Book Search Results - ALL BANNED BOOKS

The books listed below have been banned, or challenged in one way or another. To find the challenge details click on the Banned image and the details will be revealed.

What the Symbols mean:

Banned This means the book was banned or challenged at some point. Click on it to see this information!
NWord This means the book uses the N-word. Click on this symbol to see a summary of how it is used.
Checked This means I have personally read the book. Nothing to click on here, just my way of keeping track.
unknown This is my rating for the book. I rate them from 0 to 5.. 0 = terrible; 5 = Terrific
ThumbsUP This is my extra special recommendation for this book. It means I really enjoyed it, and have no problem recommending it to others.
Underlines If an Author Name or Title is underlined, it is a link to the WIKIPEDIA page for that Author or Title. Click it to learn more.
(2) Under the Author's Name you will find a number that represents the number of times that author appears in this collection
Best Book List: 1,4,5 You might see a note like this next to a book title. This tells which of the best book lists this title appeared on. Very few appeared on every list.

This list currently contains 160 books.

Index Author Name Title & Notes Genre
1 Achebe, Chinua
(1)
Things Fall Apart  Best Book Lists: 2,3,4 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Called the archetypical African novel, this book is very easy to read, and, though the prose are simple and direct, the story will swing you up and down emotionally. In the end, you are ashamed to be a white person. It follows the life of Okonkwo, from a boy with a father he is not proud of, to a proud member of his tribe with three wives. Okonkwo has a good handle on life, and how he will rise to be an important member of his tribe. He is half way there when… well.. things fall apart. He struggles, using everything he has learned, but as the world changes (and not really for the better) all his learning and knowledge does him no good. He watches as his world does fall apart.

This is an excellent read.


SUMMARY

Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world. The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries. These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.

2 Adams, Douglas
(8)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

The earth is destroyed for a construction project and ONE man hitchs a ride with a passing ship. DON'T PANIC. Things have a strange way of working out. Really strange!

If you enjoy Prachett or insanity in general, you will love this famous bit of farce!


SUMMARY
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!

3 Adams, Richard
(1)
Watership Down  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This book was a hit when I was younger, but I just couldn't bring myself to read a book wherein all the characters are rabbits. I thought it would be stupid. I was wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters are different and interesting. You get into the lives and cares of the rabbits and start to worry about how things are going to turn out for them. Believe it or not, this is an adventure book with battles and intrigue, plots and action. Plenty to hold the interest of a young (or, like me old) reader.


SUMMARY

A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Richard Adams's Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

4 Anderson, Sherwood
(1)
Winesburg, Ohio  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

This is not really a novel, but a series of short stories that revolve around the people of a small town in Ohio. Each story tries to discover a "truth" about that person...and there are many truths to be discovered. The writing is a little inconsistent from story to story, but compelling all the same. One person is fascinating. Another is repugnant. Another seems lost. Another discovers false wisdom. All of them are still interesting.

Not sure how to recommend this book. I enjoyed it, but it's in a niche all it's own.


SUMMARY

This ebook is a series of loosely linked short stories set in the fictional town of Winesburg, mostly written from late 1915 to early 1916. The stories are held together by George Willard, a resident to whom the community confide their personal stories and struggles. The townspeople are withdrawn and emotionally repressed and attempt in telling their stories to gain some sense of meaning and dignity in an otherwise desperate life. The work has received high critical acclaim and is considered one of the great American works of the 20th century.

Sherwood Anderson (1876 to 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Anderson published several short story collections, novels, memoirs, books of essays, and a book of poetry. He may be most influential for his effect on the next generation of young writers, as he inspired William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Thomas Wolfe.

5 Atwood, Margaret
(2)
The Handmaid's Tale  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

If you enjoyed 1984 or Brave New World then this will be right up your alley. A vision of a terrible future in which women have become infertile, and those that are fertile are forced to become "handmaids" - referencing the bible story where a handmaid is given to the husband to bear a child. It's a pretty chilling little environment with the wives hating the handmaids, and the husbands secretly desiring them. And it's revealed to be a hypocritical society too, with sex available freely to those in the upper stratum while morality is preached to everyone else.

Though they preach morality... they are completely morally bankrupt.

And the end is a complete shock..


SUMMARY

The Handmaid's Tale is not only a radical and brilliant departure for Margaret Atwood, it is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States, now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men of its population.

The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment's calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid's Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.

6 Baldwin, James
(1)
Go Tell It on the Mountain  Best Book Lists: 1,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown
Checked

REVIEW

This book (so it is said) is very auto-biographical.  If that is the case then James Baldwin faced tough times as a youth with an abusive father who was also a preacher with very fundamental Christian religious views.  No one could live up to his expectations, mostly because he suffered from his own secret sins.  Or so he thought they were secret. 

An interesting look into the world of black fundamentalism in the 1930's this book explores religion, sin, self-loathing, racism and family relationships and abuse.  It may or may not be an easy read, depending on your views on religion.  But in any case, it is something one should read if one wants to explore religion and race in American history.


SUMMARY

"Mountain," Baldwin said, "is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else." Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.

7 Baldwin, James
(1)
Go Tell It on the Mountain  Best Book Lists: 1,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown
Checked

REVIEW

This book (so it is said) is very auto-biographical.  If that is the case then James Baldwin faced tough times as a youth with an abusive father who was also a preacher with very fundamental Christian religious views.  No one could live up to his expectations, mostly because he suffered from his own secret sins.  Or so he thought they were secret. 

An interesting look into the world of black fundamentalism in the 1930's this book explores religion, sin, self-loathing, racism and family relationships and abuse.  It may or may not be an easy read, depending on your views on religion.  But in any case, it is something one should read if one wants to explore religion and race in American history.


SUMMARY

"Mountain," Baldwin said, "is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else." Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.

8 Baum, L. Frank
(1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  Best Book Lists: 5 (Childrens Books)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Okay, I hate to say it, but the movie is 100 times better than the book. The plot hangs together so much more logically and makes so much more sense than the book. The book starts with the cyclone, and ends with Dorothy landing in Kansas - not even being re-united with Auntie Em !!! How lame is that. Also, the wizard fulfilled the wishes of the characters in a completely different way than the movie. The movie made more sense. The feeling was there - in that the wizard told each of them they didn't need what they were missing because they already had it... but the characters insisted that he "do something" physical to prove to themselves that they had what they came for. So he did.

The book DID have some interesting things in it - for example: the TIN MAN was a real man once who accidentally chopped off all his parts and had them replaced because he loved a girl and his ax was cursed. The coming to life of the scare crow was amusing too.

All in all ... see the movie.


SUMMARY

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the popular 1902 Broadway musical and the well-known 1939 film adaptation. The story chronicles the adventures of a young girl named Dorothy Gale in the Land of Oz, after being swept away from her Kansas farm home in a cyclone. The novel is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the 1902 Broadway musical which Baum adapted from his original story, led to Baum's writing thirteen additional Oz books.

9 Bellow, Saul
(3)
The Adventures of Augie March  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The great novel of the American dream, of "the universal eligibility to be noble," Saul Bellow's third book charts the picaresque journey of one schemer, chancer, romantic, and holy fool: Augie March. An impulsively active, irresistibly charming and resolutely free-spirited man, Augie March leaves his family of poor Jewish immigrants behind and sets off in search of reality, fulfillment, and most importantly, love. During his exultant quest, he latches on to a series of dubious schemes – from stealing books and smuggling immigrants to training a temperamental eagle to hunt lizards – and strong-minded women – from the fiery, eagle-owning Thea Fenchel, to the sneaky and alluring Stella. As Augie travels from the depths of poverty to the peaks of worldly success, he stands as an irresistible, poignant incarnation of the American idea of freedom. Written in the cascades of brilliant, biting, ravishing prose that would come to be known as "Bellovian," The Adventures of Augie March re-wrote the language of Saul Bellow's generation.

10 Bely, Andrey
(1)
Petersburg  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

After enlisting in a revolutionary terrorist organization, the university student Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov is entrusted with a highly dangerous mission: to plant a bomb and assassinate a major government figure. But the real central character of the novel is the city of Petersburg at the beginning of the twentieth century, caught in the grip of political agitation and social unrest. Intertwining the worlds of history and myth, and parading a cast of unforgettable characters, Petersburg is a story of apocalypse and redemption played out through family dysfunction, conspiracy and murder.

11 Benchley, Peter
(1)
The Island(Fiction - Thriller)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Another thriller by the author of JAWS. This time a society of pirates is still living the life on an isolated island, and making things miserable for a family that comes within their reach.

Not a bad read, but not great.


SUMMARY

12 Blume, Judy
(1)
Are You There God? It's Me Margaret  Best Book Lists: 2,4 (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

This book is really enjoyable. A coming of age novel for a girl (in my experience, coming of age stories tend to be about boys). Margaret has many questions and many challenges, and needs guidance. Some of it comes from family, some of it comes from friends, and some of it comes from experience. Just like for all of us.

An excellent read... A great look into her life as she enters a time of amazing change in a girls life. I recommend this one.


SUMMARY

Margaret Simon, almost twelve, has just moved from New York City to the suburbs, and she's anxious to fit in with her new friends. When she's asked to join a secret club she jumps at the chance. But when the girls start talking about boys, bras, and getting their first periods, Margaret starts to wonder if she's normal. There are some things about growing up that are hard for her to talk about, even with her friends. Lucky for Margaret, she's got someone else to confide in . . . someone who always listens

13 Bradbury, Ray
(4)
Fahrenheit 451  Best Book Lists: 5 (SciFi)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

A short but powerful book about censorship and desperation. I've read plenty of Bradbury in the context of Science Fiction, but I think this is the best book of his I have ever read.

The edition I read contains an after word by Bradbury talking about what has happened to the novel in the years since it was first published - how, in fact, a book about strict censorship has itself been slowly censored over the years, and how requests have been made for him to revise it to cope with various people's offended feelings. Unbelievable!!!

(NOTE: The amazon edition on the side is not the edition with the epilogue by Bradbury - as soon as I find that I will change the link.

I recommend this to everyone for it's dystopian view of the future, and one man's look into his sudden dissatisfaction with his world. If we all don't feel that way once in life, I don't know what makes us more human.


SUMMARY

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

14 Bradbury, Ray
(4)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Obviously not science, but a great read in any case. A great bunch of stories from a great writer.


SUMMARY

In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, America's preeminent storyteller, imagines a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor— of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a vanished, devastated civilization. Earthmen conquer Mars and then are conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race. In this classic work of fiction, Bradbury exposes our ambitions, weaknesses, and ignorance in a strange and breathtaking world where man does not belong.

Read this as a teenager, in the days when Mars was still a giant mystery capable of holding any story.

15 Brown, Dan
(5)
The Da Vinci Code(Fiction - Thriller)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I really enjoyed this book. Not so much because of the hype, but because I have followed the Grail story for much of my life, and this presents a nice rendering of a modern Grail quest. And a thriller to boot. It reminded me of when I read Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. If you liked this book you will like that one as well. More of the Grail mythology is woven into that book than this one, but this one is the easier read.


SUMMARY

As millions of readers around the globe have already discovered, The Da Vinci Code is a reading experience unlike any other. Simultaneously lightning-paced, intelligent, and intricately layered with remarkable research and detail, Dan Brown's novel is a thrilling masterpiece—from its opening pages to its stunning conclusion.

16 Buck, Pearl S.
(2)
The Good Earth  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The Good Earth is Buck's classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple's fortunes improve over the years: They are blessed with sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in the House of Wang—the very house in which O-lan used to work. But success brings with it a new set of problems. Wang soon finds himself the target of jealousy, and as good harvests come and go, so does the social order. Will Wang's family cherish the estate after he's gone? And can his material success, the bedrock of his life, guarantee anything about his soul?

17 Burgess, Anthony
(1)
A Clockwork Orange  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

When published in the U.S. they left off the last chapter. Chapter 21 – 21 being symbolic of maturity where the character ALEX finally -grows up-. The implication of the movie, and the book without this chapter, is completely different than it is with this chapter.

The book is much more horrifying that the movie, in that the ages of the victims and the criminals is so much younger than represented on screen. (For example, the girl in the rape scene in the movie was an adult, while in the book she was twelve.) The cruelty is more pronounced. (I remember hearing a story that Stanley Kubrick expected people to be horrified when they saw A Clockwork Orange in the movies - and was surprised to find that people were not shocked at all. Course I think Sam Peckinpah was really getting started at this time too. Given that lions eating Christians used to be entertainment, I don't think we can ever underestimate the human capacity for violence.)

And yes, it takes a while to get through the special vocabulary of Alex and his droogs, but after a while you begin to swing with it, and your brain takes in what is being said quiet readily.

This was an interesting attempt at a new slang language and worth reading for that, and the moral dilemma it poses.


SUMMARY

Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles.
A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

18 Burns, Olive Ann
(1)
Cold Sassy Tree  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the characters. I enjoyed the look into small town southern life and mores. And I enjoyed the scandal. I give it a thumbs up.


SUMMARY

The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around - fast. When Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announces one July morning in 1906 that he's aiming to marry the young and freckledy milliner, Miss Love Simpson - a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward - the news is served up all over town with that afternoon's dinner. And young Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a major scandal. Boggled by the sheer audacity of it all, and not a little jealous of his grandpa's new wife, Will nevertheless approves of this May-December match and follows its progress with just a smidgen of youthful prurience. As the newlyweds' chaperone, conspirator, and confidant, Will is privy to his one-armed, renegade grandfather's second adolescence; meanwhile, he does some growing up of his own. He gets run over by a train and lives to tell about it; he kisses his first girl, and survives that too. Olive Ann Burns has given us a timeless, funny, resplendent novel - about a romance that rocks an entire town, about a boy's passage through the momentous but elusive year when childhood melts into adolescence, and about just how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century. Inhabited by characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Cold Sassy, Georgia, is the perfect setting for the debut of a storyteller of rare brio, exuberance, and style.

19 Burroughs, William
(1)
Naked Lunch  Best Book Lists: 2,4 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Gibberish.

