Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Known for his meaty seriocomic novels, Tom Robbins’s shorter work has appeared in publications ranging from Esquire to Harper’s , from Playboy to the New York Times . Collected here for the first time in paperback, the essays, articles, observations—and even some untypical country-music lyrics—offer a rare overview of the eclectic sensibility of an American original. Whether rocking with the Doors,... (more)

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

by Tom Robbins

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government; a pacifist who carries a gun; a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy; a cyberwhiz who hates computers; a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior). Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about... (more)

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

by Tom Robbins

When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you -- an ambitious, although ineffectual and not entirely ethical young broker -- are convinced you're facing the Weekend from Hell. Before the market reopens on Monday, you're going to have to scramble and scheme to cover your butt, but there's no way you can anticipate the baffling disappearance of a 300-pound psychic, the fall from grace of a... (more)

Island of the Sequined Love Nun

by Christopher Moore

Take a wonderfully crazed excursion into the demented heart of a tropical paradise—a world of cargo cults, cannibals, mad scientists, ninjas, and talking fruit bats. Our bumbling hero is Tucker Case, a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guy's body, who makes a living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation. But when he demolishes his boss's pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, Tuck must run for... (more)

Coyote Blue

by Christopher Moore

Sam Hunter has spent twenty years escaping his past. Now it has caught up to him in the weirdest of all possible ways. As a boy growing up in Montana, he was Samson Hunts Alone -- until a deadly misunderstanding with the law forced him to flee the Crow reservation at age fifteen. Today he is a successful Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a condo and a hollow, invented life. The one day,... (more)

Midnight's Children: A Novel

by Salman Rushdie

Introduction by Anita Desai

Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology

Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology

Beginning in 1950 with Charles Olsen, Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology is the first anthology since Donald Allen’s groundbreaking collection to fully represent the movements of American avant-garde poetry. Postmodern American Poetry provides a deep and wide selection-411 poems by 103 poets-of the major poets and movements of the late twentieth century. Included are the leading Beat and New... (more)

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

by Salman Rushdie

Haroun is the son of Rashid, the greatest of all storytellers who conjures up magical worlds and brings laughter to the city of Alifbay. Then one terrible day, everything goes wrong. Haroun's father runs out of stories to tell. Haroun is determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father.

Shalimar the Clown: A Novel

by Salman Rushdie

“Dazzling . . . Modern thriller, Ramayan epic, courtroom drama, slapstick comedy, wartime adventure, political satire, village legend–they’re all blended here magnificently.” – The Washington Post Book World This is the story of Maximilian Ophuls, America’s counterterrorism chief, one of the makers of the modern world; his Kashmiri Muslim driver and subsequent killer, a mysterious figure who calls himself... (more)

Strange Pilgrims

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact. In these... (more)

The Stinky Cheese Man

by Jon Scieszka

Mixed Plate: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Mixed Plate: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

by Faye Kicknosway

Irreverent and edgy renderings of the American scene.

The Crazy School

by Cornelia Read

From the acclaimed author of A FIELD OF DARKN ESS comes another compelling novel featuring the acerbic and memorable voice of ex-debutante Madeline Dare. Madeline Dare has finally escaped rust-belt Syracuse , New York , for the lush Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts . After her husband's job offer falls through, Maddie signs on as a teacher at the Santangelo Academy , a boarding school for... (more)

The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality

The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality

This anthology examines the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality and the institutional bases for these relations. The editor's goal is to help students see race, class, gender, and sexuality as both sources of identity and systems of social stratification.

Borders Classics Gulliver's Travels

by Jonathan Swift

Skinny Legs and All

by Robbins Tom

From Publishers WeeklyIn a phantasmagorical, politically charged tale you wish would never end, Robbins holds forth--through a variety of ingenious, off-beat mouthpieces--on art (with and without caps), the Middle East, religious fanaticism of many stripes, and the seven veils of self-deception. Salome, skinny legs and all, belly-dances rapturously at Isaac & Ishmael's, a much-molested restaurant located... (more)

Prozess (The Trial)

by Franz Kafka, Willa Muir, Edwin Muir, George Steiner

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,... (more)

Much Ado About Nothing

by William Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies Each edition includes: • Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play • Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play • Scene-by-scene plot summaries • A key to famous lines and phrases • An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language • An essay by an... (more)

The Tempest

by William Shakespeare

Each edition includes: • Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play • Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play • Scene-by-scene plot summaries • A key to famous lines and phrases • An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language • An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play • Illustrations from... (more)

Twelfth Night (Folger Shakespeare Library)

Twelfth Night (Folger Shakespeare Library)

by William Shakespeare

Each edition includes: • Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play • Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play • Scene-by-scene plot summaries • A key to famous lines and phrases • An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language • An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play • Illustrations from... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: irreverent

The Short Writings of Tom Robbins

by Tom Robbins

by Tom Robbins

by Tom Robbins

by Christopher Moore

by Christopher Moore

by Salman Rushdie

by Salman Rushdie

by Salman Rushdie

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

by Jon Scieszka

by Faye Kicknosway

by Cornelia Read

by Jonathan Swift

by Robbins Tom

by Franz Kafka, Willa Muir, Edwin Muir, George Steiner

by William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare