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The Hotel New Hampshire (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

The Hotel New Hampshire (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by John Irving

"The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels." So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry.... (more)

A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman... (more)

A Son of the Circus (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

A Son of the Circus (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by John Irving

A Hindi film star . . . an American missionary . . . twins separated at birth . . . a dwarf chauffeur . . . a serial killer . . . all are on a collision course. In the tradition of A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving's characters transcend nationality. They are misfits--coming from everywhere, belonging nowhere. Set almost entirely in India, this is John Irving's most ambitious novel and a major publishing event.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God's instrument; he is. This is John Irving's most comic novel, yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character. "Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating and darkly comic...Dickensian in scope....Quite stunning and very ambitious." LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW "John Irving is an abundantly and even joyfully talented storyteller."... (more)

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

by John Irving

"Supple and energetic as a stylist, Mr. Irving also knows just how to create in the reader's mind a vivid impression of an existing world *and just how to populate it." *The New York Times Book Review "CANDID . . . COLORFUL . . . Those who have followed John Irving's writing career will delight in his newest, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed. . . . Readers will leave this book feeling as if they have had a terrific... (more)

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 ...

The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

"AN OLD-FASHIONED, BIG-HEARTED NOVEL . . . with its epic yearning caught in the 19th century, somewhere between Trollope and Twain . . . The rich detail makes for vintage Irving." --The Boston Sunday Globe "The Cider House Rules is filled with people to love and to feel for. . . . The characters in John Irving's novel break all the rules, and yet they remain noble and free-spirited. Victims of tragedy,... (more)

The Water-Method Man

by John Irving

The main character of John Irving's second novel, written when the author was twenty-nine, is a perpetual graduate student with a birth defect in his urinary tract--and a man on the threshold of committing himself to a second marriage that bears remarkable resemblance to his first.... "Three or four times as funny as most novels." THE NEW YORKER From the Paperback edition.

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The Hotel New Hampshire (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by John Irving

A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

A Son of the Circus (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by John Irving

A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

by John Irving

The World According to Garp

by John Irving

The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

The Water-Method Man

by John Irving