That's the kindest word I can use for this book. From page 1 to page 130 (where I gave up on it) this book is pure crap. Why does the fall of self destructive people make such great literature. This entire book is a series (which can be read in any order according to the author) of drug induced hallucinations culminating in NOTHING. There is no point. There is no story. There is gibberish.

Under the Volcano & Appointment in Samarra are better books to read if you want to watch someone self destruct. But this book is crap. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy

I'm going to go to Google image search and see if I can find a new symbol for this book... because I don't even want to give it one start.


SUMMARY

Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later introductions to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs—is a valuable and fresh experience of a novel that has lost none of its relevance or satirical bite.

20 Burroughs, William
(1)
Naked Lunch  Best Book Lists: 2,4 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Gibberish.

That's the kindest word I can use for this book. From page 1 to page 130 (where I gave up on it) this book is pure crap. Why does the fall of self destructive people make such great literature. This entire book is a series (which can be read in any order according to the author) of drug induced hallucinations culminating in NOTHING. There is no point. There is no story. There is gibberish.

Under the Volcano & Appointment in Samarra are better books to read if you want to watch someone self destruct. But this book is crap. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy

I'm going to go to Google image search and see if I can find a new symbol for this book... because I don't even want to give it one start.


SUMMARY

Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later introductions to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs—is a valuable and fresh experience of a novel that has lost none of its relevance or satirical bite.

21 Cain, James M.
(1)
The Postman Always Rings Twice  Best Book Lists: 1 (Fiction - Mystery/Detective)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This is a fast paced book about a bum and a woman in a bad marriage who fall in passion (not love to start) and come up with a plot to kill her husband. Their first attempt fails, but the second attempt just about succeeds - still, they land in court. All is well that ends well though, and the two of them realize they are really in love after all - but things don't end well for these two.

Like I said... Fast paced. Raw. And not filled with a bunch of tender emotions. This human passion out in the open.


SUMMARY

An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one grisly solution--a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.

First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America's bleak underside, and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.

22 Caldwell, Erskine
(1)
Tobacco Road  Best Book Lists: 1 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Oh lord, what a painful book to read. Not painful in that it was difficult, no, this is a very easy to read book - you can finish it in one day. No, it's painful in the manner of Steinbeck, but not quite. In Steinbeck the characters are very human and you can identify with them such that, when tragedy hits them, you are just punched in the gut by it. In Tobacco Road, the characters are so flawed, so ignorant, so de-humanized, that it's just painful from start to finish to read what they do to themselves. You keep thinking, no one could be this ignorant; and yet, in the back of your head there is that bothersome thought that Caldwell is not making any of this up. That these are real people. That they are living in real circumstances. And that bothersome little thought comes charging to the fore every now and then as you read - and you want to vomit. My GOD, humanity can't be that bad - OH YES IT CAN.

I seriously don't know how to rate this book. If a book is supposed to evoke a response (laughter, tears, perplextion) then this is a 5 star book, no doubt. Will you feel good after putting it down. No way. Will you be glad you read it. Probably. I seriously don't know how to rate it. So.. here goes...


SUMMARY

Caldwell's bestselling, controversial classic: the story of a Southern sharecropper family ground down by the devastation of the Great Depression

Even before the Great Depression struck, Jeeter Lester and his family were desperately poor sharecroppers. But when hard times begin to affect the families that once helped support them, the Lesters slip completely into the abyss. Rather than hold on to each other for support, Jeeter, his wife Ada, and their twelve children are overcome by the fractured and violent society around them.

Banned and burned when first released in 1932, Tobacco Road is a brutal examination of poverty's dehumanizing influence by one of America's great masters of political fiction.

23 Capote, Truman
(1)
In Cold Blood(Fiction - Mystery/Detective)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

WOW. Just wow. This book is difficult to read sometimes because you feel for the victim's of this seemingly random cold blooded crime. Capote is so good at painting their life; putting the picture in your mind of how simply normal these victims were, that you want to turn away before the crime and freeze them as they lived, and should have lived.

The perpetrators also shine in Capote's light; but it's so hard to have sympathy for them.

I can't imagine how much work he must have done; how many people he talked to; how much time he spent; to create this amazing book.

But WOW.


SUMMARY

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

24 Card, Orson Scott
(13)
Ender's Game(SciFi)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Absolutely Spectacular !!!!! One of the best Science Fiction novels of all time. I cannot praise this book enough. Not only is the story great, but the characters are complex and interesting. Ender Wiggin especially comes to realize that to beat and enemy, he has to understand the enemy - and with understanding comes empathy. How do you destroy that with which you empathize?


SUMMARY

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

25 Cervantes, Miguel de
(1)
Don Quixote  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I started this one, and could not finish it. After 250 pages I saw no point. When Don Quixote would help someone, they would fall back into their misery as soon as he rode off. It just seemed to go on and on, the story of a crazy man, doing crazy things. to no point. I did not finish this one. If someone who has finished it would tell me that this eventually had a point, then I might be inclined to continue as it is not difficult to read.


SUMMARY

Don Quixote a man stricken with delusions of chivalry tries to re-create nobler days by being a Knight and attempting to live up to the Knights code - in a world where people laugh at the idea.

26 Chopin, Kate
(1)
The Awakening  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

A short novel about a woman who, over the course of a couple of years, wakes up to her real desires. The house, the husband, the kids... are not what she is interested in. The ending REALLY REALLY sucks... as if the author was saying that, you may want it, but you can never have it, so.... This is an easy read, but kind of a waste of time unless you want to know what life was like for the middle class in New Orleans at the turn of the century. In that regard it's rather interesting


SUMMARY

The Awakening, originally titled A Solitary Soul, is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating mixed reaction from contemporary readers and criticism. The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. It can also be considered among the first Southern works in a tradition that would culminate with the modern masterpieces of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Tennessee Williams.

27 Conrad, Joseph
(4)
Lord Jim  Best Book Lists: 1 (Fiction - Adventure)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
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REVIEW

Conrad can write. At first I had difficulty feeling sorry for Jim since he seemed inclined to constantly blame forces outside himself for his failure. But then, as he stands to take responsibility when no one else will; and as he takes on the task of bringing better lives to the people he finds himself among; you begin to feel that he has more than redeemed himself. So in the end, when he once again takes responsibility for things over which he had little control, his first failing does not seem so much a character flaw, and he has more than atoned for his error.

Conrad was a psychologist long before the science existed. His insight into the minds of people is sometimes startling. Every now and then in the text you come across an insight that stands the test of time so well that you think to yourself, Yes, I know people like that, or I have to remember that when trying to read people.


SUMMARY

Lord Jim tells the story of a young, idealistic Englishman--"as unflinching as a hero in a book"--who is disgraced by a single act of cowardice while serving as an officer on the Patna, a merchant-ship sailing from an eastern port. His life is ruined: an isolated scandal has assumed horrifying proportions. But, then he is befriended by an older man named Marlow who helps to establish him in exotic Patusan, a remote Malay settlement where his courage is put to the test once more. Lord Jim is a book about courage and cowardice, self-knowledge and personal growth. It is one of the most profound and rewarding psychological novels in English. Set in the context of social change and colonial expansion in late Victorian England, it embodies in Jim the values and turmoil of a fading empire. This new edition uses the first English edition text and includes a new introduction and notes by leading Conrad scholar Jacques Berthoud, glossaries, and an appendix on Conrad's sources and reading.

28 Crane, Stephen
(1)
The Red Badge of Courage  Best Book Lists: 3,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
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REVIEW

Before reading this I was always under the impression that it was a history of one person's view of the civil war. Well, it is that, but most of the action takes place in one two-day battle. The range of emotions and reactions that Crane wanted to explore took no more than this. Our young protagonist goes through hell in 2 days - and most of it of his own making. The battle scenes are full of chaos, and rarely is the enemy even seen, though his presence is always imminent. At only one point is he clearly seen, and by then our hero has determined to face his demon's and devil take the hindmost.

And easy short and entertaining read.


SUMMARY

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage," to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer. Although Crane was born after the war, and had not at the time experienced battle first-hand, the novel is known for its realism. He began writing what would become his second novel in 1893, using various contemporary and written accounts (such as those published previously by Century Magazine) as inspiration. It is believed that he based the fictional battle on that of Chancellorsville; he may also have interviewed veterans of the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, commonly known as the Orange Blossoms. Initially shortened and serialized in newspapers in December 1894, the novel was published in full in October 1895. A longer version of the work, based on Crane's original manuscript, was published in 1982.

29 Dawkins, Richard
(1)
The God Delusion(Religion)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
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REVIEW

Richard Dawkins doing the same thing Sam Harris did in the End Of Faith, only Mr. Harris did it much better. Dawkins, though, is a bit of a story teller, and that makes this interesting. As a respected scientist, he is often button holed on his thoughts on God and religion, and he has no qualms about saying, if you can't measure it, if you can even postulate a testable theory, then its not worth the time of day to discuss. Just replace the word "GOD" with "FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER" and you come up with something that makes just as much sense.

Read Harris first and this one if you just want more.


SUMMARY

A preeminent scientist -- and the world's most prominent atheist -- asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.

With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.

30 Defoe, Daniel
(1)
Robinson Crusoe  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - Adventure)

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REVIEW

This is a great book. Crusoe's reflections on his life before and God - how God seems to have at first mistreated him by casting him away on an island, but then coming to terms with and finding faith in God are interesting for any Christian to read. It's also fun to read how he survives on the island, and how he makes his escape. How he treats the character Friday - whom he views as a savage at first, good for nothing but a slave, but then develops a real liking and respect for his companion is interesting as well, given the morality at the time the book was written. (Still, you can see that DeFoe had serious issues with anyone other than his fellow Britains. No country on the planet embodies civilization other than his home. Even the Spanish are cast in a very poor life, and left to fend for themselves in the end - even after he began to make an alliance with them.)

As always, the look into the author's own mind is perhaps the most interesting of all. I may have to check out some more Defoe.


SUMMARY

The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is washed up on a desert island. In his journal he chronicles his daily battle to stay alive, as he conquers isolation, fashions shelter and clothes, enlists the help of a native islander who he names 'Friday', and fights off cannibals and mutineers. Written in an age of exploration and enterprise, it has been variously interpreted as an embodiment of British imperialist values, as a portrayal of 'natural man', or as a moral fable. But above all is a brilliant narrative, depicting Crusoe's transformation from terrified survivor to self-sufficient master of an island. This edition contains a full chronology of Defoe's life and times, explanatory notes, glossary and a critical introduction discussing Robinson Crusoe as a pioneering work of modern psychological realism.

31 Dickens, Charles
(5)
Oliver Twist(Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

I'd seen OLIVER the play, and OLIVER the movie. But reading this, I can't seem to find where either of these grew out of this book. This is a dark tale of a poor boy that is used and abused by everyone he meets in life.. and all through no fault of his own. (Granted he's a bit stupidly innocent throughout - perhaps, Dickens way of saying that true Christian character will always shine even in the worst of circumstances.) Once again, Dickens is talking about the social ills of the time; but if it was indeed this awful, then it must have been frightful indeed.


SUMMARY

Starved and mistreated, empty bowl in hand, the young hero musters the courage to approach his master, saying, "Please, sir, I want some more." Oliver Twist's famous cry of the heart has resounded with readers since the novel's initial appearance in 1837, and the book remains a popular favorite with fans of all ages.

Dickens was no stranger to the pain of hunger and the degradation of poverty. He poured his own youthful experience of Victorian London's unspeakable squalor into this realistic depiction of the link between destitution and crime. Oliver escapes his miserable servitude by running away to London, where he unwillingly but inevitably joins a scabrous gang of thieves. Masterminded by the loathsome Fagin, the underworld crew features some of Dickens' most memorable characters, including the juvenile pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger, the vicious Bill Sikes, and gentle Nancy, an angel of self-sacrifice.

A profound social critic, Dickens introduced genteel readers to the problems of the poor in a way that had rarely been attempted before. This tale of the struggle between hope and cruelty continues to speak to modern audiences.

32 Dickey, James
(1)
Deliverance  Best Book Lists: 1,4,5 (Fiction - Thriller)

Banned unknown movie
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REVIEW

The book is basically the same as the movie, but you can tell the author is one of those well in touch with his own sense of the world around him; able to feel that world and put it into words where the rest of us simply could not. No wonder he was a poet.

Not a bad read if you want a little something to read on the beach.


SUMMARY

The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.

33 Donleavy, J.P.
(1)
The Ginger Man  Best Book Lists: (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

What can I say? Good literature. Crappy subject. I really really fail to see why authors write about people who are simply disgusting. Oh, in the reviews they call the main character a rogue. But that has a sort of dashing, positive connotation. There is nothing positive about Sebastian Dangerfield. He is lazy, supposedly pursuing a law degree, but really just wasting his time stealing things from other people, running up bills he will never pay. The only income he ever has is pawning what isn't nailed down. He is a drunk. He is a lout. He will sleep with any woman he can; to hell with his wife and child. When he can't get his way he resorts to violence, but only if he knows he can beat up the person he is threatening (like a woman); otherwise he is an unmitigated coward.

Reading about this guy made me want to throw up.

But, it is literature. I have learned to recognize that when I see it. There are better things to read for the same effect. Have a go at James Joyce, and leave this book in the dust bin where it belongs.


SUMMARY

First published in Paris in 1955, and originally banned in the United States, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. He barely has time for his studies and avoids bill collectors, makes love to almost anything in a skirt, and tries to survive without having to descend into the bottomless pit of steady work. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable—and he satisfies it with endless charm.

34 Dreiser, Theodore
(2)
An American Tragedy  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

I have yet to read the book, but it sounds like the Woody Allen film Match Point


SUMMARY

Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy (1925) is nothing less than what the title holds it to be; it is the story of a weak-willed young man who is both villain and victim (the victim of a valueless, materialistic society) and someone who ultimately destroys himself. Dreiser modeled the story of Clyde Griffiths on a real-life murder that took place in 1906; a young social climber of considerable charm murdered his pregnant girlfriend to get her out of the way so that he could instead play to the affections of a rich girl who had begun to notice him.

