Best of
Fiction

1964

The Giving Tree


Shel Silverstein - 1964
    But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.

The Famous Five Collection 1: Books 1-3


Enid Blyton - 1964
    Someone else has joined the treasure hunt.Five Go Adventuring AgainA thief at Kirrin Cottage! Who can it be? The Famous Five think they know - but they need proof! Then they find an old map and an unusual hiding place ...Five Run Away TogetherWho's been on George's Island? And what is locked in the mysterious trunk hidden on Kirrin Island? The Famous Five think they're on the trail of smugglers - until they hear a child scream ...This 70th anniversary edition features the Classic editions of the first three Famous Five adventures in one volume and contains the original cover art and inside drawings by Eileen Soper.

Sometimes a Great Notion


Ken Kesey - 1964
     Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.

Little Big Man


Thomas Berger - 1964
    As a "human being", as the Cheyenne called their own, he won the name Little Big Man. He dressed in skins, feasted on dog, loved four wives and saw his people butchered by the horse soldiers of General Custer, the man he had sworn to kill.As a white man, Crabb hunted buffalo, tangled with Wyatt Earp, cheated Wild Bill Hickok and survived the Battle of Little Bighorn. Part-farcical, part-historical, the picaresque adventures of this witty, wily mythomaniac claimed the Wild West as the stuff of serious literature.

When the Lion Feeds


Wilbur Smith - 1964
    The first part of the book deals with his childhood and youth and his longing to become a successful farmer and hard-hitting fighter like his father.The tough life of cattle-farming is brusquely interrupted by the Zulu Wars, when Sean and his brother see fighting for the first time. Wilbur Smith vividly recreates the excitement of the war for the young men-their hope of winning their own cattle, the horror of the massacre at Isandhlwana, the heroism of the defence at Rorkes Drift.'Witwatersrand' is the name of the second part of this book and it tells the story of Sean's fabulous success in the gold rush and his rich life with Duff Charleywood and the beautiful Candy in the new town of Johannesburg, where huge fortunes were made and lost in a morning's dealing on the Exchange.The atmosphere of this feverish, violent time is brilliantly drawn: the heavy drinking, the elaborate houses, the ruthless abandonment of the failure. Sean and Duff are caught at last in a trap laid by their rival, the sinister and clever Hradsky, and leave Johannesburg for the wilderness to seek their fortunes once more.And now the book moves to its climax. At last it seems as though Sean will settle to a quiet married life – but fate has other plans for him. They return to Johannesburg and tragedy strikes quickly. Sean finds himself alone once more...Filled with action scenes in war and the early heady days of the gold rush, and adventure among the vast game herds of the African wilderness, this novel is dominated by the towering compelling personality of Sean, whose life story is continued in The Sound of Thunder and A Sparrow Falls.

Julian


Gore Vidal - 1964
    for ISBN 037572706X.The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels.Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshiping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.

White Stallion of Lipizza


Marguerite Henry - 1964
    But coming from a family of bakers, Hans is discouraged from ever becoming a rider. That is, until the day he is invited to watch the extraordinary Ballet of Lipizzaners -- from the Imperial Box! -- and his life is changed forever.Marguerite Henry artfully weaves authentic details about the skillful training of both horse and rider, as she unfolds the story of Hans and his beloved Lipizzan stallion, Borina.The brilliance of Hans's dazzling public performances and his devotion to the art of classical riding make this story uniquely rich in history and horsemanship -- a story to be treasured by horse lovers of all ages.

The Land Breakers


John Ehle - 1964
    Five years of struggle to create a community ensue, in which part of the struggle is just to survive. This is the story of late 18th century life in an untamed country.

Sjakie en de chocoladefabriek


Roald Dahl - 1964
    And the winners are: Augustus Gloop, an enormously fat boy whose hobby is eating; Veruca Salt, a spoiled-rotten brat whose parents are wrapped around her little finger; Violet Beauregarde, a dim-witted gum-chewer with the fastest jaws around; Mike Teavee, a toy pistol-toting gangster-in-training who is obsessed with television; and Charlie Bucket, Our Hero, a boy who is honest and kind, brave and true, and good and ready for the wildest time of his life!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory


Roald Dahl - 1964
    Willy Wonka's precious Golden Tickets and wins a whole day inside the mysterious chocolate factory. Little does he know the surprises that are in store for him!(back cover)

A Different Drummer


William Melvin Kelley - 1964
    Set in a mythical backwater Southern town, A Different Drummer is the extraordinary story of Tucker Caliban, a quiet, determined descendant of an African chief who for no apparent reason destroys his farm and heads for parts unknown--setting off a mass exodus of the state's entire Black population.Nearly three decades offer its first publication, A Different Drummer remains one of the most trenchant, imaginative, and hard-hitting works of fiction to come out of the bitter struggle for African-American civil rights.

A Confederate General from Big Sur / Dreaming of Babylon / The Hawkline Monster


Richard Brautigan - 1964
    Richard Brautigan was the author of ten novels, including a contemporary classic, Trout Fishing in America, nine volumes of poetry, and a collection of stories.Here are three Brautigan novels--A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon and The Hawkline Monster--reissues in a one-volume omnibus edition.

