Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts
Oct 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016
Aug 2, 2016
Jul 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2015
Darkness at noon - Sidney Koestler
Summary: Tells the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik and October Revolutionary who is cast out, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the very Soviet Union he once helped to create. The novel is set in 1938 during the Stalinist purges and Moscow show trials.
Kirkus
The Moscow trials form the pivot around which this interpretation of the spirit and logic of the Russian Revolution is built. As an interpretation it is brilliantly handled; as a novel it is almost motionless; it appeals more as an exercise in revolutionary ratiocination. Koestler, who knew several of the actual figures in the trials, has chosen a fictional Rubashov to embody the characteristics and activities of those involved. Through the period of his prison stay, we see the mentality of the revolutionist in his intellectual self-debates as he approaches a period of doubt, questioning whether the end justifies the means, whether the idea of mankind is more valid than the idea of man. For this breach of faith he is executed. Many serious studies have been made of the trials; this novel comes as near the sense of truth as any of them. The market, however, is limited. (Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 1941)
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Sep 8, 2015
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Summary: A poignant portrayal of the thoughts and events that comprise one day in a woman's life.
"Mrs. Dalloway was the first novel to split the atom. If the novel before Mrs. Dalloway aspired to immensities of scope and scale, to heroic journeys across vast landscapes, with Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf insisted that it could also locate the enormous within the everyday; that a life of errands and party-giving was every bit as viable a subject as any life lived anywhere; and that should any human act in any novel seem unimportant, it has merely been inadequately observed. The novel as an art form has not been the same since.
"Mrs. Dalloway also contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century."
--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
- (Houghton)
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Jun 1, 2015
Cry, the beloved country - Alan Paton
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, “We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony.”
Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man. - (Simon and Schuster)
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Apr 1, 2015
Brave new world - Aldous Huxley
Summary: Huxley's vision of the future comes to life in his astonishing 1931 novel Brave New World--a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering--and its sequel, written thirty years after his classic novel of the future, in which Huxley describes the shocking scientific devices and techniques available to any group in a position to manipulate society.
Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom.
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1984 - George Orwell
Summary: In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
- (Houghton)
"1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present." -- Lionel Trilling 1949
"The most solid, the most brilliant, thing George Orwell has done." -- V.S. Pritchett
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Feb 5, 2015
The rainbow - D.H. Lawrence
Summary: Set in the rural Midlands of England, The Rainbow (1915) revolves around three generations of the Brangwens, a strong, vigorous family, deeply involved with the land. When Tom Brangwen marries a Polish widow, Lydia Lensky, and adopts her daughter Anna as his own, he is unprepared for the passion that erupts between them. All are seeking individual fulfillment, but it is Ursula, Anna's spirited daughter, who, in her search for self-knowledge, rejects the traditional role of womanhood.
In his introduction, James Wood discusses Lawrence's writing style and the tensions and themes of The Rainbow. This Penguin edition reproduces the Cambridge text, which provides a text as close as possible to Lawrence's original. It also includes suggested further reading, a fragment of 'The Sisters II' from his first draft, and chronologies of Lawrence's life and of The Rainbow's Brangwen family. - (Blackwell North Amer)
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Jul 1, 2014
The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Ovid
The Metamorphoses of Ovid - OvidSummary: First published in 8 A.D. when he was 52, Ovid's epic poem contains profoundly entertaining tales of Adonis, Midas, Apollo, Icarus, and many others. -Amazon
Library Journal Reviews
Slavitt's new translation of Ovid's masterpiece is a joy to read, taking a place beside the recent translation of Allen Mandelbaum (LJ 11/1/93) as well as those of May M. Innes (Penguin, 1955) and Rolfe Humphries (Indiana Univ. Pr., 1955). While Mandelbaum and Slavitt are good poets who work to preserve the poetry in their translations, the former is more accurate and the latter smoother and more fluent. Slavitt renders Ovid's witty verse narrative into modern idiomatic English, making it contemporary without relying on informality or losing the elegance of the original. If his diction and reworking of passages are not always faithful to the original, they are true to the original's tone and spirit. As such, while Mandelbaum is perhaps better for the serious student of classical literature (with or without Latin), Slavitt is a better introduction to the pleasures of Ovid for the general reader.