But An American Tragedy is more than simply a powerful murder story. Dreiser pours his own dark yearnings into his character, Clyde Griffiths, as he details the young man's course through his ambitions of wealth, power, and satisfaction.

35 Dreiser, Theodore
(2)
An American Tragedy  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

I have yet to read the book, but it sounds like the Woody Allen film Match Point


SUMMARY

Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy (1925) is nothing less than what the title holds it to be; it is the story of a weak-willed young man who is both villain and victim (the victim of a valueless, materialistic society) and someone who ultimately destroys himself. Dreiser modeled the story of Clyde Griffiths on a real-life murder that took place in 1906; a young social climber of considerable charm murdered his pregnant girlfriend to get her out of the way so that he could instead play to the affections of a rich girl who had begun to notice him.

But An American Tragedy is more than simply a powerful murder story. Dreiser pours his own dark yearnings into his character, Clyde Griffiths, as he details the young man's course through his ambitions of wealth, power, and satisfaction.

36 Dreiser, Theodore
(2)
Sister Carrie  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

An 18-year-old girl without money or connections ventures forth from her small town in search of a better life in Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel. The chronicle of Carrie Meeber's rise from obscurity to fame — and the effects of her progress on the men who use her and are used in turn — aroused a storm of controversy and debate upon its debut in 1900. The author's nonjudgmental portrait of a heroine who violates the contemporary moral code outraged some critics and elated others. A century later, Dreiser's compelling plot and realistic characters continue to fascinate readers.

37 Ellison, Ralph
(1)
Invisible Man  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Not to be confused with the HG Wells novel, this great book is the story of a black man who learns that he is invisible because no one can really see him. Oh they all see a person and they all see someone they can use, but the don't see him. By the end he begins to revel in his invisibility realizing that, as an invisible man, he has a freedom he never realized.

This book, along the lines of E.L. Doctorow's RAGTIME is about racial injustice and racial relations. It's a big book, but I found to be a page turner. Once I started it, I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to see where our man was going next, what would befall him and how he would learn from it. His dream of a letter in the beginning that said, "Keep this nigger-boy running." presaged much of what happened in the book.

Big time recommended.


SUMMARY

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky

38 Farrell, James T.
(1)
The Studs Lonigan Trilogy  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown
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REVIEW

This has been called Farrell's Magnum Opus, and at over 800 pages, I would say it qualified. I was a little hesitant to start this, but once I did, I couldn't put it down. Not because the story was so compelling... the story is just a series of events in a life... but because I've never read a book that looked so carefully and so accurately at the internal goings on of one character, Studs. Lots of books let you look into the mind of a character, but that mind is often depicted as a straight forward monologue, keeping to one topic to advance the story. Rarely is it a chaotic mix of conflicting emotions, motivations, insecurities, wishful thinking and self analysis that is written here. Studs mind flits from thing to thing, influenced by the world around him and his own desires. He starts as a boy wanting respect and admiration, and knowing of only one way to get that - by being a "tough". But as he grows older he is always afraid of letting his real thoughts show, and constantly puts on a facade that he thinks will gain him what he wants from life. Course, he has no clue what he wants from life, and so he ends up directionless.

I enjoyed this because I've been told that I too spend much of my time in my own head, and though I am nothing like Studs Lonigan in character... I recognized how his mind worked and saw myself in him. I saw many people in him. It was pretty amazing.

BUT... these characters are not nice people. Be prepared for racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and just plain criminal behavior. Sometimes this is difficult to read. It does seem to be an accurate reflection of these kind of people - I imagine Farrel grew up with just this gang.


SUMMARY

Collected here in one volume is James T. Farrell's renowned trilogy of the youth, early manhood, and death of Studs Lonigan: Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgment Day. In this relentlessly naturalistic portrait, Studs starts out his life full of vigor and ambition, qualities that are crushed by the Chicago youth's limited social and economic environment. Studs's swaggering and vicious comrades, his narrow family, and his educational and religious background lead him to a life of futile dissipation. Ann Douglas provides an illuminating introductory essay to Farrell's masterpiece, one of the greatest novels of American literature.

39 Faulkner, William
(4)
As I Lay Dying  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
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REVIEW

I had a difficult time starting this book. The imagery is written such that I could not tell what was real, and what was in the mind of the character at the time. What looked like a dream turned out to be real.

As the book progressed, however, and the characters became more finely etched, I found myself enjoying this book more and more. And by the end, when I felt I had finally gotten the hang of how to read this, it ended with a twist that I am still trying to understand.


SUMMARY

"I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall." —William Faulkner on As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying is Faulkner's harrowing account of the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members—including Addie herself—as well as others the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.

40 Faulkner, William
(4)
Light in August  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Light in August, a novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner's most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry

41 Faulkner, William
(4)
The Sound and the Fury  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

There was another yellow butterfly, like one of the sunflecks had come loose.' This title comes with an introduction by Richard Huges. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, The Sound and the Fury explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?'

42 Fitzgerald, F. Scott
(2)
The Great Gatsby  Best Book Lists: 1,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This is rated as one of the best novels of all time – though I cannot understand why. The characters are shallow people. The plot is thin, and a little obvious. The whole mess is a tragedy from beginning to end (you can feel it throughout the book, even if you don't know what is coming). I never felt strongly for or against any of the people I read about here. And at the end I felt no sympathy for Gatsby or anyone else.


SUMMARY

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

43 Flaubert, Gustave
(1)
Madame Bovary  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

This exquisite novel tells the story of one of the most compelling heroines in modern literature--Emma Bovary. Unhappily married to a devoted, clumsy provincial doctor, Emma revolts against the ordinariness of her life by pursuing voluptuous dreams of ecstasy and love. But her sensuous and sentimental desires lead her only to suffering corruption and downfall. A brilliant psychological portrait, Madame Bovary searingly depicts the human mind in search of transcendence. Who is Madame Bovary? Flaubert's answer to this question was superb: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." Acclaimed as a masterpiece upon its publication in 1857, the work catapulted Flaubert to the ranks of the world's greatest novelists. This volume, with its fine translation by Lowell Bair, a perceptive introduction by Leo Bersani, and a complete supplement of essays and critical comments, is the indispensable Madame Bovary.

44 Fleming, Ian
(4)
Live and Let Die(Fiction - Thriller)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Oh boy. Ian Fleming is a racist. Who knew. Well, at least Bond is not so down on women in this novel. No, he has a totally different group of people to cast aspersions on. Negro's. The Negro race is this... The Negro race is that... Ugh.

If you are a real Bond junkie then you might want to see how the original story went (it had nothing to do with drugs... gold was the motive and Communism was behind it). And Bond is bent on nothing but revenge.


SUMMARY

James Bond is not a superstitious man, but it's hard not to feel unnerved in the presence of Mr. Big. A ruthless Harlem gangster who uses voodoo to control his criminal empire, he's also one of SMERSH's top American operatives. Mr. Big has been smuggling British pirate treasure to New York from a remote Jamaican island—and funneling the proceeds to Moscow. With help from Solitaire, Mr. Big's beautiful and enigmatic Creole fortune-teller, and his old friend Felix Leiter, 007 must locate the crime lord's hideout, sabotage his operation, and reclaim the pirate hoard for England.

From the jazz joints of Harlem to the shark-infested waters of the Florida Everglades, Live and Let Die sends Bond headlong into the exotic.

45 Follet, Ken
(1)
The Pillars of the Earth(Fiction - Historical)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

A really great novel about the people, politics and way of life in the middle ages from the years 1123 to 1174 revolving around a cast of characters whose lives and ambitions you get to know intimately. A long book, but a very easy read. You will learn about monastic life, courtly politics, and the building of cathedrals. (And if you have never been in a real medieval cathedral.. well, you are missing the experience of a lifetime.)

I couldn't put it down and spent several late nights wrapped with these characters and their situations. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a little history, a little learning, and some romance with their fiction.


SUMMARY

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett comes this spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known-and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.

The amazon summary is to small to do this book justice - and the wikipedia summary it to long to include here.

46 Ford, Ford Madox
(2)
The Good Soldier  Best Book Lists: 1,3,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read as yet.


SUMMARY

The Good Soldier is the fascinating tale of an apparently perfect marriage which is gradually revealed to be anything but that. Ford uses flashbacks to narrate the story and is credited with pioneering what became known as literary impressionism.

47 Fuentes, Carlos
(1)
The Death of Artemio Cruz  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

As the novel opens, Artemio Cruz, the all-powerful newspaper magnate and land baron, lies confined to his bed and, in dreamlike flashes, recalls the pivotal episodes of his life. Carlos Fuentes manipulates the ensuing kaleidoscope of images with dazzling inventiveness, layering memory upon memory, from Cruz's heroic campaigns during the Mexican Revolution, through his relentless climb from poverty to wealth, to his uneasy death. Perhaps Fuentes's masterpiece, The Death of Artemio Cruz is a haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico.

48 Geisel, Theodor Seuss (Dr. Seuss)
(3)
Green Eggs and Ham(Childrens Books)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Another Great Dr. Suess Book. Share it with your kids.


SUMMARY

A character known as "Sam-I-Am" pesters an unnamed character, who also serves as the story's narrator, to sample a dish of green eggs and ham. The unnamed character refuses, responding, "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am." He continues to repeat this as Sam follows him, encouraging him to sample them in several locations (house, box, car, tree, train, dark, rain and boat), all to which the unnamed character refuses responding, "I would not like them here (Current location) or there (Previous location). I would not like them anywhere!" and with several animals (mouse, fox, goat). Finally, the unnamed character gives in to Sam's pestering and samples the green eggs and ham, which he finds that he does like after all in the end and happily responds, "I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam-I-Am."

49 Gibbons, Kaye
(1)
Ellen Foster  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

WOW. What a great little book. It is written from the perspective of a girl who starts out as 9 and ends when she is 11. Her life is awful. Her mother dies. Her father is a drunk and a molester. Her only family want nothing to do with her. Her grandmother blames her for her mother's death and can't stand to look at her as she reminds her of the worthless son-in-law. The grandmother even sends her to work in the fields with the black laborers.

But Ellen triumphs!! She learns from every knock and figures out how to take care of herself, and what is important in life (at least for a 10 year old). She triumphs over abuse by getting smart. She triumphs over racism by maintaining her best friendship with a black girl her own age. She is an amazing, and completely believable character. I had a tear in my eye when I got to the end of this book. (NOTE: There is a sequel for this girl.. and I may have to read it.

TOTALLY RECOMMEND !!!!


SUMMARY

Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation's Citation for Fiction. An eleven-year-old heroine tells her unforgettable story with honesty, perceptivity, humor, and unselfconscious heroism. "The honesty of thought and eye and feeling and word!"--Eudora Welty; "A lovely, breathtaking, sometimes heart-wrenching first novel."--Walker Percy. A LITERARY GUILD SELECTION.

50 Gide, Andre
(1)
The Counterfeiters  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

A young artist pursues a search for knowledge through the treatment of homosexuality and the collapse of morality in middle class France.

51 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
(1)
The Sorrows of Young Werther  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Celebrated as a leading figure of the German literary movement known as Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress"), Goethe made his reputation with this short novel, originally published in 1774. Its tale of a sensitive young man's self-destructive passion for a lover who ultimately rejects him was based in part on the author's own experiences, and the story's tragic resolution inspired a wave of suicides among young romantics throughout Europe. Goethe's portrayal of Zerrissenheit, "the state of being torn apart," in which a character struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world, proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers, and The Sorrows of Young Werther continues to speak to modern

52 Gogol, Nikolai
(1)
Dead Souls  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

As Gogol's wily antihero, Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners, and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition. This lively, idiomatic English version by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky makes accessible the full extent of the novel's lyricism, sulphurous humor, and delight in human oddity and error.

53 Golding, William
(1)
Lord of the Flies  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - Adventure)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I read this in high school, and again a few years ago. A scary look at how thin the veneer of civilization is, but then, as the years go by, and we see beheadings and mass slaughter on our TV screens, perhaps that lesson should be more obvious.


SUMMARY

William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic.

54 Gordimer, Nadine
(1)
The Burger's Daughter  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

This is the moving story of the unforgettable Rosa Burger, a young woman from South Africa cast in the mold of a revolutionary tradition. Rosa tries to uphold her heritage handed on by martyred parents while still carving out a sense of self. Although it is wholly of today, Burger's Daughter can be compared to those 19th century Russian classics that make a certain time and place come alive, and yet stand as universal celebrations of the human spirit. Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born and lives in South Africa.

55 Grass, Gunter
(1)
The Tin Drum  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The Tin Drum, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, was published in Ralph Manheim's outstanding translation in 1959. It became a runaway bestseller and catapulted its young author to the forefront of world literature. This edition, translated by Breon Mitchell, is more faithful to Grass's style and rhythm, restores omissions, and reflects more fully the complexity of the original work.

After more than fifty years, The Tin Drum has, if anything, gained in power and relevance. All of Grass's amazing evocations are still there, and still amazing: Oskar Matzerath, the indomitable drummer; his grandmother, Anna Koljaiczek; his mother, Agnes; Alfred Matzerath and Jan Bronski, his presumptive fathers. And Oskar's midget friends—Bebra, the great circus master, and Roswitha Raguna, the famous somnambulist; Sister Scholastica and Sister Agatha, the Right Reverend Father Wiehnke, the Greffs, the Schefflers, Herr Fajngold, all Kashubians, Poles, Germans, and Jews—waiting to be discovered and rediscovered.

56 Guterson, David
(1)
Snow Falling on Cedars  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - Mystery/Detective)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
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REVIEW

An excellent novel about human emotion, motivation, struggle and love in a time of high stress. A young man falls in love with a Japanese girl - part of the community living on an island near Washington State. Her, and her family, and all the members of the Japanese community are forced to prison camps in the U.S. when Pearl Harbor is bombed. The young man goes to war in the Pacific and loses one arm. When they both return, the young man is filled with love and hate; and the young girl is now a married woman.

