in the world except each
other - and a dream. A dream that one day they will have some land of
their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch, but their hopes are doomed
as Lennie - struggling against extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings
of jealousy - becomes a victim of his own strength. Tackling universal
themes, friendship and a shared vision, and giving a voice to America's
lonely and dispossessed, OF MICE AND MEN remains Steinbeck's most popular
work.
Evelyn Waugh
Brideshead Revisited
Synopsis
The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead
Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It
tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmain family
and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted
first by Sebastian at Oxford then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular
his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recgonize his spiritual
and social distance from them.