The Pushcart War


Jean Merrill - 1964
    There were so many trucks making deliveries that it might take an hour for a car to travel a few blocks. People blamed the truck owners and the truck owners blamed the little wooden pushcarts that traveled the city selling everything from flowers to hot dogs. Behind closed doors the truck owners declared war on the pushcart peddlers. Carts were smashed from Chinatown to Chelsea. The peddlers didn’t have money or the mayor on their side, but that didn’t stop them from fighting back. They used pea shooters to blow tacks into the tires of trucks, they outwitted the police, and they marched right up to the grilles of those giant trucks and dared them to drive down their streets. Today, thanks to the ingenuity of the pushcart peddlers, the streets belong to the people—and to the pushcarts.The Pushcart War was first published more than fifty years ago. It has inspired generations of children and been adapted for television, radio, and the stage around the world. It was included on School Library Journal’s list of One Hundred Books That Shaped the Twentieth Century, and its assertion that a committed group of men and women can prevail against a powerful force is as relevant in the twenty-first century as it was in 1964.

King Stakh's Wild Hunt


Uladzimir Karatkevich - 1964
    Offered refuge by Nadzeya, the last in the Yanovskys’ line, he learns of the family curse and terrible apparitions that portend her early death and trap her in permanent, maddening fear.As Belaretsky begins to unravel the secrets of the Yanovskys, he himself becomes quarry of the Wild Hunt, silent phantoms who stalk the marshes on horseback and deliver death to all who cross their path. He must uncover the truth behind the ghostly hunt to release Nadzeya from her fate and undo the curse that hangs over the marshes.A jewel of Belarusian classic literature, King Stakh's Wild Hunt is one of Karatkevich's most critically acclaimed works that also inspired a 1979 film adaptation. Based on an ancient European legend, this suspense masterpiece taps into the imagery of the country’s rich cultural heritage to offer both a haunting piece of gothic intrigue as well as a profound meditation on the destiny of the Belarusian people.

The Invincible


Stanisław Lem - 1964
    The Invincible originally appeared as the title story in Lem's collection Niezwyciężony i inne opowiadania ("The Invincible and Other Stories"). A translation into German was published in 1967; an English translation by Wendayne Ackerman, based on the German one, was published in 1973. An interstellar 2nd-class cruiser called Invincible, lands on Regis III, a planet that seems bleakly uninhabited. Invincible, and crew, are there to investigate the loss of sister ship, Condor.While maintaining the highest security measures, the crew begins searching for the lost Condor. Meanwhile, scientists start researching the planet, trying to identify sources of potential danger. During the search for the lost ship unknown structures are discovered, probably forming the equivalent of an Earth city. While a group of explorers scouts out the ruins, the Condor is found three hundred kilometers away (roughly 186 miles away).

Hard Rain Falling


Don Carpenter - 1964
    The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black runaway and pool hustler extraordinaire. A heist gone wrong gets Jack sent to reform school, from which he emerges embittered by abuse and solitary confinement. In the meantime Billy has joined the middle class: married, fathered a son, acquired a business and a mistress. But neither Jack nor Billy can escape their troubled pasts, and they will meet again in San Quentin before their strange double drama comes to a violent and revelatory end.

The Passion According to G.H.


Clarice Lispector - 1964
    Availing herself of a single character, Lispector transforms a banal situation—a woman at home, alone—into an amphitheater for philosophical investigations. The first-person narration jousts with language, playfully but forcefully examining the ambiguous nature of words, with results ranging from the profound to the pretentious: "Prehuman divine life is a life of singeing nowness" or "The world interdepended with me, and I am not understanding what I say, never! never again shall I understand what I say. For how will I be able to speak without the word lying for me?" These linguistic games frame existential and experiential crises that Lispector savors and overcomes. Although this idiosyncratic novel will not have wider appeal, those with academic or markedly erudite tastes should find much to savour.

Katherine Wentworth


D.E. Stevenson - 1964
    Stevenson's characteristic freshness and charm.The thirty-ninth novel from the beloved author of The Blue Sapphire, Bel Lamington, and Fletcher's Eng -- this new work centers around Katherine Wentworth, married at the age of nineteen to a man with whom she was very much in love. Widowed after only four years of happiness with Gerald, Katherine is left to bring up her stepson, Simon, as well as her own twins, Daisy and Denis.Katherine's struggle to raise her children wisely is one which will move every reader deeply. Told in first person, the story sensitively evokes the personality of Katherine's husband, whose many outstanding qualities are now perpetuated in his children. When Simon, growing to manhood, suddenly becomes heir to the family fortunes, he faces the difficult decision of either moving to the estate of his domineering grandfather or giving up the inheritance to remain free, as his father did before him.While Simon wrestles with his problem, Katherine finds romance entering her life in the person of Alec Maclaren, the brother of an old friend. Thrown together on a vacation in the Scottish Highlands, the two realize in each other's company a new zest for living, and soon Katherine is faced with a future that promises she will no longer be alone.As in her many other works, D.E. Stevenson has again created a realistic world of warm, believable people whose company brings delight to the reader.~~from the dust jacket flaps

The African Trilogy


Chinua Achebe - 1964
    Picador 1988, the famous African Trilogy by the recently late Chinua Achebe, 'the man whose writing redefined Colonialism' Achebe was a towering literary figure whose work always repays the reader.