Then, the woman's husband is accused of murder. Is it prejudice that will convict him? Does the young man, still in love with the now married woman, share the information that he believes will exonerate her husband? Can he resolve his feelings of love and hate?

This book is amazingly well written. Everything about every character is explored... Every detail of farming, fishing, weather, and life on an island where everyone knows everyone is described. The internal thoughts of every character are made explicit.. right down to the feeling of the coroner about the victim's penis. No detail is to small to skip, and yet, the book flows wonderfully. I enjoyed the descriptions and the detail. It made everything real - like I could almost touch the lives of the people.

This book gets a big thumbs up from me.


SUMMARY

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense-- one that leaves us shaken and changed.

57 Hammett, Dashiell
(3)
The Maltese Falcon  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - Mystery/Detective)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This is the novel that created the whole "hard-boiled" detective genre - both books and movies. it's tightly written, and centered in San Francisco (which made it extra fun for me). The story stands the test of time, though police work has changed over the years. Not entirely admirable, Sam Spade, the detective, is a character you find you can like in the end. One of the good guys, if certainly no angel

A good read


SUMMARY

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett's coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers.

58 Hammett, Dashiell
(3)
The Thin Man(Fiction - Mystery/Detective)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Be prepared to keep track of LOTS of characters... and keep a drink close by, because, with all the booze flowing in this detective novel, you're gonna want a drink yourself. I'm not so sure this should even be called a detective novel... as the main character, Nick Charles, keeps denying that he is even working on the case (the murder of the secretary of an old client of his). He denies it to the police; he denies it to the suspects ex-wife; he denies it to a mob hood who attempts to shoot him. Yet, everyone is so convinced that he must be working on the case that all the facts and clues end up in his lap anyway, when all he wanted to do was take a vacation. Nick is married, and his wife added into the mix, makes this even more fun.

A good read.


SUMMARY

Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.

59 Hardy, Thomas
(1)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The ne'er-do-well sire of a starving brood suddenly discovers a family connection to the aristocracy, and his selfish scheme to capitalize on their wealth sets a fateful plot in motion. Jack Durbeyfield dispatches his gentle daughter Tess to the home of their noble kin, anticipating a lucrative match between the lovely girl and a titled cousin. Innocent Tess finds the path of the d'Urberville estate paved with ruin in this gripping tale of the inevitability of fate and the tragic nature of existence.

Subtitled A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, Thomas Hardy's sympathetic portrait of a blameless young woman's destruction first appeared in 1891. Its powerful indictment of Victorian hypocrisy, along with its unconventional focus on the rural lower class and its direct treatment of sexuality and religion, raised a ferocious public outcry. Tess of the D'Ubervilles is Hardy's penultimate novel; the pressures of critical infamy shortly afterward drove the author to abandon the genre in favor of poetry. Like his fictional heroine, the artist fell victim to a rigidly oppressive moral code.

60 Hawthorne, Nathaniel
(1)
The Scarlet Letter  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Like all of Hawthorne's novels, "The Scarlet Letter" has but a slender plot and but few characters with an influence on the development of the story. Its great dramatic force depends entirely on the mental states of the actors and their relations to one another, —relations of conscience, — relations between wronged and wrongers. Its great burden is the weight of unacknowledged sin as seen in the remorse and cowardice and suffering of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale. Contrasted with his concealed agony is the constant confession, conveyed by the letter, which is forced upon Hester, and has a double effect, — a healthful one, working beneficently, and making her helpful and benevolent, tolerant and thoughtful ; and an unhealthful one, which by the great emphasis placed on her transgression, the keeping her forever under its ban and isolating her from her fellows, prepares her to break away from the long repression and lapse again into sin when she plans her flight. Roger Chillingworth is an embodiment of subtle and refined revenge. The most striking situation is perhaps "The Minister's Vigil," in chapter xii. The book, though corresponding in its tone and burden to some of the shorter stories, had a more startling and dramatic character, and a strangeness, which at once took hold of a larger public than any of those had attracted. Though imperfectly comprehended, and even misunderstood in some quarters, it was seen to have a new and unique quality; and Hawthorne's reputation became national.

61 Heinlein, Robert
(4)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Already mentioned this one. One of the few books in existance (the other's being the Bible, Koran, Etc) that actually can lay claim to founding a religion. The Church of All Worlds is real. A very odd read.


SUMMARY

Here at last is the complete, uncut version of Heinlein's all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a classic in a few short years. It is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, the man from Mars who taught humankind grokking and water-sharing. And love.

62 Heller, Joseph
(1)
Catch 22  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - Humor)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This book was fun to read though in the early part is was strange getting into. Once you start to believe in the insanity, then it all starts to make a twisted sense, and becomes entertaining. Not having served in the military it's hard to believe what you read here, but somehow, the insanity all seems just about right. Poor Yossarian, trying to make sense of the crazy around him; then learning that one of the most crazy people actually had a plan !!! It's fun.


SUMMARY

Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Since its publication in 1961, no novel has matched Catch-22's intensity and brilliance in depicting the brutal insanity of war.

63 Hemingway, Ernest
(4)
A Farewell To Arms  Best Book Lists: 1,3,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
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REVIEW

Why is Hemmingway considered such a great writer? This novel seemed to make no point one way or the other - about life, war, relationships, or anything. It's about a character who spends very little time involved in the war, and much more, involved in hospital life, and a woman he meets while recovering from an injury. This character, Fredric Henry, doesn't even CARRY arms as a soldier - he is captain of an ambulance corp. He eventually deserts (though, under the circumstances no one can blame him), and makes his way to Switzerland with his (now pregnant) girlfriend.

The dialog is stilted. The plot meandering. The book... pointless. In the end you are left wondering why you bothered to read it - no great impression is left other than ... well.. the uselessness of just about everything.

Don't waste your time on this one.


SUMMARY

Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield—weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.

64 Hemingway, Ernest
(4)
For Whom the Bell Tolls  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise.

65 Hemingway, Ernest
(4)
For Whom the Bell Tolls  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise.

66 Hemingway, Ernest
(4)
The Old Man and The Sea  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Not really a novel. More of a short story and parable. Could be a bedtime story.

It's a simple story, well told. But it also seems to have deeper meanings and references to religion - and paganism, if you will in the brotherly connection between the old man and the fish.

I leave to other people to explore the depths of all this. It's a nice read of itself.


SUMMARY

The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

67 Hemingway, Ernest
(4)
The Sun Also Rises  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie
Checked

REVIEW

I read this when I was probably too young to appreciate it. I just kept thinking that Hemingway committed suicide, so why should I pay attention. I won't rate this till I re-read it.


SUMMARY

The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

68 Hugo, Victor
(1)
Les Miserables  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

One of the greatest epic novels in history, Les Misérables is the moving story of Jean Valjean's struggle for redemption and his lifelong pursuit by Javert, a police detective determined to return Valjean to chains. Always one step ahead of Javert, Valjean encounters the tragic Fantine, and ultimately rescues Fantine's daughter, Cosette, from her wretched life with the Thénadiers, treating the child as his own as she comes of age in pre-revolutionary Paris.

69 Hurston, Zora Neale
(1)
Their Eyes Were Watching God  Best Book Lists: 2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown
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REVIEW

A great book. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in reading about someone's discovery of life. Hurston is a black author, and the dialog is deep southern black of the last century, and sometimes hard to read because of that. But after a while you begin to get used to it and the characters shine through.


SUMMARY

"A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don't know how to live properly." —Zadie Smith

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences' rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston's classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

70 Hurston, Zora Neale
(1)
Their Eyes Were Watching God  Best Book Lists: 2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown
Checked

REVIEW

A great book. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in reading about someone's discovery of life. Hurston is a black author, and the dialog is deep southern black of the last century, and sometimes hard to read because of that. But after a while you begin to get used to it and the characters shine through.


SUMMARY

"A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don't know how to live properly." —Zadie Smith

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences' rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston's classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

71 Huxley, Aldous
(4)
Brave New World  Best Book Lists: (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
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REVIEW

Okay, I have to say that I find the world that Huxley created as a dystopia to be really not so bad. People are happy. They are free to do as they please within their social class and conditioning. (Are we any freer or less conditioned?) The people in control are not blind to the lack of stimulation and variety, but they have come to the decision that the greatest good comes from less of this - less conflict.

The people who are "free" - the native - are miserable the entire time they live. Perhaps misery is a natural condition, but I imagine much of the human population on the planet would not mind living in Huxley's Brave New World.

You read it an you decide.


SUMMARY

Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a "utopian" future—where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.

72 Irving, John
(2)
A Prayer for Owen Meany  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany

73 James, Henry
(4)
The Golden Bowl  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Henry James's highly charged study of adultery, jealousy and possession, The Golden Bowl is edited with an introduction and notes by Ruth Bernard Yeazell in Penguin Classics. Maggie Verver, a young American heiress, and her widowed father Adam, a billionaire collector of objets d'art, lead a life of wealth and refinement in London. They are both getting married: Maggie to Prince Amerigo, an impoverished Italian aristocrat, and Adam to the beautiful but penniless Charlotte Stant, a friend of his daughter. But both father and daughter are unaware that their new conquests share a secret - one for which all concerned must pay the price.

74 Jones, James
(1)
From Here to Eternity  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941. Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler. But when he refuses to join the company's boxing team, he gets "the treatment" that may break him or kill him. First Sgt. Milton Anthony Warden knows how to soldier better than almost anyone, yet he's risking his career to have an affair with the commanding officer's wife. Both Warden and Prewitt are bound by a common bond: the Army is their heart and blood . . .and, possibly, their death.

75 Joyce, James
(3)
Ulysses  Best Book Lists: 1,3,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED movie
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REVIEW

I confess right up front that I could not finish this book. I got about halfway through and decided I could not go on. This was not because the book is poorly written; it's probably one of the most amazing books ever written; but because I was simply not getting enough out of it. There are many references that are so obscure that I would be running to the internet every 10 pages to try and figure out what Joyce was talking about. I started reading with a dictionary by my side, but gave up on that when I realized that Joyce will often make up words just to give the reader a feeling that goes beyond meaning.

This is perhaps the "densest" book I have ever read excepting Kant'sProlegomena to Pure Reason. Some page simply drip with obscure religious and cultural references that you would take quite some time to understand.

Example: "Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Ill-starred heresiarch! In a Greek water closet he breathed his last: euthanasia. With beaded miter and crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of a widowed see, with upstiffed omophorion, with clotted hinder pars."

Just to understand that part of a paragraph you need to know:

  • Who Arius was and how he died. (Seehere) [HINT: He died on the toilet.]
  • What the concept of consubstantiation means in the Catholic Church, and how the matter was decided. (Seehere)
  • And give up on finding the word - contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality - in any dictionary. it's a series of concepts thrown together to evince a feeling (Seehere)

There are, however, other parts that use words so poetically that it doesn't really matter what they are saying, but inside you get the feeling that Joyce was trying to give... as in a feast scene in a restaurant which, though full of descriptions of food and people eating with gusto, leaves you a tad sick as if you were watching some sort of awful orgy.

And then there is the scene in the outhouse where Bloom takes his morning relief... an odd bit of detail to which each and every human being can relate.

I can see why Joyce is hailed as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Anyone who wants to learn how to get more out of language than just the meaning of words and sentences should read this.

I simply could not continue to fight my way through. I admit defeat.


SUMMARY

Joyce divided Ulysses into 18 chapters or "episodes". At first glance much of the book may appear unstructured and chaotic; Joyce once said that he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant", which would earn the novel "immortality".[12] The two schemata which Stuart Gilbert and Herbert Gorman released after publication to defend Joyce from the obscenity accusations made the links to the Odyssey clear, and also explained the work's internal structure.

Every episode of Ulysses has a theme, technique, and correspondence between its characters and those of the Odyssey. The original text did not include these episode titles and the correspondences; instead, they originate from the Linati and Gilbert schemata. Joyce referred to the episodes by their Homeric titles in his letters. He took the idiosyncratic rendering of some of the titles, e.g. "Nausikaa" and the "Telemachia". from Victor Bérard's two-volume Les Phéniciens et l'Odyssée which he consulted in 1918 in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich.

76 Kafka, Franz
(1)
The Trial  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
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REVIEW

This book is boring. Oh sure, it is "Kafkaesque"... meaning pointless.. from beginning to end.. pointless. You have this character (a rather arrogant fellow by the name of Josef K.) who is arrested (but never taken into custody) and must face "trial" on a charge we never learn. He flounders from person to person looking for someone who can help him - or even someone who understands what is going on - which is seems no one does. There is never any date in court... there is never any evidence or testimony. There never really is any trial... just this man who maintains his innocence (innocence of what exactly?) who feels the weight of an obscure and impenetrable bureaucracy weighing down on him (though really, the requirements are almost nothing.. all the weight is self applied),

The whole thing is pointless - and dull. Which is maybe the point. In any case, I would not recommend this - just realize that sometimes things make no sense, and yet everyone believes in them.. and you have the whole point here.

Spoiler alert - read the last 5 pages to see how the trial ends - you will never discover the charge, but you can see the ending is as pointless as the rest of the book.


SUMMARY

Written in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.

77 Kerouac, Jack
(1)
On The Road  Best Book Lists: (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
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REVIEW

"It is often considered a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation that was inspired by jazz, poetry, and drug experiences." So says Wikipedia.

I don't know. Maybe if I had read this book as a teenager I would have enjoyed the irrepressible freedom of the characters. But reading this in my 50's I found the people in this book totally despicable. They stole constantly. Stole food, stole cars. stole anything they could easily get away with stealing. They used people - One character marries a gal for her money to fuel a trip across country, and then abandons her in Texas when the money runs out. One character father's children left and right, and could care less. They talk about how they are going to "dig" a place and how fantastic it is; and in a week are bored with it, and want to be on the road again.

If this book defines a generation, I'm glad I didn't grow up in it.

There was a scene near the end of the book, where they are wandering the jazz joints in San Francisco. The descriptions of the music and the players is real art. Kerouac shines in small sections like this. But overall the book gets to be tedious as we follow one character who relentlessly sinks into mania.

