Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

DIGGING FOR PEAT in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she’s been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him—his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what—a little voice comes to him in his... (more)

Black Swan Green: A Novel

by David Mitchell

From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that... (more)

The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe’s modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street “Master of the Universe” who has it all — a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress. Suddenly, one wrong turn makes it all go wrong, and Sherman spirals downward in a sudden fall from grace that sucks him into the ravenous heart of a New York City gone... (more)

The Line of Beauty: A Novel

by Alan Hollinghurst

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER, WINNER OF THE 2004 MAN BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION, AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST Winner of 2004’s Man Booker Prize for fiction and one of the most talked about books of the year, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money that brings Thatcher’s London alive. A New York Times Bestseller (Extended) · A LA Times Bestseller List ·... (more)

American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

The controversial novel about a handsome serial killer who moves among the young and trendy in 1980s New York.

'night, Mother: A Play (Mermaid Dramabook)

'night, Mother: A Play (Mermaid Dramabook)

by Marsha Norman

' night, Mother is a taut and fluid drama that addresses different emotions and special relations. By one of America's most talented playwrights, this play won the Dramatists Guild's prestigious Hull-Warriner Award, four Tony nominations, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1983. 'night, Mother had its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in... (more)

Beloved

by Toni Morrison

Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is Toni Morrison's greatest novel, a dazzling achievement, and the most spellbinding reading experience of the decade. "A brutally powerful, mesmerizing story . . . read it and tremble."--People.

Maggot

by John Fowles

"A Maggot" is not a historical novel in the normal sense. It began as a quirk or obsession (a 'maggot' in the archaic sense of the word) which found its setting in the second wave of Protestant Dissent in England. It took shape as a mystery - a compelling investigation of unaccountable motives and deeds - which led through beguiling paths to a starling vision at its centre.

It

by Stephen King

They were just kids when they stumbled upon the hidden horror of their hometown. Now, as adults, none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them all back to Derry, Maine, to face the nightmare without end, and the evil without a name.

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she... (more)

Watchmen

by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons

Now A Major Motion Picture! 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... (more)

American Hardcore: A Tribal History

by Steven Blush

Angrier and less pretentious than the drug-addled punk and new wave music genres, hardcore was an underground tribal movement created with passion but ultimately destroyed by infighting and dissonance. Among the important figures who emerged from hardcore are Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl (of Nirvana and Foo Fighters), Ian MacKaye (of Fugazi), and the Beastie Boys. Hardcore's legacy, however, continues to... (more)

Witches of Eastwick

by John Updike

In a small New England town in the late 1960s, there lived three witches Alexandra Spoffard, sculptress, could create thunderstorms. Jane Smart, a cellist, could fly. The local gossip columnist, Sukie Rougemont, could turn milk into cream. Divorced but hardly celibate, content but always ripe for adventure, our three wonderful witches one day found themselves quite under the spell of the new man in town, Darryl... (more)

Thing of Beauty

by Stephen M Fried

At age seventeen, Gia Carangi was working the counter at her father's Philadelphia luncheonette, Hoagie City. Within a year, Gia was one of the top models of the late 1970's, gracing the covers of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, partying at New York's Studio 54 and the Mudd Club, and redefining the industry's standard of beauty. She was the darling of moguls and movie stars, royalty and rockers. Gia was also a girl in... (more)

Rabbit Is Rich

by John Updike

Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Ten years after RABBIT REDUX, Harry Angstrom has come to enjoy prosperity as the Chief Sales Representative of Springer Motors. The rest of the world may be falling to pieces, but Harrry's doing all right. That is, until his son returns from the West, and the image of an old love pays a visit to his lot.... From the Paperback edition.

Veronica: A Novel

by Mary Gaitskill

Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: One is a young model stumbling away from the wreck of her career, the other an eccentric middle-aged office temp. Over the next twenty years their friendship will encompass narcissism and tenderness, exploitation and self-sacrifice, love and mortality. Moving seamlessly from present and past, casting a fierce yet compassionate eye on two eras... (more)

White Noise (Contemporary American Fiction)

White Noise (Contemporary American Fiction)

by Don Delillo

Jack Gladney, a professor of Nazi history at a Middle American liberal arts school, and his family try to handle normal family life as a black cloud of lethal gaseous fumes threatens their town.

Avalon: Book 1

The Mists of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

A Literary Guild Featured Alternate Here is the magical legend of King Arthur, vividly retold through the eyes and lives of the women who wielded power from behind the throne. A spellbinding novel, an extraordinary literary achievement, THE MISTS OF AVALON will stay with you for a long time to come....

Complete Vampire Chronicles : The Tale of the Body Thief, the Queen of the Damned, the Vampire Lestat, Interview With the Vampire

Complete Vampire Chronicles : The Tale of the Body Thief, the Queen of the Damned, the Vampire Lestat, Interview With the Vampire

by Anne Rice

Set includes: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, and The Tale of the Body Thief.

Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending,Egomanical, Self-Centered Smart Ass Phase

Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending,Egomanical, Self-Centered Smart Ass Phase

by Jen Lancaster

The hardcover debut from the New York Times bestselling author— the prequel to Bitter is the New Black . In Pretty in Plaid , Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be. Think Jen Lancaster was always “like David Sedaris with pearls and a... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: 1980s

by Siobahn Dowd

by David Mitchell

by Tom Wolfe

by Alan Hollinghurst

by Bret Easton Ellis

by Marsha Norman

by Toni Morrison

by John Fowles

by Stephen King

by Alice Walker

by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons

by Steven Blush

by John Updike

by Stephen M Fried

by John Updike

by Mary Gaitskill

by Don Delillo

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

by Anne Rice

by Jen Lancaster