All the Pretty Horses


Cormac McCarthy - 1992
    Across the border Mexico beckons—beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

The Bostonians


Henry James - 1886
    Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena’s heart and remove her from the limelight? “The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”

A Lesson Before Dying


Ernest J. Gaines - 1993
    Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected. Ernest J. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction.

The Day of the Locust


Nathanael West - 1939
    Nathanael West's Hollywood is not the glamorous "home of the stars" but a seedy world of little people, some hopeful, some despairing, all twisted by their by their own desires -- from the ironically romantic artist narrator, to a macho movie cowboy, a middle-aged innocent from America's heartland, and the hard-as-nails call girl would-be-star whom they all lust after. An unforgettable portrayal of a world that mocks the real and rewards the sham, turns its back on love to plunge into empty sex, and breeds a savage violence that is its own undoing, this novel stands as a classic indictment of all that is most extravagant and uncontrolled in American life.

Okinawa: Victory in the Pacific


Charles S. Nichols Jr. - 1955
     For eighty-two long days the Imperial Japanese Army and American forces clashed. This monumental battle cost the lives of 95,000 Japanese troops and 12,510 Americans. But what actually happened at Okinawa between April 1 and June 22, 1945? What strategies were implemented by marine forces who undertook the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of the war? Chas. S. Nichols Jr. and Henry I. Shaw Jr.’s account of this battle provides in depth analysis into the final major battle of the Second World War. Their works draws upon many hours of interviews and conversations that Nichols and Shaw conducted with marines of various ranks in the weeks and months after the battle had ended. This is the definitive history of the battle of Okinawa. “extremely interesting and profitable reading.” Japan Quarterly Chas. S. Nichols Jr. was a major who served with the USMC in the Second World War. Henry I. Shaw Jr. was a prominent military historian who wrote many books on World War Two. Their book was first published in 1955. Nichols passed away in 1997 and Shaw passed away in 2000.

Revolutionary Road


Richard Yates - 1961
    Perhaps they married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is now about to crumble. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.

The Arch of Avooblis


Charles Streams - 2013
    But when his father forces him to attend the Adventurers’ Academy, where warriors, enchanters, and rogues learn how to fulfil quests to become heroes, Dagdron must face a whole new life. When Dagdron is accused of stealing the Arch of Avooblis, he and his ever-honourable roommate, Earl, embark on a quest to recover the magical crystal. Along the way, they must deal with the mysterious Headmaster Gwauldron, a snobby princess-enchantress, and the fact that their involvement with the Arch of Avooblis may very well cost them their lives.

All the King's Men


Robert Penn Warren - 1946
    Willie Stark, Warren’s lightly disguised version of Huey Long, the one time Louisiana strongman/governor, begins as a genuine tribune of the people and ends as a murderous populist demagogue. Jack Burden is his press agent, who carries out the boss’s orders, first without objection, then in the face of his own increasingly troubled conscience. And the politics? For Warren, that’s simply the arena most likely to prove that man is a fallen creature. Which it does.

Home


Toni Morrison - 2012
    Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he's hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood - and his home.

The Confidence-Man


Herman Melville - 1857
    Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the masquerade of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fidele is the confidence man? The central motif of Melville's last and most modern novel can be seen as a symbol of American cultural history.

The Scourge of the Swastika: A History of Nazi War Crimes During World War II


Edward Frederick Langley Russell - 1954
    While the Final Solution was a unique and unparalleled horror, German atrocities did not end there. The Nazis terrorized their own citizens, tortured and murdered POWs, and carried out countless executions throughout occupied Europe. Lord Russell of Liverpool was part of the legal team that brought Nazi war criminals to justice, and from this first-hand position, he published the sensational, bestselling The Scourge of the Swastika in 1954. Liverpool shows that the actions of the Third Reich, including the Holocaust, were illegal, not merely immoral.

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit


Sloan Wilson - 1954
    They have every reason to be happy, but for some reason they are not. Like so many young men of the day, Tom finds himself caught up in the corporate rat race - what he encounters there propels him on a voyage of self-discovery that will turn his world inside out. At once a searing indictment of coporate culture, a story of a young man confronting his past and future with honesty, and a testament to the enduring power of family, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a deeply rewarding novel about the importance of taking responsibility for one's own life.

Lake Wobegon Days


Garrison Keillor - 1985
    "Filled with warmth and humor, sadness and tenderness, songs and poems, Lake Wobegon Days is an unforgettable portrait of small-town American life, of why 'we are what we are' and why 'smart doesn't count for much."

In Our Time


Ernest Hemingway - 1925
    Contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories. This volume introduces readers to the hallmarks of the famous Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic."In Our Time" provides key insights into Hemingway's later works.

Invasion Diary: A Dramatic Firsthand Account of the Allied Invasion of Italy


Richard Tregaskis - 1944
    Following the defeat of Axis forces in North Africa, Allied military strategists turned their attention to southern Italy. Winston Churchill famously described the region as the “soft underbelly of Europe,” and claimed that an invasion would pull German troops from the Eastern Front and help bring a swift end to the war.   On July 10, 1943, American and British forces invaded Sicily. Operation Husky brought the island under Allied control and hastened the downfall of Benito Mussolini, but more than one hundred thousand German and Italian troops managed to escape across the Strait of Medina. The “soft underbelly” of mainland Italy became, in the words of US Fifth Army commander Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, “a tough old gut.”   Less than a year after landing with the US Marines on Guadalcanal Island, journalist Richard Tregaskis joined the Allied forces in Sicily and Italy. Invasion Diary documents some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, from bombing runs over Rome to the defense of the Salerno beachhead against heavy artillery fire to the fall of Naples. In compelling and evocative prose, Tregaskis depicts the terror and excitement of life on the front lines and recounts his own harrowing brush with death when a chunk of German shrapnel pierced his helmet and shattered his skull.   An invaluable eyewitness account of two of the most crucial campaigns of the Second World War and a stirring tribute to the soldiers, pilots, surgeons, nurses, and ambulance drivers whose skill and courage carried the Allies to victory, Invasion Diary is a classic of war reportage and “required reading for all who want to know how armies fight” (Library Journal).  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Richard Tregaskis including rare images from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming.