Manifesto


Anonymous - 1980
    Opening up the blank casing, a very unapologetic page one sports nothing but black text that starts at the top of the page and small numbering printed on every bottom corner. There are no chapters and there is no chronology or even a plot. Words are broken up in lines or paragraphs and it continues as such for two hundred pages exactly without a break; not dumbed down, allowing the chance to experience truly innovative media.The author himself accomplishes what thousands of writers spend lifetimes trying to depict honestly, some at the expense of their own sanity. He shows the nihilistic and existentialist thoughts suffered by America’s most broken malcontents. This gritty reality may alienate some readers, but for many it tugs at heartstrings and makes us wonder why we pushed our own parallel feelings to the backburner for the sake of fitting into society. It makes us question if we are fooling anyone with those efforts. It makes us really think why, and this book smartly doesn’t assume us incapable of making our own life assessment by offering morals or lessons meant to give us hope. The writing itself is completely bleak (a warning to the vulnerable), and the author basically tells us to find our own reason for living. Unlike most other literature, by the last sentence you are still wondering if he has ever found his.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg -- Review


Expert Book Reviews - 2014
    The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion compares the contrasting worlds of present-day Southern life and Midwestern immigrant cities during World War II. After learning that she was adopted, Sookie is filled with questions of self-doubt and becomes determined to learn the truth behind her roots. Fannie Flagg depicts adventurous and courageous women as WASPs during WWII as she tells the story of the Jurdabralinski sisters. These roles contradict Sookie's upbringing in Alabama where society is ruled by social norms and status. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion offers an inspirational tale with accurate historical details that are presented through an engaging plot. This review of Flagg's novel gives you a broader view of the author and her writing style. Read quotes from literary critics to discover the book's appeal, or lack thereof. Sookie counters a cast of larger-than-life characters as she finds adventure and realizes her underlying identity. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion captures a journey of self-discovery mixed with realism and humor to delight all readers.

It All Comes Back to You


Beth Duke - 2018
     War's over, cherry-print dresses, parking above the city lights, swing dancing. Beautiful, seventeen-year-old Violet lives in a perfect world. Everybody loves her. In 2012, she's still beautiful, charming, and surrounded by admirers. Veronica "Ronni" Johnson, licensed practical nurse and aspiring writer, meets the captivating Violet in the assisted living facility where Violet requires no assistance, just lots of male attention. When she dies, she leaves Ronni a very generous bequest―only if Ronni completes a book about her life within one year. As she's drawn into the world of young Violet, Ronni is mesmerized by life in a simpler time. It's an irresistible journey filled with revelations, some of them about men Ronni knew as octogenarians at Fairfield Springs.Struggling, insecure, flailing at the keyboard, Ronni juggles her patients, a new boyfriend, and a Samsonite factory of emotional baggage as she tries to craft a manuscript before her deadline.But then the secrets start to emerge, some of them in person. And they don't stop.Everything changes.Alternating chapters between Homecoming Queen Violet in 1947 and can't-quite-find-her-crown Ronni in the present, IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU is book club fiction at its hilarious, warm, sad, outrageous, uplifting, and stunning best. In the tradition of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and Olive Kitteridge, Duke delivers an unforgettable elderly character to treasure and a young heroine to steal your heart.

The Lifted Veil


George Eliot - 1859
    Published the same year as her first novel, Adam Bede, this overlooked work displays the gifts for which George Eliot would become famous—gritty realism, psychological insight, and idealistic moralizing. It is unique from all her other writing, however, in that it represents the only time she ever used a first-person narrator, and it is the only time she wrote about the supernatural. The tale of a man who is incapacitated by visions of the future and the cacophony of overheard thoughts, and yet who can’t help trying to subvert his vividly glimpsed destiny, it is easy to read The Lifted Veil as being autobiographically revealing—of Eliot’s sensitivity to public opinion and her awareness that her days concealed behind a pseudonym were doomed to a tragic unveiling (as indeed came to pass soon after this novella’s publication). But it is easier still to read the story as the exciting and genuine precursor of a moody new form, as well as an absorbing early masterpiece of suspense.The Art of The Novella SeriesToo short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters


Mallory Ortberg - 2014
    Everyone knows that if Scarlett O’Hara had an unlimited text-and-data plan, she’d constantly try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps. And Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, she’d text you to pick her up after she totaled her car. Based on the popular web-feature, Texts from Jane Eyre is a witty, irreverent mashup that brings the characters from your favorite books into the twenty-first century.