Linnets and Valerians


Elizabeth Goudge - 1964
    Locked away in separate rooms as punishment by their ruthless grandmother, the Linnets feel at once that their new life is unbearable—and decide to make their escape—out of the house, out of the garden and into the village. Commandeering a pony and trap, the children and their dog are led away as the pony makes his way nonchalantly home. The pony’s destination happens to be a house that belongs to their gruff but loveable uncle Ambrose. The kindly uncle Ambrose agrees to take them under his wing, he educates them and encourages them to explore Dartmoor, letting the children have free rein in his sprawling manor house and surrounding countryside.Befriending the collection of house guests, including an owl, a giant cat, and a gardener, Ezra, who converses with bees, and getting to know the miscellaneous inhabitants of the village, the four siblings discover a life in which magic and reality are curiously intermingled and evil and tragedy lurk never far away. Then stumble upon the eccentric Lady Alicia Valerian, who seems to have lost her family. And then the real fun begins! The Linnets start their search for the missing Valerians. But the village is under a spell of the witch Emma Cobley. Can the children lift the spell and restore happiness to the villagers? Or will they be thwarted by evil Emma Cobley and her magic cat?This charming story beautifully depicts early twentieth century English country life while conjuring an air of magical adventure. It is full of vivid characters, battles between good and evil and wonderful spell-binding moments.

The Tenant


Roland Topor - 1964
    More than a tale of possession, the novel probes disturbing depths of guilt, paranoia, and sexual obsession with an unsparing detachment.

The Bat-Poet


Randall Jarrell - 1964
    Before long he began to see things differently from the other bats who from dawn to sunset never opened their eyes. The Bat-Poet is the story of how he tried to make the other bats see the world his way.With illustrations by Maurice Sendak, The Bat-Poet—a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book selection—is a collection of the bat's own poems and the bat's own world: the owl who almost eats him; the mockingbird whose irritable genius almost overpowers him; the chipmunk who loves his poems, and the bats who can't make heads or tails of them; the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, and sparrows who fly in and out of Randall Jarrell's funny, lovable, truthful fable.

A Single Man


Christopher Isherwood - 1964
    George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, determined to persist in the routines of his daily life. An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness. Wry, suddenly manic, constantly funny, surprisingly sad, this novel catches the true textures of life itself."--BOOK JACKET.

Best Ghost Stories of J.S. Le Fanu


J. Sheridan Le Fanu - 1964
    Half these stories never published before in U.S.

Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin


Leon Uris - 1964
    Captain Sean O'Sullivan distinguishes himself as a courageous soldier in the closing days of World War II, but what comes next tests his deepest reserves of strength and conviction. Sent to oversee the rebuilding of Berlin, O'Sullivan is exposed to the horrific truths of the Holocaust, a shattered and defeated society, and the new threat of Soviet power as the Iron Curtain begins to shadow the city. When Soviet forces blockade Berlin and the airlift begins, O'Sullivan is faced with profound moral dilemmas in an increasingly complicated world. Armageddon is one of the great fictional portrayals of Europe in the earliest days of the Cold War."Magnificent. The great drama of the Berlin airlift . . ." -The Columbus Dispatch"A vast panorama of people and places . . . dramatic moment after dramatic moment in a throbbing tempo." -New York Herald TribuneLeon Uris (1924-2003) was an author of fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays whose works include numerous best-selling novels. His epic Exodus (1958) has been translated into over fifty languages. Uris's work is notable for its focus on dramatic moments in contemporary history, including World War II and its aftermath, the birth of modern Israel, and the Cold War. Through the massive success of his novels and his skill as a storyteller, Uris has had enormous influence on popular understanding of twentieth-century history.

The Silent Miaow: A Manual for Kittens, Strays, and Homeless Cats


Paul Gallico - 1964
    200 black-and-white photographs.

Blues for Mister Charlie


James Baldwin - 1964
    With this act of violence--which is loosely based on the notorious 1955 killing of Emmett Till--James Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race. For where once a white storekeeper could have shot a boy like Richard Henry with impunity, times have changed. And centuries of brutality and fear, patronage and contempt, are about to erupt in a moment of truth as devastating as a shotgun blast.In his award-winning play, Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated--and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion.

How Far to Bethlehem?


Norah Lofts - 1964
    With immense care and a superb sense of history she has re-created this most wonderful of tales with compassion, understanding, freshness and faith. It opens in Nazareth where Mary, who has been visited by the Angel Gabriel, prepared for her forthcoming marriage to Joseph and shows with astonishing clarity the fears and joys she felt as she learned of her appointed task. The author has combined all her talents as historian, psychologist and writer to produce a novel which is scholarly, moving and intensely readable.

Nerve


Dick Francis - 1964
    Could it be, though, that the horses were unusually sluggish, and that there was something more sinister attempting to sabotage him...?"The best thriller writer going."ATLANTIC MONTHLY

Pop. 1280


Jim Thompson - 1964
    He doesn't solve problems, enforce rules or arrest criminals. He knows that nobody in tiny Potts County actually wants to follow the law and he is perfectly content lazing about, eating five meals a day, and sleeping with all the eligible women.Still, Nick has some very complex problems to deal with. Two local pimps have been sassing him, ruining his already tattered reputation. His girlfriend Rose is being terrorized by her husband. And then, there's his wife and her brother Lenny who won't stop troubling Nick's already stressed mind. Are they a little too close for a brother and a sister? With an election coming up, Nick needs to fix his problems and fast. Because the one thing Nick does know is that he will do anything to stay sheriff. Because, as it turns out, Sheriff Nick Corey is not nearly as dumb as he seems.In Pop. 1280, widely regarded as a classic of mid-20th century crime, Thompson offers up one of his best, in a tale of lust, murder, and betrayal in the Deep South that was the basis for the critically acclaimed French film Coup de Torchon.

