Best of
Abandoned
1956
My Family and Other Animals
Gerald Durrell - 1956
My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.
The Silver Chair and The Last Battle
C.S. Lewis - 1956
. . where owls are wise, where some of the giants like to snack on humans (and, if carefully cooked, on Marsh-wiggles, too), where a prince is put under an evil spell . . . and where the adventure begins. Eustace and Jill escape from the bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor . . . or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face to face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rilian is to be saved. Enter this enchanged world countless times in The Chronicles of Narnia. The Last Battle:The last battle is the greatest of all battles.Narnia ... where lies breed fear ... where loyalty is tested ... where all hope seems lost.During the last days of Narnia, the land faces its fiercest challenge -- not an invader from without but an enemy from within. Lies and treachery have taken root, and only the king and a small band of loyal followers can prevent the destruction of all they hold dear in this, the magnificent ending to The Chronicles of Narnia.
The Outsider
Colin Wilson - 1956
First published over forty years ago, it made its youthful author England's most controversial intellectual. The Outsider is an individual engaged in an intense self-exploration-a person who lives at the edge, challenges cultural values & "stands for Truth." Born into a world without perspective, where others simply drift thru life, the Outsider creates his own set of rules & lives them in an unsympathetic environment. The relative handful of people who fulfilled Wilson's definition of the Outsider in the 1950s have now become a significant social force, making Wilson's vision more relevant today than ever. Thru the works & lives of various artists--including Kafka, Camus, Eliot, Hemingway, Hesse, Lawrence, Van Gogh, Nijinsky, Shaw, Blake, Nietzsche & Dostoyevski--Wilson explores the psyche of the Outsider, his effect on society & society's effect on him. Wilson illuminates the struggle of those who seek not only the transformation of Self but also the transformation of society as a whole. The book is essential for everyone who shares his conviction that "a new religion is needed".
Compulsion
Meyer Levin - 1956
Artie is handsome, athletic, and popular, but he possesses a hidden, powerful sadistic streak and a desire to dominate. Judd is a weedy introvert, a genius who longs for a companion whom he can idolize and worship. Obsessed with Nietzsche’s idea of the superhuman, both boys decide to prove that they are above the laws of man by arbitrarily picking and murdering a Jewish boy in their neighborhood.This new edition of Meyer Levin's classic literary thriller Compulsion reintroduces the fictionalized case of Leopold and Loeb – once considered the "crime of the century" – to a new generation. This incisive psychological portrait of two young murderers seized the imagination of an era and is generally recognized as paving the way for the first non-fiction novel. Compulsion forces us to ask what drives some further into darkness, and some to seek redemption.Heartbreaking as it is gripping, Compulsion is written with a tense and penetrating force that led the Los Angeles Times to call Levin, “the most significant Jewish writer of his times.”
A Walk on the Wild Side
Nelson Algren - 1956
As Algren admitted, it wasn't written until long after it had been walked... I found my way to the streets on the other side of the Southern Pacific station, where the big jukes were singing something called "Walking the Wild Side of Life." I've stayed pretty much on that side of the curb ever since".Perhaps his own words describe the book best: The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind.Cover Photograph: Jason Fulford
My Five Tigers: The Cats in My Life
Lloyd Alexander - 1956
Each with their own personality, Alexander's perceptive and amusing look at these cats with appeal to anyone who has ever given their love to one. Captures the essence of the cat's peculiar fascination for so many of us.
The Fat of the Land
Vilhjálmur Stefánsson - 1956
He noted their general healthiness (and good teeth), and an absence of many of the diseases that plagued western cultures, such as scurvy, heart disease, and diabetes. Observing their dietary habits, he determined that their primary food was meat, both lean and fatty, and that their diets were very low in sugary or starchy carbohydrates. Was this meaty diet the key to their good health?The book chronicles a 1928 scientific experiment, conducted by the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, in which Stefansson and his colleague Dr. Karsten Andersen ate a meat-only diet for one year. The two men stayed healthy and fared very well, leading him to claim that we should reexamine our notion of what foods constitute a healthy diet.Later chapters promote the benefits of pemmican, a compact, portable, and high-energy food consisting of a concentrated mix of fat and protein made from dried lean bison meat, sometimes mixed with berries. Pemmican is like the original energy bar, and Stefansson spent considerable time and energy urging the military to adopt it for emergency rations.
Over Seventy
P.G. Wodehouse - 1956
Wodehouse is recognized as the greatest English comic writer of the twentieth century, rightly admired throughout the world and translated into more than thirty languages. Launched on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, this series presents each Overlook Wodehouse as the finest edition of the master’s work ever published—beautifully designed and faithful to the original.Over Seventy is an “autobiography with digressions” (Wodehouse’s own words again), rich with the master’s reflections on America, his adopted home.
The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism
Louis Bouyer - 1956
Louis Bouyer Rev. Bouyer shows the principles such as free and unmerited salvation, the sovereignty of God, justification by faith, and the sovereignty of Holy Scripture that inspired many 16th century Protestant reformers. He also discusses the weakening elements, such as denial of objective value of the sacraments, as well as opposition between scripture and apostolic tradition, and between scripture and church authority. This book challenges Catholics and Protestants, alike, to understand essentials which both divide and unite them.
Essential Welty: Why I Live at the P.O., A Memory, Powerhouse and Petrified Man
Eudora Welty - 1956
In her sweetly vibrant Mississippi drawl, Ms. Welty deftly draws the listener in to the uproariously multilayered "Why I Live at the P.O.," the spontaneous "Powerhouse" and the insightful voice of women's truths in "Petrified Man." Ms. Welty's reading brings immediacy and resonance to these wonderful tales.