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The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.This is Susie Salmon. Watching from heaven, Susie sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with... (more)
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Everything Is Illuminated
by Jonathan Safran Foer
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man — also named Jonathan Safran Foer — sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis Junior Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic... (more)
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
An inmate of a mental institution tries to find the freedom and independence denied him in the outside world.
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1984
by George Orwell
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, 1984 is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life — the ubiquity of television, the... (more)
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The Chocolate War: Book 1
The Chocolate War
by Robert Cormier
IN 1974, AFTER SUFFERING rejections from seven major publishers, The Chocolate War made its debut. An uncompromising portrait of conformity and corruption, it quickly became a bestselling—and provocative—classic for young adults. “Masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well crafted, well timed, suspenseful.”— The New York Times Book Review “The characterizations of all the boys are... (more)
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Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring. In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall. At least, that's what it seems to be. Until one day, when Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only it's... (more)
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On the Beach
by Nevil Shute
They are the last generation, the innocent victims of an accidental war, living out their last days, making do with what they have, hoping for a miracle. As the deadly rain moves ever closer, the world as we know it winds toward an inevitable end...
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Tokyo Cancelled
by Rana Dasgupta
Thirteen passengers are stranded at an airport. Tokyo, their destination, is covered in snow and all flights are cancelled. To pass the night they form a huddle by the silent baggage carousels and tell one another stories. Thus begins Rana Dasgupta's Canterbury Tales for our times. In the spirit of Borges and Calvino, Dasgupta's writing combines an energetically modern landscape with a timeless, beguiling... (more)
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Rant
The Oral History of Buster Casey
by Chuck Palahniuk
“Like most people I didn’t meet Rant Casey until after he was dead. That’s how it works for most celebrities: After they croak, their circle of friends just explodes.…” Rant is the mind-bending new novel from Chuck Palahniuk, the literary provocateur responsible for such books as the generation-defining classic Fight Club and the pedal-to-the-metal horrorfest Haunted . It takes the form of an oral history... (more)
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The Sorrow of War
by Bảo Ninh
A novel of the Vietnam War is written from the perspective of the North Vietnamese, profiles human characters who are wrenched by the same pain and fear as their enemies, and follows the hero's ten-year separation from his loved ones. Reprint. NYT.
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Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the World's Most Wanted Militants
by Phil Rees
Featuring a brand new chapter on 7/7, this fiercely intelligent expose is the culmination of twenty years' research. By infiltrating the most inaccessible political resistance groups, hardened reporter Phil Rees has sought to understand what motivates the 'terrorist' or 'freedom fighter' and to weigh this against current world events and the sweeping power of US military might. In his discussions with groups in... (more)
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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
And Other Stories
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr. Jekyll has been experimenting with identity. He has developed a drug which separates the two sides of his nature, allowing him to abandon himself to his most corrupt inclinations as the monstrous Mr. Hyde. But gradually the journey back to goodness becomes more and more difficult, and the risk that Mr. Hyde will break free from Dr. Jekyll’s control puts all of London in grave peril. This groundbreaking tale of... (more)
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Tall Man
The Death of Doomadgee
by Chloe Hooper
In 2004 on Palm Island, an Aboriginal settlement in the "Deep North" of Australia, a thirty-six-year-old man named Cameron Doomadgee was arrested for swearing at a white police officer. Forty minutes later he was dead in the jailhouse. The police claimed he'd tripped on a step, but his liver was ruptured. The main suspect was Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, a charismatic cop with long experience in Aboriginal... (more)
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Night Trilogy: Book 1
Night
by Elie Wiesel
Original Yiddish title: Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (And the World Remained Silent), 1955; rewritten in French in 1958 as "La Nuit"; original 1960 translation from French into English by Stella Rodway; later translated anew from French into English by the author's wife, Marion WieselNight, masterpiece of Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, is a... (more)
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The Crucible
by Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller also wrote the screenplay for the 1992 movie starring Daniel Day Lewis and Winona Rider. The film features a scene (between John and Abigail) that was deleted from the original production.
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Maus: A Survivor's Tale
The Complete Maus
by Art Spiegelman
Combined for the first time here are Maus I: A Survivor's Tale and Maus II — the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival — and how the children of survivors are in their own... (more)