Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Sure, there's time enough for love...but who has time enough to get through 281/2 hours of a novel as dull as this? It opens 22 centuries in the future, when the ruler of a remote colony planet tries to keep 2000-year-old Lazarus Long from committing suicide before he passes on what he has learned. What follows is a very talky book, comprised mostly of Long's reminiscences. Curious about his possible blood... (more)

Watership Down

by Richard Adams

One of the most beloved novels of our time, Richard Adams's Watership Down takes us to a world we have never truly seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the fields, forests and riverbanks far beyond our cities and towns. It is a powerful saga of courage, leadership and survival; an epic tale of a hardy band of adventurers forced to flee the destruction of their fragile community...and their trials and... (more)

Spindle's End

by Robin McKinley

In the tradition of Beauty and Rose Daughter, Newbery Award-winning author Robin McKinley "lends a fresh perspective to a classic fairy tale, developing the story of Sleeping Beauty into a richly imagined, vividly depicted novel" ( School Library Journal ) BRILLIANT...<a> sumptuous world. ( New York Times Book Review ) MYTHIC GRANDEUR...with magical detail and all-too-human feeling. ( Publishers Weekly ... (more)

The Mansion: A Novel of the Snopes Family

The Mansion: A Novel of the Snopes Family

by Michael Millgate, William Faulkner

This completes the great trilogy of the Snopes family in Yoknapatawpha and traces the downfall of this indomitable post-bellum family.

Saturnalia

by Lindsey Davis

It's 76 A.D. during the reign of Vespasian and the Roman holiday of Saturnalia has begun. The days are short; the nights are for wild parties. But not for Marcus Didius Falco. Falco is an informer by trade - his job is to uncover unwelcome truths and deal with sensitive situations, frequently at the behest of the imperial government. And just such a case has arisen. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome,... (more)

Wild Swans

Three Daughters of China

by Rowena Cooper, Jung Chang

A new edition of one of the best-selling and best-loved books of recent years. The publication of Wild Swans in 1991 was a worldwide phenomenon. Not only did it become the best-selling non-fiction book in British publishing history, with sales of well over two million, it was received with unanimous critical acclaim, and was named the winner of the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award.... (more)

Light in August

by William Faulkner

Joe Christmas does not know whether he is black or white. Faulkner makes of Joe's tragedy a powerful indictment of racism; at the same time Joe's life is a study of the divided self and becomes a symbol of 20th century man.

Lithium for Medea

by Kate Braverman

A riveting tale of addiction — to drugs, physical love, and dysfunctional family dynamics — Kate Braverman’s novel is not easily forgotten. The story is told by Rose, a woman who has spiraled downward from a string of loveless affairs and an unhappy marriage to a hallucinatory world of cocaine and cruelty that is both sensual and squalid. That Braverman is also an accomplished poet is evident in the purity of her... (more)

The Public Image (New Directions Paperbook)

The Public Image (New Directions Paperbook)

by Muriel Spark

Annabel Christopher is a goddess to her adoring Italian public, her loving husband part of her perfect image. To keep the eager sycophants, ruthless paparazzi and anxious admirers under her spell the image must be carefully cultivated. Only Annabel hasn't calculated on the plans of her husband.

Confessions of a Taoist on Wall St.

by David Payne

From the tranquillity of an Oriental monastery to the tumult of the New York Stock Exchange, the hero of this amazing novel embarks on a quest for a father, a fortune, and the ultimate essence of the universe. The illegitimate son of a Chinese woman and an American officer, he was reared as an orphan by Taoist monks. When he learns that his father may be a wealthy Wall Street entrepreneur, he feels compelled to go... (more)

Mephisto (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

Mephisto (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

by Klaus Mann

Text: German

A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese CultureIan Buruma

A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture

by Ian Buruma

Crome Yellow by Huxley, Aldous

by Aldous Huxley

Doggy Style

by Jane May

Miles is street smart, well groomed, and absolutely adorable to women, men and the occasional Yorkshire Terrier. That's because Miles is eleven pounds of very cool, very well loved dog - or at least he was, until his adopted "pack", Jen and Bob, broke up. It's all because of Chloe, the Dachshund with attitude, and her owner, Valerie, the one with her sights on Bob. If Miles could talk, he'd tell Jen and Bob to... (more)

Winters TaleMark Helprin

Winters Tale

by Mark Helprin

The Art of Racing in the Rain

by Garth Stein

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't... (more)

Wrack and Ruin: A Novel

by Don Lee

An exhilarating comic satire with the quirky energy of The Wonder Boys and Sideways . Lyndon Song, a renowned sculptor, has fled New York City to become a Brussels sprouts farmer in the small California town of Rosarita Bay. Lyndon has a brother, Woody, an indicted financier turned movie producer, and Woody has a plan, involving a golf-course resort on Lyndon's land and an aging kung-fu diva from... (more)

The Lockwood Concern

by John O'Hara

The Foreigner: A Novel

by Francie Lin

Winner of the Edgar® Award for Best First Novel by an American Author Set against the Taiwanese criminal underworld, The Foreigner is Francie Lin's audacious debut novel. A noirish tale about family, fraternity, conscience, and the curious gulf between a man's culture and his deepest self Emerson Chang is a mild mannered bachelor on the cusp of forty, a financial analyst in a neatly pressed suit, a... (more)

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (Penguin Modern Classics)

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Vladimir Nabokov

Written in mischievous and magically flowing prose, this is Nabokov's 'other' great love story; with some of Lolita's perversity and much more playfulness. Romance follows Ada and Van from their first childhood meeting through eight years of rapture, in a book which is regarded by many to be Nabokov's richest and most ambitious.

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Tags: life as a family

by Robert A. Heinlein