I barely finished this, and only because I promised myself I would finish it.


SUMMARY

Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951, in an apartment on West Twentieth Street in Manhattan, that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him. Typed out as one long, single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper that he later taped together to form a 120 foot scroll, this document is among the most significant, celebrated, and provocative artifacts in contemporary American literary history. It represents the first full expression of Kerouac's revolutionary aesthetic, the identifiable point at which his thematic vision and narrative voice came together in a sustained burst of creative energy. It was also part of a wider vital experimentation in the American literary, musical, and visual arts in the post-World War II period.

It was not until more than six years later, and several new drafts, that Viking published, in 1957, the novel known to us today. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of On the Road, Viking will publish the 1951 scroll in a standard book format. The differences between the two versions are principally ones of significant detail and altered emphasis. The scroll is slightly longer and has a heightened linguistic virtuosity and a more sexually frenetic tone. It also uses the real names of Kerouac's friends instead of the fictional names he later invented for them. The transcription of the scroll was done by Howard Cunnell who, along with Joshua Kupetz, George Mouratidis, and Penny Vlagopoulos, provides a critical introduction that explains the fascinating compositional and publication history of On the Road and anchors the text in its historical, political, and social context.

78 Kesey, Ken
(1)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  Best Book Lists: 2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This book is an easy read on one level, and a harder read on another. As a story it's easy; none of the deep literary references or symbolic imagery that makes other books a tough read. But on another level the more you learn about the patients, and the control by Nurse Ratched, the more you start to think they are not the crazy ones. Big Chief sure sounds crazy in the beginning, but after a while you start to believe that his description of the controls in the wall sounds about right.


SUMMARY

An international bestseller and the basis for a hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the defining works of the 1960s. A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results.

With One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey created a work without precedent in American literature, a novel at once comic and tragic that probes the nature of madness and sanity, authority and vitality. Greeted by unanimous acclaim when it was first published, the book has become and enduring favorite of readers.

79 Kesey, Ken
(1)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  Best Book Lists: 2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This book is an easy read on one level, and a harder read on another. As a story it's easy; none of the deep literary references or symbolic imagery that makes other books a tough read. But on another level the more you learn about the patients, and the control by Nurse Ratched, the more you start to think they are not the crazy ones. Big Chief sure sounds crazy in the beginning, but after a while you start to believe that his description of the controls in the wall sounds about right.


SUMMARY

An international bestseller and the basis for a hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the defining works of the 1960s. A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results.

With One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey created a work without precedent in American literature, a novel at once comic and tragic that probes the nature of madness and sanity, authority and vitality. Greeted by unanimous acclaim when it was first published, the book has become and enduring favorite of readers.

80 King, Stephen
(1)
The Stand(Fiction - Horror)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

I bought this because it was in English and it was big. I was in Denmark at the time and had finished my other reading material. Walking into a Danish book store I found this and read it. I don't know about others, but many horror books have seemed pretty contrived to me, and this one seemed so as well, but it served its purpose and entertained me for a time while I had nothing else to do (but go to movies which were all subtitled in English).


SUMMARY

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

81 Kingsolver, Barbara
(1)
The Bean Trees  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

There are books you know you are going to like as soon as you finish the first page. This is one of them.. Like Ellen Foster, this first page of this novel sets the tone for what is to come and makes you really want to jump on the bus to see where it ends up.

A young woman named Taylor (the name she gives herself because that's where she ran out of gas) manages to avoid the pitfalls of teen pregnancy in rural (hillbilly) Kentucky and makes her way across country ending up in Tucson, Arizona. Along the way she acquires a Native American child she calls Turtle, and on arriving meets the people with whom she will make a family. In the end she realizes that what she is, is a mother. And when that is threatened, she goes on a journey to keep what is now hers.

This story of self discovery, love, motherhood and hope will grab you and keep you until the very end. If you don't enjoy this, then there is something seriously wrong with your emotion-o-meter. (I couldn't put it down.)


SUMMARY

The Bean Trees is bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver's first novel, now widely regarded as a modern classic. It is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a 3-year-old native-American little girl named Turtle along the way, and together, from Oklahoma to Tucson, Arizona, half-Cherokee Taylor and her charge search for a new life in the West.

Written with humor and pathos, this highly praised novel focuses on love and friendship, abandonment and belonging as Taylor, out of money and seemingly out of options, settles in dusty Tucson and begins working at Jesus Is Lord Used Tires while trying to make a life for herself and Turtle.

The author of such bestsellers as The Lacuna, The Poinsonwood Bible, and Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver has been hailed for her striking imagery and clear dialogue, and this is the novel that kicked off her remarkable literary career.

82 Knowles, John
(1)
A Separate Peace(Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie
Checked

REVIEW

Another high school reading assignment. I don't even remember it.


SUMMARY

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

83 Kosinski, Jerzy
(1)
The Painted Bird  Best Book Lists: 2,4 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

This is the story of a little boy, and how he survived being sent away by his parents during World War II. it's really a tale of bloody human ignorance; or at least, that's how I read it. This boy is abused by belief systems, one after another. First its peasant ignorance and superstition, then its church ignorance and superstition, then its Nazi ignorance and superstition, next comes Communism. No matter what the system, this poor child is abused over and over until the end of the book, at which point at the ripe old age of about 12, he is starting to realize that every system manages to have its share of ignorance and superstition.

The book was mildly auto-biographical, but there was lots of controversy about that. Having listened to an interview with the author's son, it's easy to believe that there was indeed abuse in the author's childhood.

Still and all, I rate this book with a thumbs up, if only because I happen to agree with the author's assessment of most of humanity.


SUMMARY

Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. Kosinski's story follows a dark-haired, olive-skinned boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, as he wanders alone from one village to another, sometimes hounded and tortured, only rarely sheltered and cared for. Through the juxtaposition of adolescence and the most brutal of adult experiences, Kosinski sums up a Bosch-like world of harrowing excess where senseless violence and untempered hatred are the norm. Through sparse prose and vivid imagery, Kosinski's novel is a story of mythic proportion, even more relevant to today's society than it was upon its original publication.

84 Lawrence, D. H.
(4)
Lady Chatterley's Lover  Best Book Lists: 5

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Lyric and sensual, D.H. Lawrence's last novel is one of the major works of fiction of the twentieth century. Filled with scenes of intimate beauty, explores the emotions of a lonely woman trapped in a sterile marriage and her growing love for the robust gamekeeper of her husband's estate. The most controversial of Lawrence's books, Lady Chatterly's Lover joyously affirms the author's vision of individual regeneration through sexual love. The book's power, complexity, and psychological intricacy make this a completely original work—a triumph of passion, an erotic celebration of life.

85 Lawrence, D. H.
(4)
The Rainbow   Best Book Lists: 1 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Set against the backdrop of England's industrial revolution, D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow examines shifting social roles in pre-First World War England. Three generations of Brangwen women, Anna, Ursula, and Gudrun, each deal with their own challenges: forbidden sexual desire, unfulfilling marriages and the impossibility of physical love. Despite their station in life, the Brangwen women are able to emerge beyond the conventions of their time and place, challenging English society and emerging with strong convictions of both their selves and their desires.

The Rainbow was banned upon publication in 1915, and all copies were subsequently seized and burnt. Upon republication the novel achieved commercial success, shocking readers with its frank discussion of sexuality and women's physical desire. The Rainbow is the first of two Brangwen family novels, whose story is concluded in Women in Love. The Rainbow has been adapted for film and television.

86 Lawrence, D. H.
(4)
Sons and Lovers  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

This semi-autobiographical novel explores the emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and the suffocating relationships with a demanding mother and two very different lovers. It is a pre-Freudian exploration of love and possessiveness.

87 Lawrence, D. H.
(4)
Sons and Lovers  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

This semi-autobiographical novel explores the emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and the suffocating relationships with a demanding mother and two very different lovers. It is a pre-Freudian exploration of love and possessiveness.

88 Lawrence, D. H.
(4)
Women in Love  Best Book Lists: 1,3,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

A sequel to Lawrence's earlier The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love continues the story of the Brangwen sisters in the coal-mining town of Beldover. Based in part on Lawrence's own stormy marriage to German aristocrat Frieda von Richthofen, the tale is charged with intense feelings and psychological insights.


SUMMARY

A sequel to Lawrence's earlier The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love continues the story of the Brangwen sisters in the coal-mining town of Beldover. Based in part on Lawrence's own stormy marriage to German aristocrat Frieda von Richthofen, the tale is charged with intense feelings and psychological insights.

89 Lawrence, D. H.
(4)
Women in Love  Best Book Lists: 1,3,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

A sequel to Lawrence's earlier The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love continues the story of the Brangwen sisters in the coal-mining town of Beldover. Based in part on Lawrence's own stormy marriage to German aristocrat Frieda von Richthofen, the tale is charged with intense feelings and psychological insights.


SUMMARY

A sequel to Lawrence's earlier The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love continues the story of the Brangwen sisters in the coal-mining town of Beldover. Based in part on Lawrence's own stormy marriage to German aristocrat Frieda von Richthofen, the tale is charged with intense feelings and psychological insights.

90 Lee, Harper
(1)
To Kill A Mockingbird  Best Book Lists: 2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Racism and justice through the eyes of a child. This book is great. I had seen the movie years ago, and it is faithful to the book. The scenery and some of the characters are autobiographical – the boy Dill is actually Truman Capote as a child – he and Harper Lee were friends for life.

I would recommend this book to everyone.


SUMMARY

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father-a crusading local lawyer-risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

91 Lewis, C.S.
(1)
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe  Best Book Lists: 2,4,5 (Fiction - Fantasy)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

A quick read, but only mildly entertaining as all the action is described through the eyes of children. I don't quite understand how this made the best book list, even if it is allegorical. There are probably better.


SUMMARY

Four adventurers step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.

A quick read, but only mildly entertaining as all the action is described through the eyes of children. I don't quite understand how this made the best book list, even if it is allegorical. There are probably better.

92 Lewis, Sinclair
(1)
Main Street  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The first of Sinclair Lewis's great successes, Main Street shattered the sentimental American myth of happy small-town life with its satire of narrow-minded provincialism. Reflecting his own unhappy childhood in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis's sixth novel attacked the conformity and dullness he saw in midwestern village life. Young college graduate Carol Milford moves from the city to tiny Gopher Prairie after marrying the local doctor, and tries to bring culture to the small town. But her efforts to reform the prairie village are met by a wall of gossip, greed, conventionality, pitifully unambitious cultural endeavors, and—worst of all—the pettiness and bigotry of small-town minds.

Lewis's portrayal of a marriage torn by disillusionment and a woman forced into compromises is at once devastating social satire and persuasive realism. His subtle characterizations and intimate details of small-town America make Main Street a complex and compelling work and established Lewis as an important figure in twentieth-century American literature.

93 London, Jack
(2)
The Call Of The Wild  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

What a great little book. The story of a dog's life from easy living in California, to the wilds of Alaska in the gold rush. A very nice story. Well written, and a page turner.

Completely recommended.


SUMMARY

The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush—a period when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara valley of California as the story opens. Stolen from his home and sold into the brutal existence of an Alaskan sled dog, he reverts to atavistic traits. Buck is forced to adjust to, and survive, cruel treatments and fight to dominate other dogs in a harsh climate. Eventually he sheds the veneer of civilization, relying on primordial instincts and lessons he learns, to emerge as a leader in the wild. London lived for most of a year in the Yukon collecting material for the book. The story was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903; a month later it was released in book form. The novel's great popularity and success made a reputation for London. Much of its appeal derives from the simplicity with which London presents the themes in an almost mythical form. As early as 1908 the story was adapted to film and it has since seen several more cinematic adaptations

94 Mailer, Norman
(1)
The Naked and the Dead  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Widely considered the greatest American novel written about World War II, and perhaps about any war, The Naked and the Dead secured Norman Mailer's position, at only twenty-five, as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Based on the author's own experience, it is a spellbinding account of a platoon of American soldiers in brutal combat to reclaim a Pacific island held by the Japanese and to face the unimaginable, within and without.

95 Mann, Thomas
(2)
Buddenbrooks  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain.

96 Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
(1)
One Hundred Years of Solitude  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buends, a family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

97 Marquis de Sade ,
(1)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

To be read only by those who are not faint of heart. The tortures (and they are mostly tortures here.) are graphic and constant. There is no let up from start to end. In the end, almost all the victims are used up (dead) or left for dead. And all this for the purposes of entertainment


SUMMARY
p>The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade relates the story of four wealthy men who enslave 24 mostly teenaged victims and sexually torture them while listening to stories told by old prostitutes. The book was written while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille and the manuscript was lost during the storming of the Bastille. Sade wrote that he "wept tears of blood" over the manuscript's loss. Many consider this to be Sade crowing achievement.

98 Melville, Herman
(1)
Moby Dick  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - Adventure)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Moby Dick counts as my favorite book of all time. I picked this up one day because I thought I should read some of the books I was supposed to read in High School English.
My GOD, I could not put the book down.. I was on page 400 something and I never wanted it to end. Oh yeah yeah.. there is a story about a mad Captain's pursuit of a White Whale.. all that you know. What you don't know is that you get to live aboard that boat. You learn how a whaling ship worked.. you feel what the men go thru.. it transports you to a place that doesn't exist on this planet anymore, BUT DID. When the book ended I was truly sorry to put it down. Being there, in that place was magic for a time, and I will never forget the impact that had on me. I LOVE Science Fiction... but I can't recall any book of SciFi that took me to a place and made it real as MOBY DICK did.

On another note; I have to say that the interpretation I learned in high school as to why Ahab was so angry at the whale (because it took his leg) was completely wrong. You have to connect to very separate parts of the book, and take is seriously that Ahab is does not appear until the ship is well under way (and why that is); but the reason Ahab wants to kill the whale - it took his immortality. Ahab is a married man. After his first encounter with the whale, he cannot have children. Even the most retched creatures of the earth can have progeny. But that has been stolen from him.