Tree and Leaf: Includes Mythopoeia and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1964
    Tolkien's imagination and the breadth of his talent as a creator of fantastic fiction.

The Man


Irving Wallace - 1964
    The place is the Cabinet Room of the White House. An unexpected accident and the law of succession have just made Douglass Dilman the first black President of the United States.This is the theme of what was surely one of the most provocative novels of the 1960s. It takes the reader into the storm center of the presidency, where Dilman, until now an almost unknown senator, must bear the weight of three burdens: his office, his race, and his private life.From beginning to end, The Man is a novel of swift and tremendous drama, as President Dilman attempts to uphold his oath in the face of international crises, domestic dissension, violence, scandal, and ferocious hostility. Push comes to shove in a breathtaking climax, played out in the full glare of publicity, when the Senate of the United States meets for the first time in one hundred years to impeach the President.

The Secret of Terror Castle


Robert Arthur - 1964
    But when the boys arrive for an overnight visit at Terror Castle -- home of a deceased horror-movie actor -- they soon find out how the place got its name!

La Bâtarde


Violette Leduc - 1964
    When first published, La Batarde earned Violette Leduc comparisons to Jean Genet for the frank depiction of her sexual escapades and immoral behavior. A confession that contains portraits of several famous French authors, this book is more than just a scintillating memoir. Like that of Henry Miller, Leduc's brilliant writing style and attention to language transform this autobiography into a work of art.Violette Leduc was born the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl and was encouraged to write by Maurice Sachs and Simone de Beauvoir. Her first novel, L'Asphyxie (In the Prison of Her Skin), was published by Camus for Gallimard and earned her praise from Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Genet. She went on to write eight more books, including Ravages, L'Affamee, and La Folie en tete (Mad in Pursuit), the second part of her literary autobiography.

Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Vol. 1)


Alexander Pushkin - 1964
    Pushkin's "novel in verse" has influenced Russian prose as well as poetry for more than a century. By turns brilliant, entertaining, romantic and serious, it traces the development of a young Petersburg dandy as he deals with life and love. Influeneced by Byron, Pushkin reveals the nature of his heroes through the emotional colorations found in their witty remarks, nature descriptions, and unexpected actions, all conveyed in stanzas of sonnet length (a form which became known as the Onegin Stanza), faithfully reproduced by Walter Arndt inthis Bollingen Prize translation. Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in imperial Russia during the 1820s, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast,& a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, & Pushkin's mercurial Muse. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of other characters & offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and it shows him attempting to transform himself from romantic poet into realistic novelist. This new translation seeks to retain both the literal sense and the poetic music of the original, & capture the poem's spontaneity & wit. The introduction examines several ways of reading the novel, and the text is richly annotated.Nabokov notes how translating rhymed poetry into unrhymed prose robs a poem of its 'bloom'. A huge work of scholarship, this enormous book illuminates Pushkin's great verse novel in obsessive detail & describes early 19th century Russia.Nabokov's commentary consists of line-by-line notes on Pushkin's poem.

The Swimmer


John Cheever - 1964
    But as night falls and the season begins to change, Neddy sinks from optimistic bliss to utter despair.

In His Own Write


John Lennon - 1964
    Anyway they didn't get me. I attended to varicous schools in Liddypol. And still didn't pass—much to my Aunties supplies. As a member of the most publified Beatles my and (P, G, and R's) records might seem funnier to some of you than this book, but as far as I'm conceived this correction of short writty is the most wonderfoul larf I've ever ready. God help and breed you all.

A Moveable Feast


Ernest Hemingway - 1964
    Looking back not only at his own much younger self, but also at the other writers who shared Paris with him - James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald - he recalls the time when, poor, happy, and writing in cafes, he discovered his vocation. Written during the last years of Hemingway's life, his memoir is a lively and powerful reflection of his genius that scintillates with the romance of the city.

Wind from the Carolinas


Robert Wilder - 1964
    It is the saga of the Camerons, an impetuous Tory family, who fled South after the American Revolution to rebuild their baronial plantations in the turbulent, wind-swept Bahamas.

Love


Gian Berto Vanni - 1964
    This story is a simple one about a little girl. She has parents, naturally, but they went away when she was nine. And as she has no relatives to care for her, she is taken in by an orphanage. Lonely and a bit unusual, she stares at people with her big eyes. She often does things that aren't very nice, and people aren't very nice to her. In fact, they want to send her away. Until, one day...Part story, part visual play, Love will surprise and enchant all who turn its pages.

Chronicles of Fairacre: Village School / Village Diary / Storm in the Village (Fairacre, #1-3)


Miss Read - 1964
    Classic.

Woman in the Dunes / The Face of Another


Kōbō Abe - 1964
    In a remote seaside village, Niki Jumpei, a teacher and amateur entomologist, is held captive with a young woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit where, Sisyphus-like, they are pressed into shoveling off the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten the village."The Face of Another"The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident–a man who has lost his face and, with it, his connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him. His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self–a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity and the social contract, an intellectual horror story of the highest order.

