Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Red Sky at Morning: A Novel (Perennial Classics)

Red Sky at Morning: A Novel (Perennial Classics)

by Richard Bradford

The classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count.

Hugh Laurie concocts an uproarious cocktail of comic zingers and over-the-top action in this "ripping spoof of the spy genre" (Vanity Fair) -- the irresistible tale of a former Scots Guard-turned-hired gun, a freelance soldier of fortune who also happens to be one heck of a nice guy. Cold-blooded murder just isn't Thomas Lang's cup of tea. Offered a bundle to assassinate an American industrialist, he opts to... (more)

Cutter and Bone (Midnight Classics)

by Newton Thornburg

A thriller, and a whacking good thriller, too-shows how much can be done by a writer who knows his business-the best novel of its kind in ten years!- New York Times First published in 1976, Cutter and Bone is the story of the obsession of Cutter, a scarred and crippled Vietnam veteran and his attempt to convince his buddy, Bone, that the latter witnessed a murder committed by the conglomerate tycoon, JJ... (more)

The Benchley Roundup: A Selection by Nathaniel Benchley of his Favorites

The Benchley Roundup: A Selection by Nathaniel Benchley of his Favorites

by Robert Benchley

Robert C. Benchley's sketches and articles, published in periodicals like Life , Vanity Fair , and The New Yorker , earned him a reputation as one of the sharpest humorists of his time; his influence—on contemporaries such as E. B. White, James Thurber, and S. J. Perelman, or followers like Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Richard Pryor—has left an indelible mark on the American comic tradition. The Benchley... (more)

Norwood: Library Edition

by Charles Portis

This is the second installment in Overlook's planned four-volume series of Portis reissues. Portis made his debut into the book world with this 1966 first novel, which many insist is his best. LJ's reviewer found the book more character- than plot-driven but nonetheless enjoyed it. (LJ 8/66) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Staying On: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction Series)

Staying On: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction Series)

by Paul Scott, Geraldine James

Instead of returning “home” when he retired, Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, and his wife Lily chose to remain in the small hill town of Pangkot with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire.

Night Of The Jabberwock

by Fredric Brown

This sharp, ironic, tightly written thriller takes place during a single night, during which our narrator, editor of a small-city newspaper, shows what stuff journalists were made of then by consuming a truly epic amount of alcohol and unweaving an artfully tangled web.

The Queen's Gambit: A Novel

by Walter Tevis

Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as she hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her... (more)

Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

by Max Shulman

Not exactly a household word, Max Shulman is nonetheless one of the great stealth writers in American pop culture. He cowrote The Tender Trap , which became a big-screen vehicle for Frank Sinatra, and his hilarious, Elvis-intensive satire Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! also made it to Hollywood, pairing the young Paul Newman with the equally young Joanne Woodward. Shulman's best-known creation, however,... (more)

Okla Hannali

by R. A. Lafferty

He was a farmer, a blacksmith, a boatbuilder, a ferryman, a distiller, a tanner, and teh founder of an estate that was a town. He waited a long time to get married, but, when he did, he married three women of three different races on three successive days. He was a civilized man who sometimes painted his face and body and whooped and hollered with the loudest of them. And when he was in his nineties and he decided... (more)

Wake Up, Stupid

by Mark Harris

Edwin Mullhouse

by Steven Millhauser

Fifth Business (Penguin Classics)

by Robertson Davies

Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent... (more)

Auntie Mame

by Patrick Dennis

Wildly successful when it was first published in 1955, Patrick Dennis’ Auntie Mame sold over two million copies and stayed put on the New York Times bestseller list for 112 weeks. It was made into a play, a Broadway as well as a Hollywood musical, and a fabulous movie starring Rosalind Russell. Since then, Mame has taken her rightful place in the pantheon of Great and Important People as the world’s most... (more)

The Razor's Edge

by W. Somerset Maugham

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters - his fiancée Isabel whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliott Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. Maugham himself wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their... (more)

Adrian Mole: The Lost Years

by Sue Townsend

The Collected Stories of Chester Himes

by Chester Himes

Spanning 40 years and including Himes's first work, written during his imprisonment in the 1940s, this collection uncovers the internal struggles of black individuals caught between resignation and rage, probing the heart of the African-American experience with wit, indignation, and ruthless honesty.

Life among the Savages

by Shirley Jackson

One of America's most celebrated writers takes you home to a family and a small town so funny and unpredictable, you'd wish it were your own. "As warm as it is hilarious and believable . . . Never has the state of domestic chaos been so perfectly illuminated."--The New York Times Book Review.

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