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Oct 1, 2013
The complete tales & poems of Edgar Allen Poe - Edgar Allen Poe
Summary: Features a comprehensive collection of the author's works, including such classics as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Raven" and lesser-known works such as "Loss of Breath" and "Spirits of the Dead." - (Baker & Taylor)
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Sep 1, 2013
A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
A tree grows in Brooklyn - Smith, Betty
Summary: Armed with her idealism and determination, young Francie Nolan struggles to escape from the poverty of life in a Brooklyn tenement during the early 1900s. Reprint. - (Baker & Taylor)
Kirkus Review
/* Starred Review */ "A first novel of unusual quality and understanding, written with strong realism and compassion, sometimes bald, always human, this rightfully ranks with the Farrell genre, though, to my thinking, there is better balance and more sympathy. The slums of Brooklyn, and the Irish Catholics, form the setting for the story of Francie Nolan and her family:- Johnny, her father, handsome and shiftless; Katie, her mother, hardening under years of poverty and improvidence; Neeley, Katie's favorite child; Aunt Sissy, a good "bad woman", and chiefly Francie herself, gentle, shy, imaginative. The reader shares her humiliations at school, loss of face and pride her real sorrow when her father drinks himself to death; her ambition for a college education, thwarted when she must go to work at 14; her first love affair and disillusionment. Lusty -- sometimes funny -- consistently moving, this is a book for a discriminating public, not too tender skinned... Betty Smith is more than a "promising young author". A Harper "Find". (Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1943)
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Aug 1, 2013
Crime and punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Summary: Raskolnikov commits murder. He then must deal both with the police, and his own guilty conscience. Determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammelled individual will, Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the Tsars, commits an act of murder and theft and sets into motion a story which, for its excrutiating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, and its profundity of characterization and vision, is almost unequaled in the literatures of the world. The best known of Dostoevsky's masterpieces, Crime and Punishment can bear any amount of rereading without losing a drop of its power over our imagination.
Magill Book Review
Raskolnikov, an impoverished law student, plans to commit the perfect crime by murdering an old female pawnbroker. He hopes to gain money for himself and others and to demonstrate that he belongs to the portion of mankind not subject to conventional morality. Having studied the careers of men such as Napoleon Bonaparte, he embraces the theory that an elitist few are justified in pursuing their objectives through any means.No sooner is the murder committed than events begin to call his theory into question. When the pawnbroker's half sister arrives unexpectedly, Raskolnikov kills her also. In his haste and confusion, he overlooks most of the money and is unable to use the small amount he does take. Following the crime, he rapidly sinks into physical and mental illness.As the hero experiences intense guilt, other characters influence the course of his expiation. The cunning detective Porfiry discovers the truth early but waits until Raskolnikov is ready to accuse himself. Raskolnikov eventually realizes that he must choose one of two alternatives--confession or suicide.Characters such as Luzhin and the sensual Svidrigailov defeat themselves by exploiting others for their own selfish ends. Svidrigailov's suicide demonstrates to Raskolnikov the futility of egoism. Other characters--Raskolnikov's sister, Dounia, his friend Razumihin, and Sonia, a young prostitute--willingly sacrifice themselves and suffer for others. Aided by Sonia, who grows to love him, Raskolnikov chooses life, confession, and punishment, without, however, achieving true repentance.An intense psychological account, the narrative presents thoughts and emotions from each character's point of view. When the character is confused, the reader is also, for no authorial voice intrudes to clarify the situation. Unable to understand his own motives for the crime, the protagonist recognizes that one risks psychic disintegration by sweeping aside traditional morality.
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A wrinkle in time - Madeleine L'Engle
A wrinkle in time - Madeleine L'Engle
Summary: Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and in a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government.
Kirkus Review
An allegorical fantasy in which a group of young people are guided through the universe by Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which and Mrs. What -- women who possess supernatural powers. They traverse fictitious regions, meet and face evil and demonstrate courage at the right moment. Religious allusions are secondary to the philosophical struggle designed to yield the meaning of life and one's place on earth. Young Meg's willingness to face IT in the form of a black east in order to save a dear friend is one sign of her growing awareness. Readers who relish symbolic reference may find this trip through time and space an exhilarating experience the rest will be forced to ponder the double entendres. (Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1962)
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May 1, 2013
From the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konigsburg
Summary: Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.
Kirkus
/* Starred Review */ Elaine Konigsburg's first sharp bite of suburban life, Jennifer, He- cate, Macbeth...(131, J-43) was a dilly; this one's a dandy--just as fast and fresh and funny, but less spoofing, more penetrating. From the files of Mrs. Frankweiler comes the chronicle of Claudia Kincaid, almost twelve, and her brother Jamie, who is nine. Tired of being her same old taken-for-granted self, Claudia decides to run away, and Jamie goes along because he is flattered at being asked. Claudia has planned every detail: escape on the empty school bus, change of clothing in a violin case, sanctuary in the Metropolitan Museum. For a week the children elude the guards and exploit the opportunities of the museum: they sleep in a royal bed, bathe in the cafeteria pool, and pass part of each day in study on the fringe of lecture tours. Midweek, a marble angel of dubious origin arrives; Claudia is convinced that it is a Michelangelo and determines to prove it: she will authenticate Angel and become a heroine before going home. But no--by arrangement of Mrs. Frankweiler, she goes home a heroine only to herself (and happy); and she knows something about secrets she hadn't known before--they have to come to an end... Like the title, Mrs. Frankweiler is a bit of a nuisance; and an offhand, rather bemused reference to dope addiction is unnecessary but not inappropriate. What matters is that beyond the intriguing central situation and its ingenious, very natural development, there's a deepening rapport between their parents; "we're well trained (and sure of ourselves)...just look how nicely we've managed. It's really they're fault if we're not homesick." There may be a run on the Metropolitan (a map is provided); there will surely be a run on the book. (Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1967)
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