Gantenbein


Max Frisch - 1964
    The narrator creates the story of this man -- or, rather, two stories, based on the two personae that he has imagined. One of these is named Enderlin; the other, Gantenbein.Originally published as A Wilderness of Mirrors.

The Hornblower Companion


C.S. Forester - 1964
    Forester wrote this beautifully illustrated book to explain the naval incidents his fictional hero Hornblower experienced during his adventures in the Royal Navy.

The Sea-Wolf and Selected Stories


Jack London - 1964
    This volume also includes four of London's acclaimed short stories.

Phantastes and Lilith


George MacDonald - 1964
    Imagine overcoming these dangers, going from villain to hero and beyond, loving and being deceived, helping and being helpless. Imagine waking up and everybody saying you’re gone for 21 days, though it felt like 21 years. How would you change your life?

For One Moment: A Biographical Story


Christmas Carol Kauffman - 1964
    

Gods, Demons, and Others


R.K. Narayan - 1964
    K. Narayan has produced his own versions of tales taken from the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. Carefully selecting those stories which include the strongest characters, and omitting the theological or social commentary that would have drawn out the telling, Narayan informs these fascinating myths with his urbane humor and graceful style."Mr. Narayan gives vitality and an original viewpoint to the most ancient of legends, lacing them with his own blend of satire, pertinent explanation and thoughtful commentary."—Santha Rama Rau, New York Times"Narayan's narrative style is swift, firm, graceful, and lucid . . . thoroughly knowledgeable, skillful, entertaining. One could hardly hope for more."—Rosanne Klass, Times Literary Supplement

The Gates of the Forest


Elie Wiesel - 1964
    He hides in a cave, where he meets a mysterious stranger who saves his life. He hides in the village, posing as a deaf-mute peasant boy. He hides among the partisans of the Jewish resistance. But where, he asks, is God hiding? And where can one find redemption in a world that God has abandoned? In a story punctuated by friendship and fear, sacrifice and betrayal, Gregor's wartime wanderings take us deep into the ghost-filled inner world of the survivor.

Don't Call Me Katie Rose


Lenora Mattingly Weber - 1964
    She is intent on being called Kathleen and takes on a sophisticated image in order to impress Bruce Seerie, a star athlete of Adams High. "Kathleen's" emotions and finances become quite strained as she lives beyond her means. Does the pressure become too stressful?

The Spell of Mary Stewart: The Ivy Tree/This Rough Magic/Wildfire at Midnight


Mary Stewart - 1964
    Omnibus edition containing The Ivy Tree; This Rough Magic; Wildfire at Midnight)

The Secret Integration


Thomas Pynchon - 1964
    The Secret Integration was first published in The Saturday Evening Post, December 19, 1964.

The Avenue


R.F. Delderfield - 1964
    And all the hopes, dreams and lives of the people on the Avenue are forged to a fighting force to defend all that they hold dear."

Mortal Leap


MacDonald Harris - 1964
    During the war, the world returns the favor. When his ship is blown up in the South Pacific, Ben is stripped of every shred of his personal identity—his face, his name, his fingerprints—and cast into the sea like a piece of wreckage. Rescued almost against his will, Ben must at last choose who and what he wants to be. But it is a choice he refuses to make until a dark-haired woman walks into his hospital room and says that he is her husband.MacDonald Harris has written a provocative novel, a wry narrative that moves with the exciting power of an adventure story. In scenes that range from waterfront bars and brothels to the rarefied atmosphere of the California gold coast, he creates men and women who vibrate with a life uniquely their own. His compelling story of a man's triumphant search for something or someone to care about evokes the humor, the sadness and the absurdity of a world that we all must somehow survive.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang


Ian Fleming - 1964
    This is a story filled with humor, adventure, and gadgetry that only a genius like Fleming could create.From the Hardcover edition.

The Keepers of the House


Shirley Ann Grau - 1964
    Extraordinary family lore has been passed down to Abigail Howland, but not all of it. When shocking facts come to light about her late grandfather William’s relationship with Margaret Carmichael, a black housekeeper, the community is outraged, and quickly gathers to vent its fury on Abigail. Alone in the house the Howlands built, she is at once shaken by those who have betrayed her, and determined to punish the town that has persecuted her and her kin. Morally intricate, graceful and suspenseful, The Keepers of the House has become a modern classic.

Young Hornblower: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower & Hornblower and the Atropos


C.S. Forester - 1964
    

Days of Longing


Nirmal Verma - 1964
    The professional meeting explodes into an intense, passionate relationship. Prague in winter is a beautiful and moody setting to the feverish love affair. The complicated and inevitably short-lived romance is poignant and deeply moving in its telling by the master of the modern Hindi novel, Nirmal Verma.This book is translation of original novel in Hindi, called Ve Din.

