Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Capote's riveting re-creation of events surrounding the 1959 murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, covers the subsequent police investigation and the capture, trial, and execution of the two young murderers. 2 cassettes.

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. This is a lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this story - a black man charged with raping a white girl in the Deep South of the 1930s. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a staple of American literature and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name.

The Catcher in the Rye

by J. D. Salinger

Ever since it was first published in 1951, this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by generations, the story of Holden Caulfield is truly one of America's literary treasures.

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Noted Fitzgerald biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli draws upon years of research to present the Fitzgerald's Jazz Age romance exactly as he intended according to the original manuscript, revisions, and corrections--with explanatory notes. Reprint.

Animal Farm

by George Orwell

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned - a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first... (more)

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses... (more)

Ulysses

by Danis Rose, Hans Walter Gabler, Claus Melchior, Wolfhard Steppe, James Joyce, Jeri Johnson

This revised volume follows the complete unabridged text as corrected in 1961. Contains the original foreword by the author and the historic court ruling to remove the federal ban. It also contains page references to the first American edition of 1934.

The Call of the Wild

by Jack London

In this quintessential adventure story, Jack London takes readers on an arduous journey through the forbidding Alaskan landscape during the gold rush of the 1890s. Buck, a rangy mixed breed used to a comfortable, sun-filled life as a family dog, is stolen by a greedy opportunist and sold to dog traffickers. In no time, Buck finds himself on a team of sled dogs run ragged in the harsh winter of the Klondike. In a... (more)

Slaughterhouse-Five

Or, the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death

by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simulta

The World According to Garp

by John Irving

The World According to Garp is a comic and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation. A worldwide bestseller ...

Invisible Man: A Novel

by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the... (more)

My Antonia

by Willa Cather

Willa Cather, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, considered My Ãntonia to be one of her best works, and critic H.L. Mencken claimed it was one of the best American novels ever written. Published in 1918, the novel compassionately and intimately traces the story of a Bohemian family as they settle on the Great Plains in Nebraska. This American classic is still lauded internationally by scholars and everyday... (more)

Lolita

by Vladimir Nabokov

The hilarious and tragic story of Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man who feels passion only for the young "nymphet" Dolores Haze, whom he renames Lolita.

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.

A Passage to India

by E. M. Forster

Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair.

Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

14.5 Million copies sold to date The classic, startling, and perennially bestselling portrait of human nature-now available as a Premium Edition with a stunning new cover and re-set, easy-to-read text.

Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was first published in 1899 in serial form in London’s Blackwood’s Magazine. Loosely based on Conrad’s firsthand experience of rescuing a company agent from a remote station in the heart of the Congo, the novel is considered a literary bridge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With its modern literary approach to questions such as the ambiguous nature of good and... (more)

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.

The Lord of the Rings: Book 2

The Two Towers

Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings

by J. R. R. Tolkien

The second volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings "Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron." -- C. S. Lewis "Among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century. The book presents us with the richest profusion of new lands and new creatures, from the beauty of Lothlorien to the horror of Mordor, adventures to hold us spell-bound, and words... (more)

The Lord of the Rings: Book 3

The Return of the King

Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings

by J. R. R. Tolkien

The third volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings "An extraordinary work -- pure excitement." -- New York Times Book Review "A triumphant close...a grand piece of work, grand in both conception and execution. An astonishing imaginative tour de force." -- Daily Telegraph One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them As the... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: modern library top 100

by Truman Capote

by Harper Lee

by J. D. Salinger

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

by George Orwell

by Aldous Huxley

by Danis Rose, Hans Walter Gabler, Claus Melchior, Wolfhard Steppe, James Joyce, Jeri Johnson

by Jack London

Or, the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death

by Kurt Vonnegut

by John Irving

by Ralph Ellison

by Willa Cather

by Vladimir Nabokov

by Don Delillo

by E. M. Forster

by William Golding

by Joseph Conrad

by Ken Kesey

Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings

by J. R. R. Tolkien

Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings

by J. R. R. Tolkien