A pretty good reason for revenge.


SUMMARY

Moby-Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab s appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each. Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing.

99 Miller, Henry
(1)
Tropic of Cancer  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

If you liked Kerouac's ON THE ROAD, then you will like this one. I didn't. I found Kerouac's book reprehensible. Miller's book is much the same, but at least the main character has some interesting thoughts once in a while. it's not an endless litany of dishonesty and sloth. Miller has a descriptive power that beyond anything you are going to find in ON THE ROAD.
Oh... and it's pornographic as hell. The sort of pornographic that might be written by a 15 year old who discovered some bad words and wants to use them as much as possible... but its ignorable. I can totally see why they tried to ban this book.
In any case.. This was not quite as bad as ON THE ROAD... there were times that I actually wanted to pick this book up and read.. just to see what the character was going to do with himself today.


SUMMARY

Shocking, banned and the subject of obscenity trials, Henry Miller's first novel Tropic of Cancer is one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century - new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes, pimps, and artists. Banned in the US and the UK for more than thirty years because it was considered pornographic, Tropic of Cancer continued to be distributed in France and smuggled into other countries. When it was first published in the US in 1961, it led to more than 60 obscenity trials until a historic ruling by the Supreme Court defined it as a work of literature. Long hailed as a truly liberating book, daring and uncompromising, Tropic of Cancer is a cornerstone of modern literature that asks us to reconsider everything we know about art, freedom, and morality. "At last an unprintable book that is fit to read." (Ezra Pound). "A momentous event in the history of modern writing." (Samuel Beckett). "The book that forever changed the way American literature would be written." (Erica Jong).

100 Miller, Henry
(1)
Tropic of Cancer  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

If you liked Kerouac's ON THE ROAD, then you will like this one. I didn't. I found Kerouac's book reprehensible. Miller's book is much the same, but at least the main character has some interesting thoughts once in a while. it's not an endless litany of dishonesty and sloth. Miller has a descriptive power that beyond anything you are going to find in ON THE ROAD.
Oh... and it's pornographic as hell. The sort of pornographic that might be written by a 15 year old who discovered some bad words and wants to use them as much as possible... but its ignorable. I can totally see why they tried to ban this book.
In any case.. This was not quite as bad as ON THE ROAD... there were times that I actually wanted to pick this book up and read.. just to see what the character was going to do with himself today.


SUMMARY

Shocking, banned and the subject of obscenity trials, Henry Miller's first novel Tropic of Cancer is one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century - new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes, pimps, and artists. Banned in the US and the UK for more than thirty years because it was considered pornographic, Tropic of Cancer continued to be distributed in France and smuggled into other countries. When it was first published in the US in 1961, it led to more than 60 obscenity trials until a historic ruling by the Supreme Court defined it as a work of literature. Long hailed as a truly liberating book, daring and uncompromising, Tropic of Cancer is a cornerstone of modern literature that asks us to reconsider everything we know about art, freedom, and morality. "At last an unprintable book that is fit to read." (Ezra Pound). "A momentous event in the history of modern writing." (Samuel Beckett). "The book that forever changed the way American literature would be written." (Erica Jong).

101 Miller, Henry
(1)
Tropic of Cancer  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

If you liked Kerouac's ON THE ROAD, then you will like this one. I didn't. I found Kerouac's book reprehensible. Miller's book is much the same, but at least the main character has some interesting thoughts once in a while. it's not an endless litany of dishonesty and sloth. Miller has a descriptive power that beyond anything you are going to find in ON THE ROAD.
Oh... and it's pornographic as hell. The sort of pornographic that might be written by a 15 year old who discovered some bad words and wants to use them as much as possible... but its ignorable. I can totally see why they tried to ban this book.
In any case.. This was not quite as bad as ON THE ROAD... there were times that I actually wanted to pick this book up and read.. just to see what the character was going to do with himself today.


SUMMARY

Shocking, banned and the subject of obscenity trials, Henry Miller's first novel Tropic of Cancer is one of the most scandalous and influential books of the twentieth century - new to Penguin Modern Classics with a cover by Tracey Emin Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes, pimps, and artists. Banned in the US and the UK for more than thirty years because it was considered pornographic, Tropic of Cancer continued to be distributed in France and smuggled into other countries. When it was first published in the US in 1961, it led to more than 60 obscenity trials until a historic ruling by the Supreme Court defined it as a work of literature. Long hailed as a truly liberating book, daring and uncompromising, Tropic of Cancer is a cornerstone of modern literature that asks us to reconsider everything we know about art, freedom, and morality. "At last an unprintable book that is fit to read." (Ezra Pound). "A momentous event in the history of modern writing." (Samuel Beckett). "The book that forever changed the way American literature would be written." (Erica Jong).

102 Milne, A.A.
(1)
Winnie The Pooh  Best Book Lists: 5 (Childrens Books)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This was on the "top books" list I compiled and so I decided to read it.

What a smart decision!! These stories are really wonderful. I would love to share them with a child, but I also enjoyed sharing them with my inner child. The small poetry within the stories, the innocence of all the characters, the amusing way they interact .. its all great.

If you have a child, or want to visit your childhood again, I really recommend these stories. (Oh.. be sure to get the originals, not the Disneyfied extensions... the originals are great.)


In 1926, the world was introduced to a portly little bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Along with his young friend, Christopher Robin, Pooh delighted readers from the very beginning. His often befuddled perceptions and adorable insights won the hearts of everyone around him, including his close group of friends. From the energetic Tigger to the dismal Eeyore, A. A. Milne created a charming bunch, both entertaining and inspirational. These simple creatures often reflected a small piece of all of us: humble, silly, wise, cautious, creative, and full of life. Remember when Piglet did a very grand thing, or Eeyore's almost-forgotten birthday?


SUMMARY

In 1926, the world was introduced to a portly little bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Along with his young friend, Christopher Robin, Pooh delighted readers from the very beginning. His often befuddled perceptions and adorable insights won the hearts of everyone around him, including his close group of friends. From the energetic Tigger to the dismal Eeyore, A. A. Milne created a charming bunch, both entertaining and inspirational. These simple creatures often reflected a small piece of all of us: humble, silly, wise, cautious, creative, and full of life. Remember when Piglet did a very grand thing, or Eeyore's almost-forgotten birthday?

103 Mitchell, Margaret
(1)
Gone with the Wind  Best Book Lists: 3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

This classic about the effects of the Civil War as told through the eye's and actions of one Scarlett O'Hara. This book was MUCH more than I expected it to be. Scarlett herself is a pretty despicable character. She thinks of one person, and one person only her whole life. Yet through it all she keeps body and soul together, not just for herself, but for many others as well.

I found this a fantastic guide to the war from a southern point of view. Race relations in particular are served up in ways I had not seen before.


SUMMARY

Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea. A historical novel, the story is a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, with the title taken from a poem written by Ernest Dowson.

Gone with the Wind was popular with American readers from the onset and was the top American fiction bestseller in the year it was published and in 1937. As of 2014, a Harris poll found it to be the second favorite book of American readers, just behind the Bible. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide.

104 Moore, Alan
(1)
Watchmen  Best Book Lists: 2,4 (Graphic Novel)

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REVIEW

I've never read a "graphic novel" before. I have to tell you this book is an experience. There is so much more you can do in a graphic novel - okay - call it a comic book if you want. Time is so much more flexible since the panels tell you where you are (one scene in particular is very impressive). Parallel stories can be weaved together much more seamlessly - in fact from panel to panel the story can be a different one - with the artwork in the panels helping you to keep track of which is which and how they inter-relate.

I was honestly impressed by this. The story might not be to everyone's taste, but the way it was done was massively impressive (like LOLITA). I give this a thumbs up.


SUMMARY

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin.

One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial bestseller, WATCHMEN has been studied on college campuses across the nation and is considered a gateway title, leading readers to other graphic novels such as V FOR VENDETTA, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and THE SANDMAN series.

105 Morrison, Toni
(2)
Beloved  Best Book Lists: 2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

This was a much tougher read than I was expecting. I was expecting horrific stories of slavery and the struggle to be free, and these are there, though mostly oblique as the characters themselves don't want to remember what happened to them. What I didn't expect was a ghost story - a shocking killing - a ghostly retribution - and desperation caused by a terrible shared past. Time is so fluid that you have a had time knowing exactly where you are in the story on any given page. Baby Suggs dies early, but then she is back and preaching. One minute you are in the house at 124, and the next in Sweet Home (the plantation) trying to keep track of which Paul is which (several slaves were named Paul - A, B, C, and D)

This is not a book I am going to recommend since it is such a tough read, BUT... if you want to know how newly freed slaves lived - in fear that it might all come to an end, and that even decent white folk could not be trusted - this would be a good one to pick up.


SUMMARY

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

106 Morrison, Toni
(2)
Song of Solomon  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world.

107 Morrison, Toni
(2)
Song of Solomon  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world.

108 Munif, Abd al-Rahman
(1)
Cities of Salt  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Banned in Saudi Arabia, this is a blistering look at Arab and American hypocrisy following the discovery of oil in a poor oasis community.

109 Musil, Robert
(1)
The Man Without Qualities  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Set in Vienna on the eve of WWI, adn peopled with some of the most memorable characters in literature, this novel presents a profound, witty, and striking portrait of life as it dissects and tries to define the individual in the modern world.

110 Nabakov, Vladimir
(2)
Lolita  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

Wow, can Nabakov write. I can totally see how this book became one of the top novels of the century, even if the subject matter is, to most minds, distasteful. At first it was a bit dull because we spend so much time in Humbert's mind, and so little actually interacting with the world. But then he finally meets his Lolita, and from there the book really takes off. Pay attention, because dropped here and there in the text is foreshadows, hints, and signs of what is going on in other characters, and how the book is going to end tragically. Though it ends tragically, I feel that Humbert Humbert (not his real name) turns out to be a mildly decent sort in the end (strange as that may seem).

This is worth reading just to taste what Nabakov can do with the English language – not his native one in fact.


SUMMARY

Awe and exhilaration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

111 OHara, John
(1)
Appointment in Samarra  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Well written, but not as powerful or as insightful as some of the others that are rated less on the best books list. This is an easy read, but, once you know that the title means, the downward progress of the main character seems pretty inevitable - and pretty un-motivated. I must have missed it, but I can't see why this guy collapsed the way he did. Good marriage, good job, reasonable people around him, and he just self destructs.

I think Phillip Roth is the better writer, but from a different perspective.


SUMMARY

The best-loved book by the writer whom Fran Lebowitz compared to the author of The Great Gatsby, calling him "the real F. Scott Fitzgerald"

One of the great novels of small-town American life, Appointment in Samarra is John O'Hara's crowning achievement. In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, social circuit is electrified with parties and dances. At the center of the social elite stand Julian and Caroline English. But in one rash moment born inside a highball glass, Julian breaks with polite society and begins a rapid descent toward self-destruction.

Brimming with wealth and privilege, jealousy and infidelity, O'Hara's iconic first novel is an unflinching look at the dark side of the American dream—and a lasting testament to the keen social intelligence if a major American writer.

112 Orwell, George
(2)
1984  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

This book is listed as one of the top books of all time, and I can see why. It's quite powerfully written, and contains logic that seems undeniable. The dystopian society makes sense in horrible, twisted manner. The main character is ground down to nothing.. completely destroyed. It's easy to imagine that such a society could actually exist and actually work. What a horror show.

A good reflection of the fears of the time. I give this a thumps up.


SUMMARY

Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.

113 Orwell, George
(2)
Animal Farm  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

I re-read this recently, and it's still as obvious as it was back when. A heavy dose of allegory to make points about greed and government that we all should remember.


SUMMARY

Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson

114 Paton, Alan
(1)
Cry the Beloved Country  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

A wonderful book about a black minister in South Africa in the late 1940's near the beginning of the formalization of Apartheid. He travels from his small village area to the metropolis of Johannesburg - along the way meeting people both bad and good who have all been affected by the discrimination against the black by the white.

In the city he learns that his son has committed murder and is to go on trial. He finds is daughter has been a prostitute, and discovers that the girl his son was to marry is pregnant with his grandchild. Through all this he and others think much on the problem of black oppression by a white minority.

In another section, the a white man travels to Johannesburg only to discover that his son has been killed by a black man. What he learns about his sons work changes him and disposes him to help the people living around his estate - the very place where the black minister is from

The two men meet by accident, and realize how their sons are connected. Both are forever changed.

Read this book if you have any interest in good story and the struggles of South Africa. It is very readable and very touching. If at some point you don't have tears in your eyes, there is something wrong with you.


SUMMARY

An Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, "We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony."

Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.

115 Plath, Sylvia
(1)
The Bell Jar  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
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REVIEW

This is a wonderful little book about a disturbing topic; one woman's descent into mental illness and her slow climb back out. It's told from the inside, and what struck me was the cohesion. Her thoughts made sense, and yet, grew more ill as time went on, until the final straw of her attempted suicide. At which point she describes how the right doctor finally met her, and how she came back from that brink - a brink which is always there, no matter how far back you come.

Given that some say this is autobiographical, it makes it an even more interesting read.

At times I didn't want to put this down. The story pulls you in, and you want to go with it.

I would recommend this one along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - so you get both sides of the mental illness picture.


SUMMARY

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

116 Plath, Sylvia
(1)
The Bell Jar  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This is a wonderful little book about a disturbing topic; one woman's descent into mental illness and her slow climb back out. It's told from the inside, and what struck me was the cohesion. Her thoughts made sense, and yet, grew more ill as time went on, until the final straw of her attempted suicide. At which point she describes how the right doctor finally met her, and how she came back from that brink - a brink which is always there, no matter how far back you come.

Given that some say this is autobiographical, it makes it an even more interesting read.

At times I didn't want to put this down. The story pulls you in, and you want to go with it.

I would recommend this one along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - so you get both sides of the mental illness picture.