A Confederate General from Big Sur


Richard Brautigan - 1964
    Having grown up near Big Sur, this book was particularly funny as Lee Mellon is still in residence there. Brautigan's descriptions of drugs, drinks, frogs & the commas of Ecclesiastes are all done in a straightforward style. A favorite paragraph: "He broke the seal on the bottle, unscrewed the cap & poured a big slug of whiskey into his mouth. He swallowed it down with a hairy gulp. Strange, for as I said before: he was bald." A great read. If there's one thing the world lacks, it's a good supply of well-written, funny-as-heck books. Luckily, aside from A Confederacy Of Dunces, we have this little gem. The characters are drunks, druggies, skanks, prostitutes & nutzoids. The pace is brisk, the imagry vivid. Most of it seemed to be part of my own life, but just where do you find weed that's so potent that 4 people smoking 5 joints stay high for well over 2 hours?If you want to spend a day or night having a good laugh over a great book, pick this one up. You'll laugh out loud. As Martha Stewart says, "it's a good thing".

Olinger Stories


John Updike - 1964
    With full-cloth binding and a silk ribbon marker. EVERYMAN'S POCKET CLASSICS.In an interview, Updike once said, "If I had to give anybody one book of me, it would be the Olinger Stories." These stories were originally published in The New Yorker and then in various collections before Vintage first put them together in one volume in 1964, as a paperback original. They follow the life of one character from the age of ten through manhood, in the small Pennsylvania town of Olinger (pronounced, according to Updike, with a long O and a hard G), which was loosely based on Updike's own hometown. "All the stories draw from the same autobiographical well," Updike explained, "the only child, the small town, the grandparental home, the move in adolescence to a farm." The selection was made and arranged by Updike himself, and was prefaced by a lovely 1,400-word essay by the author that has never been reprinted in full elsewhere until now.

The Winds of March


Lenora Mattingly Weber - 1964
    While attempting to leave the remote farm, Katie Rose and the child are kidnaped. A suspenseful story unfolds.

Rivets and Sprockets


Alexander Key - 1964
    Bailey, his son Jim, Rivets and Sprockets have an adventure involving space marbles and Martians.

The Stone Angel


James W. Nichol - 1964
    In the course of an afternoon, Hagar’s life unfolds: her childhood in a small prairie town, her Scottish immigrant father, the tumultuous relationship with her now-estranged husband, her sons, and their partners. Based on the novel by Margaret Laurence.

Von Ryan's Express


David Westheimer - 1964
    His strict discipline brings order to the camp; it also earns him a derisive "von." When Italy surrenders, German guards herd the men into boxcars for shipment to the Reich. Ryan has other ideas. He reckons to take the train to Switzerland...and freedom."A taut, exciting and well-keyed war novel...Ryan is a difficult hero to like, but he is a hero nonetheless. An exciting, authentic book." (Book Week)

A Covenant With Death


Stephen Becker - 1964
    The parallel plot is his inability to handle life, love, success. Great story.

The Seance and Other Stories


Isaac Bashevis Singer - 1964
    Phrases like ‘Let me tell you a story,’ and ‘Now listen to this,’ and ‘My story is about,’ recur in his work.” This new book of sixteen stories is his fourth collection, following Gimpel the Fool, The Spinoza of Market Street and Short Friday. Many readers will rank it with Mr. Singer’s best work.The title story, an account of an old man who regularly visits an unconvincing medium on Central Park West, exemplifies what David Boroff calls Singer’s rare ability to “transmute metaphysical ideas into pure emotion.” “Getzel the Monkey” is the story of a moneylender who mimics the town’s richest man so successfully that he becomes like him to the point of tragedy. “Zeitl and Rickel,” the story of two women who wish to marry in the next world since they cannot do so in this one, contains the sentence, “Who can tell what goes on in another’s head?” The murderer who tells his story in “The Parrot” is driven to kill his mistress-wife because she takes out her unhappiness on their bird. “The Slaughterer” is a brilliant portrait of the progressive madness of a man persuaded against his nature to become a ritual slaughterer.“The Brooch” is the story of a thief who is able to work at his profession only as long as he can rely on his wife’s probity and uprightness. “The Warehouse” recounts the bureaucratic snarl-ups that plague souls in the after-life. In “The Plagiarist” a rabbi defrauded by a young disciple is asked to pray for his recovery and when the man dies he resigns to perform penance in exile. “The Lecture,” a story set in modern Montreal, reveals the reason behind an old lady’s interest in a visiting author. “The Needle” tells how a mother in search of a wife for her son devises an infallible test for prospective brides. “The Dead Fiddler” is the story of a dybbuk that talks, sings and curses in the body of a young girl. “Yanda” and “Henne Fire” are character studies of, respectively, a goodhearted Polish slavey who is fated to work for other people all her life, and a demon-like woman who causes trouble for people even after death. “The Letter Writer,” one of the major stories in the collection, relates the world of the unseen to the harsh realities of lonely old age and sickness in an alien modern city. This and the companion stories prove the truth of Miss Hughes’ assertion: “Singer is a master story-teller, one of the very few who can faithfully re-create a time forever past and render it meaningful to a troubled present.”

The Brigadier and the Golf Widow


John Cheever - 1964
    This new collection of sixteen stories reveals John Cheever's expertness employed with greater power to even more impressive effect than heretofore.

Kiowa Trail


Louis L'Amour - 1964
    People appreciated the money the cowboys spent but thought them too coarse to be near their homes. Enticed to come calling by Linda McDonald, daughter of one of the leading citizens, Tom Lundy broke the law and crossed the line. Later that night, he was dead. Outraged by her brother’s murder, Kate vows to destroy the entire town. But when Aaron McDonald sends east for an army of hired guns, Conn Dury and the men of the Tumbling B soon wonder if the price of Kate’s revenge is too high.From the Paperback edition.

