Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Electronic Revolution

by William S. Burroughs

new 10th edition, redesigned w/Gysin photo of WSB

Life is an unclassified masterpiece, a sprawling compendium as encyclopedic as Dante's Commedia and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and, in its break with tradition, as inspiring as Joyce's Ulysses. Structured around a single moment in time 8:00 p.m. on June 23, 1975 Perec's spellbinding puzzle begins in an apartment block in the XVIIth arrondissement of Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, like an onion... (more)

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

by William S. Burroughs

Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the work of authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson, on the relationship of art and obscenity, and on the shape of music, film, and media generally, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. Reedited by Burroughs scholar Barry Miles and Burroughs's... (more)

Oblivion: Stories

by David Foster Wallace

'Stunning......Wallace is an astonishing storyteller whose fiction reminds us why we learned how to read in the first place.' -San Francisco Chronicle OBLIVION is an arresting, hilarious new creation from a writer universally regarded as one of the most prodigious and original talents in contemporary letters. In the stories that make up this exuberantly praised collection, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest,... (more)

Creatures of Light and Darkness

by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny burst onto the SF scene in the early 1960s with a series of dazzling and groundbreaking short stories. He won his first of six Hugo Awards for Lord of Light , and soon after produced the first book of his enormously popular Amber series, Nine Princes in Amber. In addition to his Hugos, he went on to win three Nebula Awards over the course of a long and distinguished career. He died on June 14,... (more)

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Vintage Contemporaries)

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Howard V. Chaykin

A Vintage Contemporaries Original Includes: Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megalodon" Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter" Dan Chaon's "The Bees" Kelly Link's "Catskin" Elmore Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" Carol Emshwiller's "The General" Neil Gaiman's "Closing Time" Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium" ... (more)

Between the Acts (Harvest Book)

by Frank Kermode, Mark Hussey, Virginia Woolf

In Woolf’s last novel, the action takes place on one summer’s day at a country house in the heart of England, where the villagers are presenting their annual pageant. A lyrical, moving valedictory.

Seven Types of Ambiguity

by Elliot Perlman

Simon, an unemployed schoolteacher, maintains an obsessive interest in his great love Anna who has married Joe, a successful stockbroker - they both visit the same prostitute Angelique, who is in love with Simon, and passes on to him details of Anna's home life. After years of unrequited love for Anna, Simon decides to take matters into his own hands - kidnapping her young son and triggering a chain of events no... (more)

Life: A User's Manual

by Georges Perec

This marvellous book is one of the most ingenious works of modern fiction, an entire microcosm brought to life in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valene wants to create an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by chapter, the narrative moves around the building revealing... (more)

Exercises in Style

by Raymond Queneau

A twentysomething bus rider with a long, skinny neck and a goofy hat accuses another passenger of trampling his feet; he then grabs an empty seat. Later, in a park, a friend encourages the same man to reorganize the buttons on his overcoat. In Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, this determinedly pointless scenario unfolds 99 times in twice as many pages. Originally published in 1947 (in French), these... (more)

Cocaine Nights

by J. G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard once again reveals his visionary mastery in this warped tale of the unexpected The setting for Cocaine Nights is the Costa del Sol and the stylish resort of Estrella de Mar. Into the queasy beauty of this artificial environment steps Charles Prentice, a travel writer from London who has come to visit his brother Frank, manager of the resort's Club Nautico. Frank is in jail, having confessed... (more)

The Acme Novelty Library

by Chris Ware

Utterly eschewing the general bonhomie surrounding the newly-minted contemporary regard for the comic strip medium as a language of complicated personal expression and artistic sophistication, professional colorist and award-winning letterer F. C. Ware returns to the book trade with “The ACME Novelty Library,” a hardcover distillation of all his surviving one-page cartoon jokes with which he tuckpointed the... (more)

High-Rise

by J. G. Ballard

The unnerving tale of life in a modern tower block running out of control.

Super-Cannes: A Novel

by J. G. Ballard

Eden-Olympia is more than just a multinational business park, it is a virtual city-state in itself, built for the most elite high-tech industries. Isolated and secure, the residents lack nothing, yet one day, a doctor at the clinic goes on a suicidal shooting spree. Dr. Jane Sinclair is hired as his replacement, and her husband Paul uncovers the dangerous psychological vents that maintain Eden-Olympia’s... (more)

Only Revolutions: A Novel

by Mark Z. Danielewski

Sam: They were with us before Romeo & Juliet. And long after too. Because they’re forever around. Or so both claim, carolling gleefully: We’re allways sixteen. Sam & Hailey, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Model T to Lincoln Continental, career from the Civil War to the Cold War, barrelling down through the Appalachians, up the Mississippi River, across the Badlands, finally cutting a... (more)

Dirk Gently: Book 1

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

by Douglas Adams

There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE.

The World's Shortest Stories: Murder, Love, Horror, Suspense, All This and Much More in the Most Amazing Short Stories Ever Written, Each One Just 55 Words Long

The World's Shortest Stories: Murder, Love, Horror, Suspense, All This and Much More in the Most Amazing Short Stories Ever Written, Each One Just 55 Words Long

by Steve Moss

This is a quintessential short story book fo r everyone who thinks they don''t have any time to read. Each story is less than 55 words long - ideal for the beach, bus , train, anywhere. '

The End of the Road

by John Barth

This Is Not a Novel

by David Markson

"I don't know where to put the man-and for this I am glad.... Magnificent, a compilation that so exceeds the scatter of its parts that one must take some time to ponder why this should be. ... it's almost impossible to stop turning pages ... we realize: This is not a novel. It's a poem. ... When I reached the final pages, I felt, as all too seldom, sectioned off from the daily tyranny, released, as in a... (more)

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Top Books

by William S. Burroughs

by Georges Perec, David Bellos

by William S. Burroughs

by David Foster Wallace

by Roger Zelazny

by Howard V. Chaykin

by Frank Kermode, Mark Hussey, Virginia Woolf

by Elliot Perlman

by Georges Perec

by Raymond Queneau

by J. G. Ballard

by Chris Ware

by J. G. Ballard

by J. G. Ballard

by Mark Z. Danielewski

by Douglas Adams

by Steve Moss

by John Barth

by David Markson

by Raymond Queneau