SUMMARY

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

117 ReMarque, Erich Maria
(1)
All Quiet on the Western Front  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

Another book that will punch you in the guts... and that is exactly what it should do. It's about one soldier and World War I - trench warfare - a phrase that many younger people have never heard of. It's about what war does to a man (to a boy really). The pleasure in the mundane.. the horror.. the mechanisms you use to cope. There really isn't anything different between these boys and the boys we send to Iraq today - there may be a century of time between them, but the human mind has to cope with horror.. and that hasn't changed since written history began.

Now, don't get me wrong. This book is not all horror stories. Most if it, in fact, is pretty mundane. Someone once described war as "hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer panic"... and this book is the same. It follows the soldiers as they try to get along between those moments of panic. But the moments of panic are vivid, and affect the reader like they affect the characters.

This one gets a big thumbs up.


SUMMARY

Considered by many the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarque's masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.

I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . .

This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

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 one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.

118 Roth, Phillip
(2)
Portnoy’s Complaint  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

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REVIEW

"Then came adolescents…" Thus begins chapter 2 of Portnoy's Complaint – and boy what a roller coaster ride it is. I read this when I was in High School. I have no clue why I picked it up, but I have never regretted it. I learned so much about Jewish culture and the pressures on young Jewish males to make just the right choices in life. And Alexander Portnoy tells us everything he encounters in the years of sexual frustration that start with adolescents and masturbation.

I also learned most of the Yiddish I know today from this book.

I would recommend this book to anyone (particularly to men) who can relate to growing up and trying to figure out how sex is supposed to work .


SUMMARY

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.

119 Rowling, J.K.
(1)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Well, I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie, and both of them lived up to the hype at the time. I did not read any further into the series, but many people (children and adults) did, and it seems to have been time well spent.

The Harry Potter series seems to have engendered plenty of controversy and attempts at banning the books. If the people who are constantly attempting to ban books would sit down and write a book once in a while I might have more respect for them.

Oh well... I enjoyed it.. so will you.


SUMMARY

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

120 Salinger, J.D.
(1)
The Catcher in the Rye  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED
Checked

REVIEW

I read it so long ago – high school – and honestly cannot remember a thing about it except the name Holden Caulfield and the dream of wanting to catch the children in the rye – which symbolized something I'm sure. Got to re-read to rate.


SUMMARY

Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger's New Yorker stories ? particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme ? With Love and Squalor, will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is fully of children. The hero-narrator of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.

121 Sendak, Maurice
(1)
Where the Wild Things Are  Best Book Lists: 5 (Childrens Books)

Banned unknown movie
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REVIEW

This was and extremely short book, which I read while standing in the book store. Seeing how short it was, it didn't make any sense for me to buy it.

Having said that, I can see how there might be enough stuff in here to make a movie from... though it didn't really catch my imagination I can totally see how a parent might love to share this with their child and then talk about all the "wild things" that people will encounter while they grow up (and beyond).


SUMMARY

Where the Wild Things Are is fifty years old! Let the wild rumpus with Max and all the wild things continue as this classic comes to life as never before with new reproductions of Maurice Sendak's artwork. Astonishing state-of-the-art technology faithfully captures the color and detail of the original illustrations. Sendak himself enthusiastically endorsed this impressive new interpretation of his art before his death in May 2012. Winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal for the Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year, Where the Wild Things Are became an iconic book that has inspired a movie, an opera, and the imagination of generations. It continues to be one of the best loved books of all time the world over, by the one and only Maurice Sendak.

122 Shakespeare, William
(1)
Romeo & Juliet(Fiction - Romance)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Read this in High School, and again years later. This is a classic, and perhaps everyone should give it a try, though seeing it on stage is much easier.


SUMMARY

The classic tale of star-crossed lovers who come to a tragic end thanks to the feud that exists between their two families.

123 Shelley, Mary
(1)
Frankenstein  Best Book Lists: (Fiction - Horror)

Banned unknown movie
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REVIEW

A classic horror novel, which is much more horrible in the movies than in the reading. I found myself in much more sympathy with the monster than with Frankenstein. The entire book is told in the form of a letter, though you quickly forget this. The Dr. Frankenstein is picked up by a ship seeking the famous North-West passage, and relates the tale of how he created the creature and then shunned it. The creature, for his part, seems to be a perfectly fine human being, motivated by the same needs that move us all. He is, however, incredibly hideous and is rejected by everyone who sees him. He turns finally to his creator and asks Frankenstein to make for him a companion. Frankenstein at first agrees, but then refuses. What follows is a tragedy of revenge and hate.

Written in the style of the times, some people might not enjoy it, but it is a fine read, and an interesting glimpse into what people of the time thought of science - how, though it held much promise, also held much fear.


SUMMARY

Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Considering the novel's enduring success, it is remarkable that it began merely as a whim of Lord Byron's.

"We will each write a story," Byron announced to his next-door neighbors, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley. The friends were summering on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816, Shelley still unknown as a poet and Byron writing the third canto of Childe Harold. When continued rains kept them confined indoors, all agreed to Byron's proposal.

The illustrious poets failed to complete their ghost stories, but Mary Shelley rose supremely to the challenge. With Frankenstein, she succeeded admirably in the task she set for herself: to create a story that, in her own words, "would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart."

124 Sinclair, Upton
(1)
The Jungle  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - Historical)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Almost required reading for everyone in either High School or College, this is the story about an immigrant family that tries to make a living in the appalling conditions in Chicago's Meat Packing district in the early 1900's. Sinclair researched this book heavily, and when it came out American's were shocked at what went on with their food supply. After the book came out laws were passed to clean up the industry.

Poor Mr. Sinclair however never realized his dream. He spends the whole book describing how awful conditions are for workers under what he calls "wage slavery", and how capitalists will always keep the working man down. Then he spends the last 2 chapters talking about socialism, and how socialism can solve everything! He was really hoping to foment a socialist revolution in this country.

Unfortunately, the socialist world he describes sounds like an even worse situation than the "wage slavery" he decries. Under socialist rule a worker would have no choice about what to consume.. it would all be decided for him. He even would not be able to settle in one place because workers could be moved by society to wherever they are most needed. He doesn't even get to chose what he wants to EAT!!! Meat production would cease because it's not as efficient as vegetarianism. Every aspect of life would be controlled and dictated. Wouldn't that be just wonderful!!!

UGH... Sinclair failed in his primary goal, but succeeded amazingly in changing society for the better.


SUMMARY

An ardent activist, champion of political reform, novelist, and progressive journalist, Upton Sinclair is perhaps best known today for The Jungle — his devastating exposé of the meat-packing industry. A protest novel he privately published in 1906, the book was a shocking revelation of intolerable labor practices and unsanitary working conditions in the Chicago stockyards. It quickly became a bestseller, arousing public sentiment and resulting in such federal legislation as the Pure Food and Drug Act.|The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair. Vulnerable and isolated, the family of Jurgis Rudkus struggles — unsuccessfully — to survive in an urban jungle.

A powerful view of turn-of-the-century poverty, graft, and corruption, this fiercely realistic American classic is still required reading in many history and literature classes. It will continue to haunt readers long after they've finished the last page.

125 Sinclair, Upton
(1)
The Jungle  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - Historical)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Almost required reading for everyone in either High School or College, this is the story about an immigrant family that tries to make a living in the appalling conditions in Chicago's Meat Packing district in the early 1900's. Sinclair researched this book heavily, and when it came out American's were shocked at what went on with their food supply. After the book came out laws were passed to clean up the industry.

Poor Mr. Sinclair however never realized his dream. He spends the whole book describing how awful conditions are for workers under what he calls "wage slavery", and how capitalists will always keep the working man down. Then he spends the last 2 chapters talking about socialism, and how socialism can solve everything! He was really hoping to foment a socialist revolution in this country.

Unfortunately, the socialist world he describes sounds like an even worse situation than the "wage slavery" he decries. Under socialist rule a worker would have no choice about what to consume.. it would all be decided for him. He even would not be able to settle in one place because workers could be moved by society to wherever they are most needed. He doesn't even get to chose what he wants to EAT!!! Meat production would cease because it's not as efficient as vegetarianism. Every aspect of life would be controlled and dictated. Wouldn't that be just wonderful!!!

UGH... Sinclair failed in his primary goal, but succeeded amazingly in changing society for the better.


SUMMARY

An ardent activist, champion of political reform, novelist, and progressive journalist, Upton Sinclair is perhaps best known today for The Jungle — his devastating exposé of the meat-packing industry. A protest novel he privately published in 1906, the book was a shocking revelation of intolerable labor practices and unsanitary working conditions in the Chicago stockyards. It quickly became a bestseller, arousing public sentiment and resulting in such federal legislation as the Pure Food and Drug Act.|The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair. Vulnerable and isolated, the family of Jurgis Rudkus struggles — unsuccessfully — to survive in an urban jungle.

A powerful view of turn-of-the-century poverty, graft, and corruption, this fiercely realistic American classic is still required reading in many history and literature classes. It will continue to haunt readers long after they've finished the last page.

126 Smiley, Jane
(1)
A Thousand Acres  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

A successful Iowa farmer decides to divide his farm between his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. An ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear cast upon a typical American community in the late twentieth century, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride, and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.

127 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
(3)
Cancer Ward(Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

Power won't save you in the cancer ward. Solzhenitsyn takes on the Russian medical system in this novel that throws people from very different walks of life together in a ward where they all face the same killer. Talk about a great premise to explore human nature. In the end, I felt relieved that everyone seemed to get what was coming to them.


SUMMARY

Cancer Ward examines the relationship of a group of people in the cancer ward of a provincial Soviet hospital in 1955, two years after Stalin's death. We see them under normal circumstances, and also reexamined at the eleventh hour of illness. Together they represent a remarkable cross-section of contemporary Russian characters and attitudes. The experiences of the central character, Oleg Kostoglotov, closely reflect the author's own: Solzhenitsyn himself became a patient in a cancer ward in the mid-1950s, on his release from a labor camp, and later recovered. Translated by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg.

128 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
(3)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown
Checked

REVIEW

I am clueless why a high school kid would pick up this massive work and read it. I had heard about this great Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and how he was being allowed to immigrate to the west after years of persecution. I guess I was just in awe of the whole thing. This tome takes on the Russian Prison system – where political prisoners by the hundreds of thousands could simply disappear for years on end; many never heard from again. Solzhenitsyn walks you through the whole system.. how you get in.. how you get out.. where you go.. who your fellows are.. how it all works – like a threshing machine grabbing up the guilty and the innocent and the merely troublesome, and processing these souls through it's dark, horrible, yet manically efficient mechanism. If you want a vision of hell, I would suggest reading this over Dante.

The Gulag Archipelago is Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, a vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators and also of heroism, a Stalinist anti-world at the heart of the Soviet Union where the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair. The work is based on the testimony of some two hundred survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own eleven years in labour camps and exile. It is both a thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power. This edition has been abridged into one volume at the author's wish and with his full co-operation.


SUMMARY

The Gulag Archipelago is Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, a vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators and also of heroism, a Stalinist anti-world at the heart of the Soviet Union where the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair. The work is based on the testimony of some two hundred survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own eleven years in labour camps and exile. It is both a thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power.

129 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
(3)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Powerful good reading. Ivan Denisovich is a prisoner in the Russian Gulag somewhere in Siberia. How does he manage to live from day to day on little food, and less hope makes for an amazing story. Unfortunately, it's also probably pretty accurate considering the author spent time there as well. Consider it autobiographical.


SUMMARY

First published in 1962, this book is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, it is at once a graphic picture of work camp life and a moving tribute to man's will to prevail over relentless dehumanization, told by "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, [and] Gorky" (Harrison Salisbury, New York Times).

130 Steinbeck, John
(3)
East of Eden  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel 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.

131 Steinbeck, John
(3)
Grapes of Wrath  Best Book Lists: 1,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

OH MY GOD. If this book doesn't move you, then you have no soul. The Joads make their way to California at the promise of a better life and are ill used at every turn. Once it was the Chinese – today it is the Hispanics – In this novel it's the Oakies; enticed to California by the hope of making a living, only to have those hopes dashed time and again. Yet they remain strong in the face of it.

The very last scene of this book was so powerful, and had such an affect on me that I vowed I would not be reading any more Steinbeck – because I never wanted to feel that way again. I highly recommend this book even after that statement.


SUMMARY

First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man's fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman's stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck's powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

132 Steinbeck, John
(3)
Of Mice and Men  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Short and tragic; a story about two men trying to make it in a hard world and a hard place. Another look into how California used to run, and still runs today with a different race of workers.


SUMMARY

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.

Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

133 Stendhal,
(1)
The Red and the Black  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Charting the rise and fall of an ambitious young social climber in a cruel, monarchical society, Stendhal's The Red and the Black is translated with an introduction and notes by Roger Gard in Penguin Classics. Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble provincial origins. Soon realizing that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, he begins to achieve advancement through deceit and self-interest. His triumphant career takes him into the heart of glamorous Parisian society, along the way conquering the gentle, married Madame de Rênal, and the haughty Mathilde. But then Julien commits an unexpected, devastating crime - and brings about his own downfall. The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical portrayal of French society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed and ennui, and Julien - the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions - is one of the most intriguing characters in European literature. Roger Gard's fine translation remains faithful to the natural, conversational tone of the original, while his introduction elucidates the complexities of Julien's character. This edition also contains a chronology, further reading and an appendix on Stendhal's use of epigraphs. Stendhal (1783-1842) was the pseudonym of Henri Marie Beyle, born and raised in Grenoble. Offered a post in the Ministry of War, from 1800 onwards he followed Napoleon's campaigns throughout Europe before retiring to Italy. Here, as 'Stendhal', he began writing on art, music and travel. Though not well-received during his lifetime, his work, including The Red and the Black (1830) and The Charterhouse of Parma (1839), now places him among the pioneers of nineteenth-century literary realism.