Ramage


Dudley Pope - 1964
    In a daring foray, under the very nose of the French Mediterranean fleet, Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage is to sail his tiny cutter close in to the Italian shore and rescue a party of stranded aristocrats from Napoleon's fast-advancing army.

Dancers on the Shore


William Melvin Kelley - 1964
    They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families—their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love.

The Professionals


Frank O'Rourke - 1964
    Five against two hundred, They rode the trail to a showdown with death...

The Long Day Wanes


Anthony Burgess - 1964
    Through a succession of wonderfully colourful characters, Anthony Burgess delineates the conflict and confusion arising from the almost enforced mingling of cultures.

The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy


Anthony Burgess - 1964
    The protagonist of the work is Victor Crabbe, a teacher in a multiracial school in a squalid village, who moves upward in position as he and his wife maintain a steady decadent progress backward.

The Book of Three


Lloyd Alexander - 1964
    But the day that Hen Wen vanished, Taran was led into an enchanting and perilous world. With his band of followers, he confronted the Horned King and his terrible Cauldron-Born. These were the forces of evil, and only Hen Wen knew the secret of keeping the kingdom of Prydain safe from them. But who would find her first?

Hubble's Bubble


Elaine Horseman - 1964
    Five children in an old Victorian house become involved in some extraordinary adventures when they begin dabbling with a found book of magic spells.

A Pony for the Winter


Helen Kay - 1964
    

The Story of Walt Disney's Motion Picture Mary Poppins


M.V. Carey - 1964
    

Reuben, Reuben


Peter De Vries - 1964
    A manic epic, "Reuben, Reuben" is really three books in one, tied together by a 1950s suburban Connecticut setting and hyper-literate cast of characters. A corruptible chicken farmer fearful for the fate of his beloved town, a womanizing poet from Wales (Dylan Thomas in disguise), and a hapless British poet-cum-actor-and-agent all take turns as narrator, revealing different, even conflicting views. But alcoholism, sexism, small-mindedness, and calamity challenge the high spirits of De Vries's well-read suburbanites. Noted as much for his verbal fluidity and wordplay as for his ability to see humor through pain, De Vries will delight both new readers and old in this uproarious modern masterpiece.

Machineries of Joy


Ray Bradbury - 1964
    The Machineries of Joy • (1962)The One Who Waits • (1949) Tyrannosaurus Rex • (1962) The Vacation • (1963)The Drummer Boy of Shiloh • (1960)Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar! • (1962)Almost the End of the World • (1957)Perhaps We Are Going Away • (1962) And the Sailor, Home from the Sea • (1960) El Dia de Muerte • (1947)The Illustrated Woman • (1961)Some Live Like Lazarus • (1960) A Miracle of Rare Device • (1961)And So Died Riabouchinska • (1953)The Beggar on O'Connell Bridge • (1961) Death and the Maiden • (1960)A Flight of Ravens • (1952)The Best of All Possible Worlds • (1960) The Lifework of Juan Diaz • (1963)To the Chicago Abyss • (1963)The Anthem Sprinters • (1963)

The Pond


Robert Murphy - 1964
    Fourteen-year-old Joey spends his childhood visiting a beautiful back-country pond in Virginia. His humorous and heart-warming adventures in and around the pond, with the faithful dog Charley at his side, broaden his understanding of his place in the world and awaken in him a protective instinct towards all nature. In an era of climate-change debate and animal rights movements, The Pond delivers an important message to readers of all ages, at the same time never failing to delight.

Five Times Maigret: A Five-Novel Omnibus, Maigret in Montmartre; Maigret's Mistake; Maigret Has Scruples; Maigret and the Reluctant Witness; Maigret Goes to School


Georges Simenon - 1964
    

Eight Stories from The Rest of the Robots


Isaac Asimov - 1964
    They brought mankind into a new age of freedom and leisure. And every robot was completely incpable of harming a human being. So ... why did men hate and fear them?In THE REST OF THE ROBOTS, Isaac Asimov - author of a whole library of science fiction and fact - explores the fascinating future of men and their metal slaves in dramatic detailed stories of high imagination and wonder.This is a pre-ISBN bookPublisher's catalog number R-1783. 511-01783-050

The Fiend


Margaret Millar - 1964
    the prison... the doctors... they were all part of the past. Charlie was free and getting well now -So no one had to know how much time Charlie spent around the school yard, watching. No one did - until the night 9-year-old Jessie Brant disappeared...

Some Faces in the Crowd


Budd Schulberg - 1964
    The crowd is the American landscape: indelible characters drawn coast-to-coast from the teeming streets of New York to tables at Hollywood's legendary nightclub, Ciro's. In these sparkling stories, Schulberg brings us vivid, restless people haunted by abrupt failure in the wake of rapid success. In "The Arkansas Traveler" he gives us Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes's down-home stories of Riddle, Arkansas, which later became the stuff of the celebrated movie A Face in the Crowd.

The Republic of Dreams


Bruno Schulz - 1964
    He is regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy of Literature's prestigious Golden Laurel award. The Republic of Dreams, available for the first time in English translation, is a stunning example of Schulz's early work. His visionary, lyrical prose captures the tumultuous and uncertain spirit of the age in which he lived, and transports the reader to a dreamy yet undefined landscape.

