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Sent by his fiancée to seek her son who has run away with an entrancing Parisian woman, Lambert Strether finds himself nearly as bewitched by the culture and women of Europe as his would-be son-in-law. Strether gets chased or dragged across provincial France by a slew of influences intent either on drawing the pair of bachelors home to Boston or showing him the world, and winds up testing his patience along with his own illusions.
2) Kim
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Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Historical Fiction Set in India
If you Like The Covenant of Water, try...
Historical Fiction Set in India
If you Like The Covenant of Water, try...
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Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore. But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his...
3) Lord Jim
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The eponymous Jim is a young, good-looking, genial, and naive water-clerk on the Patna, a cargo ship plying Asian waters. He is, we are told, "the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks, leave in charge of the deck." He also harbors romantic fantasies of adventure and heroism--which are promptly scuttled one night when the ship collides with an obstacle and begins to sink. Acting on impulse, Jim jumps overboard and lands in a lifeboat,...
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"F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), is a devastating portrait of a generation of wealthy young Americans who struggle to find meaning and happiness in their lives. The sophisticated but emotionally fragile Anthony Patch enjoys an initially idyllic marriage to the beautiful Gloria Gilbert. But their intense romance turns sour as they waste their time and energy in decadent leisure and luxury. Their happiness comes...
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Bunyan wrote the first part of "The pilgrim's progress" when he was in prison as a Baptist preacher. In his hands a pious tract is transformed into a work of imaginative literature which has been more widely read than any book in English except the Bible. Its influence, both indirectly on the English consciousness and directly on the literature that followed, has been immeasurable. The rich countryman's phrases that Bunyan borrowed or invented have...
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When the miller Mr. Tulliver becomes entangled in lawsuits, he sets off a chain of events that will profoundly affect the lives of his family and bring into conflict his passionate daughter Maggie with her inflexible but adored brother Tom. As she grows older, Maggie's discovery of romantic love draws her once more into a struggle to reconcile familial and moral claims with her own desires. Strong-willed, compassionate, and intensely loyal, Maggie...
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This updated authoritative edition of the classic Hardy novel, which was published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, is set from Hardy's revised, unedited final draft of 1912 and features a new Introduction and Afterword. There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in Far from the Madding Crowd. It is here that Gabriel Oak observes...
9) Ulysses
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Serialized first in the Little Review in 1918 and published first in Paris in 1922, although its censorship for obscenity in America and England were not lifted until the mid-1930s. In terms of its story it defies abridgement or explanation except that it all takes place on one day, 16 June 1904, or Bloomsday, which was the anniversary of Joyce's first walk with his beloved Nora Barnacle. It (very) loosely follows the episodes of Ulysses from the...
10) My Ántonia
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"Widely recognized as Willa Cather's finest book and one of the outstanding novels of American literature, My Antonia details of the life of early American pioneers in Nebraska. Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of...
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AAPI Heritage Month
Aliens
May Books on Tap: Sci-fi
Thomas Ford Library's Science Fiction Book Club Selections
Aliens
May Books on Tap: Sci-fi
Thomas Ford Library's Science Fiction Book Club Selections
Description
"When massive, intelligent aliens from Mars touch down in Victorian England and threaten to destroy the civilized world, humanity's vaunted knowledge proves to be of little use. First published in 1898, H.G. Wells's masterpiece of speculative fiction has thrilled and delighted generations of readers, spawned countless imitations, and inspired dramatizations by such masters as Orson Welles and Steven Spielberg. The War of the Worlds is a fantasy that...
13) Robinson Crusoe
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Brighter Days Ahead: Utopian Novels
Classics - St. Charles Public Library
OBD Audiobook Classics - Adult
Classics - St. Charles Public Library
OBD Audiobook Classics - Adult
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Contemporary fiction. 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance . . . reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown'd, and that there should not be one soul sav'd but my self . . . ' Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the...
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Washington Square (1881), by Henry James, tells the story of Catherine Sloper, the plain, obedient daughter of the widowed, well-to-do Dr. August Sloper of Washington Square. When a handsome, feckless man-about-town proposes to Catherine, her father forbids the marriage because he believes the man to be after Catherine's fortune and future inheritance. The conflict between father, daughter, and suitor provokes consequences in the lives of all three...
15) Jane Eyre
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In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret. Charlotte Bronte's novel about the passionate love between Jane Eyre, a young girl alone in the world, and the rich, brilliant, domineering Rochester has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic, ever since...
16) Rob Roy
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By turns thrilling and comic, Rob Roy contains Scott's most sophisticated treatment of the Scottish Highlands as an imaginary space where the modern and the primitive come together. Newly edited from the 'Magnum Opus' text of 1830, this edition includes full explanatory notes and a critical introduction exploring the originality and complexity of Scott's achievement.
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Emily Bront's only novel, a work of tremendous and far-reaching influence, the Penguin Classics edition of Wuthering Heights is the definitive edition of the text, edited with an introduction by Pauline Nestor. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place...
19) Armadale
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"When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret her reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Swilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money--and murder. The character of Lydia...
20) She
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An Englishman undertakes a quest to find Ayesha, the mysterious white queen of a Central African tribe--a monstrous and desirable female.