134 Stoker, Bram
(1)
Dracula  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - Horror)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

The legend of Dracula has been served up in so many different ways that it's kind of fun to go back and read the original. The book consists of a series of letters, journals, diary entries, and new articles - laid out in chronological order. The main characters do most of the writing and pass their writings among themselves to keep each other up to date. Mina acts as secretary to the group of hero's by transcribing everything using the new fangled typewriter and the amazing carbon paper to make multiple copies. Dracula himself appears very little after the beginning of the book. The book is an interesting look at Victorian sexism and morality. And much longer than I at first thought it would be. A little tedious at times, still, you want to keep reading to see what it going to happen next. The defeat of Dracula is almost anti-climactic.

Read this one for fun, then jump ahead to Anne Rice.


SUMMARY

During a business visit to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents. Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count's transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula's grim fortress, but a friend's strange malady — involving sleepwalking, inexplicable blood loss, and mysterious throat wounds — initiates a frantic vampire hunt. The popularity of Bram Stoker's 1897 horror romance is as deathless as any vampire. Its supernatural appeal has spawned a host of film and stage adaptations, and more than a century after its initial publication, it continues to hold readers spellbound.

135 Stowe, Harriet Beecher
(1)
Uncle Tom's Cabin  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

An American classic that retains so much power today that I can't even imagine the impact it had when it first came out prior to the civil war. Harriet Beecher Stowe shines her light on the inherent cruelties of the system of slavery - cruelty that is built into the system regardless of the intentions of the most well meaning slave owner. Slave owners, both good and bad, are in for a rude examination in this book. But she didn't stop there. She cast light on the non-slave owning northerners who still held such racist views that they would never want to mix with former slaves on any kind of equal basis. She puts light were it didn't exist before no matter who gets exposed.

No one escapes her examination - except herself. Yes, Ms. Stowe shows her own prejudice many times in the book - constantly making statements about the Negro race; that they have this character or that character - apparently she believed that "races" did have characteristics that made them different - and as such she was, herself, a racist. Oddly, every educated Negro in her book wound up in Liberia - where she thought it would be appropriate for them to go.. and any others would become America's White Man's Burden.

People at the time had such a hard time believing what she wrote that at the end of the story she had to include a chapter just to explain that all the stories were, in essence, true and where she got her information. Some of this is still hard to read today.

Banned and censored many times, this book was one of the factors that started the Civil War (according to Pres. Lincoln who, on meeting Ms. Stowe said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.") It still has the power to offend today - and would be banned still for it's constant use of the "N-word".

In an interesting side note; Ms. Stowe was not only writing against slavery but was making a strong appeal for the country to become a Christian nation - along the lines of her beliefs in Christianity. Like Sinclair's The Jungle, which was trying to change the country to socialism, Stowe's book is not remembered for this.

I highly recommend that anyone with any interest in American history read this book.


SUMMARY

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States; one million copies in Great Britain. In 1855, three years after it was published, it was called "the most popular novel of our day." The impact attributed to the book is great, reinforced by a story that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln declared, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." The quote is apocryphal; it did not appear in print until 1896, and it has been argued that "The long-term durability of Lincoln's greeting as an anecdote in literary studies and Stowe scholarship can perhaps be explained in part by the desire among many contemporary intellectuals ... to affirm the role of literature as an agent of social change."

136 Stowe, Harriet Beecher
(1)
Uncle Tom's Cabin  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

An American classic that retains so much power today that I can't even imagine the impact it had when it first came out prior to the civil war. Harriet Beecher Stowe shines her light on the inherent cruelties of the system of slavery - cruelty that is built into the system regardless of the intentions of the most well meaning slave owner. Slave owners, both good and bad, are in for a rude examination in this book. But she didn't stop there. She cast light on the non-slave owning northerners who still held such racist views that they would never want to mix with former slaves on any kind of equal basis. She puts light were it didn't exist before no matter who gets exposed.

No one escapes her examination - except herself. Yes, Ms. Stowe shows her own prejudice many times in the book - constantly making statements about the Negro race; that they have this character or that character - apparently she believed that "races" did have characteristics that made them different - and as such she was, herself, a racist. Oddly, every educated Negro in her book wound up in Liberia - where she thought it would be appropriate for them to go.. and any others would become America's White Man's Burden.

People at the time had such a hard time believing what she wrote that at the end of the story she had to include a chapter just to explain that all the stories were, in essence, true and where she got her information. Some of this is still hard to read today.

Banned and censored many times, this book was one of the factors that started the Civil War (according to Pres. Lincoln who, on meeting Ms. Stowe said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.") It still has the power to offend today - and would be banned still for it's constant use of the "N-word".

In an interesting side note; Ms. Stowe was not only writing against slavery but was making a strong appeal for the country to become a Christian nation - along the lines of her beliefs in Christianity. Like Sinclair's The Jungle, which was trying to change the country to socialism, Stowe's book is not remembered for this.

I highly recommend that anyone with any interest in American history read this book.


SUMMARY

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, featured the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States; one million copies in Great Britain. In 1855, three years after it was published, it was called "the most popular novel of our day." The impact attributed to the book is great, reinforced by a story that when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln declared, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." The quote is apocryphal; it did not appear in print until 1896, and it has been argued that "The long-term durability of Lincoln's greeting as an anecdote in literary studies and Stowe scholarship can perhaps be explained in part by the desire among many contemporary intellectuals ... to affirm the role of literature as an agent of social change."

137 Styron, William
(2)
Sophie's Choice  Best Book Lists: 1,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.

138 Tan, Amy
(1)
The Joy Luck Club  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I can understand completely why it would not appeal to men. It's a book about the the relationship between mothers and daughters. It reminded me a bit of the book My Mother, Myself - where a women wonders about all those things her mother tried to tell her - what she got and what she missed. Only in The Joy Luck Club the problem is magnified because the daughters have grown up in a completely different culture than their mothers, so they miss much of the wisdom and much of the humanity of their mother's lives.

I really enjoyed it. I'd recommend it for women, and a few guys I know.


SUMMARY

This widely acclaimed bestseller spans two countries and two generations, following a group of Chinese women who meet to play mah jong, invest money and tell the secret stories of their lives. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club.

139 Tolkien, J.R.R.
(4)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

One of the best fantasies of all time. The quintessential battle between good and innocence, and pure evil and darkness. The movies did the books justice, but only the books can make you understand how the characters relate and love each other.

I completely recommend these (though they could lose the Tom Bombadill character as far as I am concerned. Never quite got what he was about.)

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.


SUMMARY

The first volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure THE LORD OF THE RINGS

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

140 Twain, Mark
(2)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

Fun from start to finish. Huck Finn and run away slave Jim have howling adventures as they make their way down the river – each running from something and to something. Huck is a little more down to earth than his friend Tom Sawyer, and so handles his moral dilemmas in a very straightforward manner. As you read, you beg for him to come to the right choice, and in a round about and strange way, he eventually does. Then, in the end, he and Tom Sawyer team up again for one last rousing adventure to make sure slave Jim gets freed up right and proper.

You will enjoy it.


SUMMARY

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.

Perennially popular with readers, ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger", despite strong arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist.

141 Updike, John
(1)
Rabbit, Run  Best Book Lists: 2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation. Its hero is Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler's edge.

142 Updike, John
(1)
Rabbit, Run  Best Book Lists: 2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation. Its hero is Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler's edge.

143 Uris, Leon
(1)
Exodus  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The Exodus was just one ship among many that carried survivors of the Holocaust to Palestine to establish a new nation. But the path that Jewish immigrants took to enter British-controlled Palestine was a difficult one, fraught with danger and political intrigue. The boat was intercepted by British forces and the refugees were placed in concentration camps.

Uris's blockbuster novel traces the lives of the men and women who brave British naval blockades to help Israel come into being, from Ari Ben Canaan, who works tirelessly to smuggle in settlers, to Kitty Fremont, an American nurse drawn into a vast, tragic history. Weaving together fact and fiction, history and dramatic storylines, Exodus stands today as one of the most influential narratives of the founding of the State of Israel.

144 Voltaire,
(1)
Candide  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

I can see why this book caused such a stir when it was first written in 1759. I pokes fun at everyone and every thing. Voltaire has no respect for kings, religion, monks, inquisitors, philosophers, soldiers, or romantic love. Everything is lambasted at one point or another, though the main character, Candide, stays optimistic throughout.

A very fast read, but one I would only recommend to someone with an interest in old French comedy, or a bit of history and philosophy combined.


SUMMARY

Voltaire's Candide is political satire that has endured for centuries. Required reading in many high school AP courses and college English courses, Candide tells the story of a starry-eyed young man who struggles to reunite with his lost love. Eschewing mysitcal optimism for a more philosophy, Candide and his companions finally retire together, embracing a simple life on a small farm.

145 Vonnegut, Kurt
(2)
Cat's Cradle(SciFi)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

An interesting discussion of whether scientists should care about what their discoveries are used for. The introduction of ICE NINE


SUMMARY

Cat's Cradle is Kurt 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. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat's Cradle is one of the twentieth century's most important works—and Vonnegut at his very best.

146 Vonnegut, Kurt
(2)

Banned ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I loved this book. It was strange to be slipping backward and forward in time, but the whole thing was a fun ride. I would recommend this to anyone.

Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.


SUMMARY

Adapted for a magnificent George Roy Hill film three years later (perhaps the only film adaptation of a masterpiece which exceeds its source), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is the now famous parable of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran and POW, who has in the later stage of his life become "unstuck in time" and who experiences at will (or unwillingly) all known events of his chronology out of order and sometimes simultaneously.

147 Walker, Alice
(1)
The Color Purple  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord ThumbsUP unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

This book is excellent. At the beginning it is hard to see how anything could turn out well for the characters here. Life is so down on them, and they are so down on themselves. But as time goes by.. they live, and learn. Makes you sad for people that don't learn from life - even a life with as hard a start as these.


SUMMARY

Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of African-American women in the southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence.

148 Warren, Robert Penn
(1)
All the King's Men  Best Book Lists: 1,2,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

All the King's Men traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character loosely based on Governor Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power, culminating in a novel that Sinclair Lewis pronounced, on the book's release in 1946, "one of our few national galleries of character."

149 Waugh, Evelyn
(3)
Brideshead Revisited  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The wellsprings of desire and the impediments to love come brilliantly into focus in Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece-a novel that immerses us in the glittering and seductive world of English aristocracy in the waning days of the empire. Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity

150 Waugh, Evelyn
(3)
Brideshead Revisited  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The wellsprings of desire and the impediments to love come brilliantly into focus in Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece-a novel that immerses us in the glittering and seductive world of English aristocracy in the waning days of the empire. Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity

151 Wharton, Edith
(3)
Ethan Frome  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned unknown
Checked

REVIEW

This is not a happy book. In fact, if you come away from this book with happy feelings, then check yourself into a psych ward - there is something wrong with you.
The main character ignores his own feelings because of his sense of duty and propriety - and because he is a wimp. Oh he tries to wheddle what he wants from life and love, but his indirect approach (and his not taking care of his own needs) leaves him in a worse state than one could imagine.
Read this book to find out how a dismal life can be made worse... by ignoring your own feelings and failing to care for your own happiness. The ending is shocking.


SUMMARY

Perhaps the best-known and most popular of Edith Wharton's novels, Ethan Frome is widely considered her masterpiece. Set against a bleak New England background, the novel tells of Frome, his ailing wife Zeena and her companion Mattie Silver, superbly delineating the characters of each as they are drawn relentlessly into a deep-rooted domestic struggle. Burdened by poverty and spiritually dulled by a loveless marriage to an older woman. Frome is emotionally stirred by the arrival of a youthful cousin who is employed as household help. Mattie's presence not only brightens a gloomy house but stirs long-dormant feelings in Ethan. Their growing love for one another, discovered by an embittered wife, presages an ending to this grim tale that is both shocking and savagely ironic.

152 White, E.B.
(1)
Charlotte's Web  Best Book Lists: 5 (Childrens Books)

Banned unknown movie
Checked

REVIEW

I would read this to my children. It's the story of a pig, who is saved from slaughter by his friends in the barn yard - especially a spider named Charlotte. They all work to make Wilbur out to be a very special pig - the talk of the town and the fair.

Really a story about having a purpose in life - Charlotte's purpose is to save Wilbur, and in the end she succeeds.


SUMMARY

Some Pig. Humble. Radiant. These are the words in Charlotte's web, high up in Zuckerman's barn. Charlotte's spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, who simply wants a friend. They also express the love of a girl named Fern, who saved Wilbur's life when he was born the runt of his litter.

153 Wilder, Laura Ingalls
(1)
Little House on the Prarie  Best Book Lists: 5 (Childrens Books)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Set during the pioneer days of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Laura Ingalls Wilder's books chronicle her life growing up on the Western frontier.

154 Wolfe, Thomas
(1)
Look Homeward, Angel  Best Book Lists: 5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Look Homeward, Angel is an elaborate and moving coming-of-age story about Eugene Gant, a restless and energetic character whose passion to experience life takes him from his small, rural hometown in North Carolina to Harvard University and the city of Boston. The novel's pattern is artfully simple -- a small town, a large family, high school and college -- yet the characters are monumental in their graphic individuality and personality. Through his rich, ornate prose, Wolfe evokes the extraordinarily vivid family of the Gants, and with equal detail, the remarkable peculiarities of small-town life and the pain and upheaval of a boy who must leave both. A classic work of American literature, Look Homeward, Angel is a passionate, stirring, and unforgettable novel.

155 Wright, Richard
(1)
Native Son  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

156 Wright, Richard
(1)
Native Son  Best Book Lists: 1,2,3,4,5 (Fiction - General)

Banned NWord UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

157 Xueqin, Cao
(1)
Dream of the Red Chamber  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of life in the two branches of the wealthy and aristocratic Jia (?) clan—the Rongguo House (???) and the Ningguo House (???)—who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. Their ancestors were made Dukes and given imperial titles, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the city. One of the clan's offspring was made a Royal Consort, and a lush landscaped garden was built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias' wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias' fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated.

158 Zola, Emile
(1)
Germinal  Best Book Lists: 3 (Fiction - General)

Banned UNRATED movie

REVIEW

Not read


SUMMARY

The thirteenth novel in Émile Zola's great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity's capacity for compassion and hope.

Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all.