The Bedford Incident


Mark Rascovich - 1964
    It consists of three parts: The War is the cold war of the 1960’s, but on a little-publicized and bleakly isolated front where opposing naval forces secretly maneuver against each other in the eternally empty reaches of the Arctic Ocean. Here they contest for strategic stakes as vital as those of Berlin or Viet Nam. The Chase is by a modern American destroyer on the track of a Soviet submarine whose mission is to probe NATO defenses based on Greenland. The code-name of this brilliantly elusive submarine is Moby Dick. As the stalking action moves through the lonely vastness of a frozen desolation, some of the fatal obsession which cursed Captain Ahab and his Pequod seems mystically to afflict Captain Erik Finlander, USN, and his USS Bedford. The Battle is finally joined above the algaed hulk of a melancholy victim of one of the last traditional battleship engagements in the North Atlantic. While all the computer-controlled miracle weapons of modern anti-submarine warfare play their part, it is the far more terrifying obstinacy — and weakness — of inflamed human spirit which determines the ultimate outcome of this searing tale.

Rising of the Lark


Ann Moray - 1964
    Catriona is nine, and an orphan. Her parents were drowned in India, and she is being raised in a country house in Wales, by a young, pretty, but ferociously spinsterish governess, Jane. Jane forbids her to read myths, play with animals or her country friends, and sets a strict regime of study. Catriona rebels and is punished. A tutor is sent for; he proves to be a good, gentle man named Morgan, with whom the child Catriona falls in love. Despite Jane's jealous efforts at interfering, Catriona grows up, and the improbable love becomes reality. [Kirkus Review]

The Jenguin Pennings


Paul Jennings - 1964
    

Death Among Friends


Elizabeth Cadell - 1964
    After eighteen months as a companion-secretary to a charming but eccentric old lady, she felt she was ready to forget the past and begin again…But a chance encounter on a London railway station brings it all back…

Phantom-The Belt (Indrajal Comics No 001)


Lee Falk - 1964
    Indrajal Comics No 001

Top Dog


Norman Thelwell - 1964
    "Magnificat" portrays the domestic cat in all its preening, self-important glory and "Top Dog" gets to the heart of being a pampered pooch.

The Trail to Ogallala


Benjamin Capps - 1964
    A herd of dangerous cattle...a band of desperate men...and a thousand miles of frontier hell to crossWho was the real boss of the big cattle drive?Was it Colonel Kittredge - the gun-toting, Bible-quoting ex-Rebel officer who could size up a cow or a man with one look and then drive both to the limits of their endurance?Was it Blackie Blackburn - the slow-witted segundo who could break horse shoes with his bare hands and would happily do the same to any man careless enough to cross him?Was it Billy Scott - the resentful drag man who rode behind the herd, eating dust and dreaming of the day he could openly take command of the Lawson spread?Or was it Blinders, Yeller Belly, Old Lonesome...some of the 3,000 spooky steers and untamed longhorns, crazed with fear and thirst, and always ready to stampede their way to freedom?

Late-Blooming Flowers & Other Stories


Anton Chekhov - 1964
    

Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer: Plus Rudolph Shines Again


Robert Lewis May - 1964
    Now fans of the most famous reindeer of them all can become acquainted with the original story of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” written in verse by his creator, Robert L. May, in 1939. In “Rudolph Shines Again,” Santa once again needs Rudolph to lead his sleigh on a dark, snowy Christmas eve. But mean teasing from the other reindeer causes Rudolph to lose his light! Rudolph saved Christmas once, but can he do it again - this time without his red glow? Great family entertainment this holiday season!

Strangers and Brothers 3


C.P. Snow - 1964
    Snow's 'Strangers and Brothers' and is a 920 page thick paperback published in 1984 by Penguin Books with the cover photo taken from the BBC TV Drama series and showing Shaughan Seymour as Lewis Eliot and Cherie Lunghi as Margaret Eliot. The book was dramatized by Julian Bond, directed by Jeremy Summers, and produced by Philip Hinchcliffe. Photograph: Roger Morton. This book, the final volume, opens with Lewis Eliot tracing the career of a young Tory M.P., fighting a lonely ban-the-bomb campaign in the Cabinet. From the corridors of power, the world of pres lobbies, country-house parties and driving ambition, Eliot turns back to his boyhood home: he takes up an old friendship, becomes involved in a devastating murder trial and then takes time off to re-evaluate as in Last Things, C.P. Snow brings his novel sequence of a triumphant conclusion

Arithmetic For The Practical Man


J.E. Thompson - 1964
    

Cliffs Notes on Dante's The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio


Harold M. Priest - 1964
    In between, Dante describes Purgatory (Purgatorio). It is the first great poetic work written in Italian.

A Banner With a Strange Device: A Novel of Boston


Arona McHugh - 1964
    One of them is Sally Brimmer, wealthy, wild, and beautiful. The novel revolves around Sally, the men she encounters in her search for love, and the women who admire or hate her.

Home Is the Sailor


Rumer Godden - 1964
    Through a series of unusual circumstances the missing men of the doll family are reunited with their relatives.

Snow in the River


Carol Ryrie Brink - 1964
    It brings to life an America of unbounded promise by telling the story of three Scottish brothers who settled in eastern Washington and northern Idaho in the early 1900s.