Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

In this brilliantly focused and haunting portrait of the people, the politics, the land, and the poetry of Nicaragua, Salman Rushdie brings to the forefront the palpable human facts of a country in the midst of a revolution. Rushdie went to Nicaragua in 1986, harboring no preconceptions of what he might find. What he discovered was overwhelming: a culture of heroes who had turned into inanimate objects and of... (more)

The Cloud Sketcher: A Novel

by Richard Rayner

In a tiny village in Finland, Esko Vaananen is at the brink of despair -- he loves a woman he can never have. Suddenly, in the magical light of the aurora borealis, he has a vision of an impossibly tall building rising gracefully from the frozen lake and disappearing into the clouds above him. This pilvenpiirtaja -- "cloud sketcher" or skyscraper -- sparks a lifelong quest for beauty in Esko. He will pursue and... (more)

Absolute Beginners

by Colin MacInnes

London, 1958-Soho, Notting Hill . . .a world of smoky jazz clubs, coffee bars, and hip hangouts in the center of London's emerging youth culture. The young and restless--the absolute beginners--were creating a world as different as they dared from the traditional image of England's green and pleasant land. Follow our young photographer as he records the moments of a young teenager's life in the capital--sex,... (more)

The Bachelors (New Directions Classics,)

The Bachelors (New Directions Classics,)

by Muriel Spark

"Daylight was appearing over London, the great city of bachelors. Half-pint bottles of milk began to be stood at the doorsteps of houses containing single apartments from Hampstead Heath to Greenwich Park, from Wanstead Flats to Putney Heath; but especially in Hampstead, especially in Kensington." So begins Muriel Spark's supreme 1960 novel The Bachelors. Our very British bachelors come in every stripe: a... (more)

Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion

by V. S. Naipaul

Mr Stone likes to be known as Head Librarian with Excal, and dislikes the prospect of retirement. After a brief acquaintanceship with Mrs Springer, he marries her to defend himself against idleness and solitude. Then a foolproof plan strikes him, to introduce the order of the Knights Companion.

Tarzan Of The Apes: 4 Volumes In 1 (Tarzan)

Tarzan Of The Apes: 4 Volumes In 1 (Tarzan)

by Robin Moore, Harold Woods, Edgar Rice Burroughs

Set amids the vibrant colors and sounds of the savage African jungle, this classic work, rich in suspense and action, has beckoned generations of readers on a journey to romance and adventure. An exhilarating work that takes readers to that faraway place in their minds where dreams prevail.

Life During Wartime

by Lucius Shepard

David Mingolla is one of many drug-pumped grunts slugging it out in the rotten jungles of Guatemala, an expendable pawn in an endless, amoral war. Then he meets Debora, an enigmatic young woman who may be working for the enemy, and stumbles into the deadly war zone of psychic conflict where the mind is the greatest woapon, and thoughts are used to kill.

Darwinia

by Robert Charles Wilson

In 1912, history was changed by the Miracle, when the old world of Europe was replaced by Darwinia, a strange land of nightmarish jungle and antedeluvian monsters. To some, the Miracle is an act of divine retribution; to others, it is an opportunity to carve out a new empire. Leaving American now ruled by religious fundamentalism, young Guilford Law travels to Darwinia on a mission of discovery that will take him... (more)

The Cosmic Serpent

by Jeremy Narby

A personal adventure, a fascinating study of anthropology and ethnopharmacology, and, most important, a revolutionary look at how intelligence and consciousness come into being. This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences," leads the reader through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of... (more)

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The Jaguar Smile

by Salman Rushdie