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Toomas Nipernaadi by August Gailit


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Heaven Has No Favorites


Erich Maria Remarque - 1961
    Lillian is charming, beautiful . . . and slowly dying of consumption. But she doesn’t wish to end her days in a hospital in the Alps. She wants to see Paris again, then Venice—to live frivolously for as long as possible. She might die on the road, she might not, but before she goes, she wants a chance at life. Clerfayt, a race-car driver, tempts fate every time he’s behind the wheel. A man with no illusions about chance, he is powerfully drawn to a woman who can look death in the eye and laugh. Together, he and Lillian make an unusual pair, living only for the moment, without regard for the future. It’s a perfect arrangement—until one of them begins to fall in love.

A Long Fatal Love Chase


Louisa May Alcott - 1995
    A brooding stranger seduces her from the remote island onto his yacht. Trapped in a web of intrigue, cruelty, and deceit, she flees to Italy, France, Germany, from Paris garret to mental asylum, from convent to chateau - stalked by obsessed Phillip Tempest.Two years before Little Women, serialized in a magazine under the alias A.M. Barnard in 1866, this was buried among the author's papers over a century.

Maurice


E.M. Forster - 1971
    In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career. Thus, Maurice languished in a drawer for fifty-seven years, the author requesting it be published only after his death (along with his stories about homosexuality later collected in The Life to Come).Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely read and praised. It has been, and continues to be, adapted for major stage productions, including the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.

She Came to Stay


Simone de Beauvoir - 1943
    Written in 1943, this book was written as an act of revenge against the woman who nearly destroyed the author's life with the celebrated philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre.

Gone with the Wind


Margaret Mitchell - 1936
    Scarlett O'Hara, the beautiful, spoiled daughter of a well-to-do Georgia plantation owner, must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.

Air Awakens


Elise Kova - 2015
    Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.

Circe


Madeline Miller - 2018
    But Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power - the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

The Toilers of the Sea


Victor Hugo - 1866
    A new translation by Scot James Hogarth for the first unabridged English edition of the novel, which tells the story of a reculsive fisherman from the Channel Islands who must free a ship that has run aground in order to win the hand of the woman he loves, a shipowner's daughter.

The Orphans of Race Point


Patry Francis - 2014
    Their friendship evolves into an enduring and passionate love that will ask more of them than they ever imagined.On the night of their high school prom, a terrible tragedy devastates their relationship and profoundly alters the course of their lives. And when, a decade later, Gus—now a priest—becomes entangled with a distraught woman named Ava and her daughter Mila, troubled souls who bring back vivid memories of his own damaged past, the unthinkable happens: he is charged with murder. Can Hallie save the man she’s never stopped loving, by not only freeing him from prison but also—finally—the curse of his past?Told in alternating voices, The Orphans of Race Point illuminates the transformative power of love and the myriad ways we find meaning in our lives.

The Nonexistent Knight & The Cloven Viscount


Italo Calvino - 1959
    “Bravura pieces... executed with brilliance and brio”(Chicago Tribune). Translated by Archibald Colquhoun. A Helen and Kurt Wolff BookOriginally published as two distinct volumes: 'Il visconte dimezzato' (1952) and 'Il cavaliere inesistente' (1959). Also published in a single volume with 'The baron in the trees' (Il barone rampante, 1957) as 'Our Ancestors' (I nostri antenati, 1960).

Le Grand Meaulnes


Alain-Fournier - 1913
    Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the search for the unobtainable, and the mysterious world between childhood and adulthood.

The Game of Kings


Dorothy Dunnett - 1961
    In 1547 Lymond is returning to his native Scotland, which is threatened by an English invasion. Accused of treason, Lymond leads a band of outlaws in a desperate race to redeem his reputation and save his land.

The Dud Avocado


Elaine Dundy - 1958
    Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about the American girl abroad, but it was Elaine Dundy’s Sally Jay Gorce who told us what she was really thinking. Charming, sexy, and hilarious, The Dud Avocado gained instant cult status when it was first published and it remains a timeless portrait of a woman hell-bent on living.“I had to tell someone how much I enjoyed The Dud Avocado. It made me laugh, scream, and guffaw (which, incidentally, is a great name for a law firm).” –Groucho Marx[The Dud Avocado] is one of the best novels about growing up fast..." -The Guardian“A cheerfully uninhibited...variation on the theme of the Innocents Abroad...Miss Dundy comes up with fresh and spirited comedy....Her novel is enormous fun—sparklingly written, genuinely youthful in spirit.” —The Atlantic

Joy in the Morning


Betty Smith - 1963
    Though only eighteen, Annie travels alone to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law to marry him. Little did they know how difficult their first year of marriage would be, in a faraway place with little money and few friends. But Carl and Annie come to realize that the struggles and uncertainty of poverty and hardship can be overcome by the strength of a loving, loyal relationship. An unsentimental yet uplifting story, "Joy in the Morning" is a timeless and radiant novel of marriage and young love.

November


Gustave Flaubert - 1842
    Wrestling with the agony of loneliness, a young man withdraws deeper into himself, believing he has now reached the autumn of his life. His increasing hopelessness gives way to a yearning for romance—surely the love of a woman can deliver him the purpose he so craves? Convinced of the truth of this, he visits Marie, a kindhearted prostitute—yet Marie, too, is starved of love and longs for acceptance. Together, they form a tragic portrait of personal anguish, heralding the extraordinary outpouring of romantic longing found in Flaubert’s later novels. Most famous for Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education: The Story of a Young Man, Gustave Flaubert is one of the undisputed masters of 19th-century fiction.