Brooklyn


Colm Tóibín - 2009
    Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.

Lucy Come Home (A Yada Yada Journey of Hope)


Dave Jackson - 2012
    Why won't she come home?Fifteen-year-old Cindy worked long days beside her migrant worker family in Michigan's sugar beet fields in the early 1940s - the "war years" - until she met a dashing young man from a traveling carnival, bringing some joy and fun into her hard-scrabble life. But a tragic twist of fate - and a dead field boss - sent the two young people on the run, leaving behind family and everything she'd ever known.Lucy Tucker, the crotchety old bag lady from the popular Yada Yada House of Hope series, is a veteran of the Chicago streets and not about to give up her independence, even as she approaches her 80th birthday. Until, that is, a young displaced woman with her gentle ageing mother and a dog named Dandy seem to need her - unsettling the secretive Lucy, who doesn't let anyone get too close. But just when it seems her past is catching up with her to bring her in out of the cold ... Lucy disappears again.How these two tales intersect and intertwine between past and present gradually shines light into the dark corners of Lucy's murky past. But ... why won't Lucy come home?

Artful


Peter David - 2014
    Throw in some vampires and a plot to overthrow the British monarchy, and what you have is the thrilling account that Charles Dickens was too scared to share with the world.From the brilliant mind of novelist and comic book veteran Peter David, Artful is the dark, funny, and action-packed story of one of the most fascinating characters in literary history.With vampires.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


Dale Wasserman - 1970
    w. inset. Kirk Douglas played on Broadway as a charming rogue who contrives to serve a short sentence in an airy mental institution rather in a prison. This, he learns, was a mistake. He clashes with the head nurse, a fierce artinet. Quickly, he takes over the yard and accomplishes what the medical profession has been unable to do for twelve years; he makes a presumed deaf and dumb Indian talk. He leads others out of introversion, stages a revolt so that they can s

Shakespeare Undead


Lori Handeland - 2010
    . . and it keeps coming and coming and coming. . . . William Shakespeare was one of history's greatest writers, a master of words with a body of work that is truly impressive . . . some may say a little too impressive for a single man to accomplish in one lifetime. Perhaps, as many have speculated, he had assistance. Or perhaps the explanation is more . . . unusual.  Who was William Shakespeare? Who was the Dark Lady of the Sonnets? Why are the undead stalking the alleyways of London? And can they be stopped? Something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.  So brace yourself for a wild ride through twisted streets and shadowed graveyards of Elizabethan London, where you'll discover how the Bard got his Bite.

The Lioness of Morocco


Julia Drosten - 2017
    Still single at twenty-three, she is treated like a child and feels stifled in her controlling father’s house.When Benjamin Hopkins, an ambitious employee of her father’s trading company, shows an interest in her, she realizes marriage is her only chance to escape. As Benjamin’s rising career whisks them both away to exotic Morocco, Sibylla is at last a citizen of the world, reveling in her newfound freedom by striking her first business deals, befriending locals…and falling in love for the first time with a charismatic and handsome Frenchman.But Benjamin’s lust for money and influence draws him into dark dealings, pulling him ever further from Sibylla and their two young sons. When he’s arrested on horrible charges, the fate of Sibylla’s family rests on her shoulders, as she must decide whether she’ll leave him to his fate or help him fight for his life.

Manchester Moll


Emma Hornby - 2017
    Powerful, absorbing storytelling that is perfect for fans of saga by Dilly Court, Rosie Goodwin and Maggie Hope.

The Time Machine/The War of the Worlds


H.G. Wells - 1961
    In this unfamiliar, utopian age creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings--unearth their secret and then return to his own time--until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.H. G. Wells's famous novel of one man's astonishing journey beyond the conventional limits of the imagination first appeared in 1895. It won him immediate recognition and has been regarded ever since as one of the great masterpieces in the literature of science fiction.The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells's science fiction classic, the first novel to explore the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets, is still startling and vivid nearly a century after its appearance, and a half century after Orson Welles's infamous 1938 radio adaptation.This daring portrayal of aliens landing on English soil, with its themes of interplanetary imperialism, technological holocaust, and chaos, is central to the career of H. G. Wells, who died at the dawn of the atomic age. The survival of mankind in the face of "vast and cool and unsympathetic" scientific powers spinning out of control was a crucial theme throughout his work. Visionary, shocking, and chilling, The War of the Worlds has lost none of its impact since its first publication in 1898.

Wuthering Heights


Ranae Rose - 2012
    Hindley despises him but wild Cathy becomes his constant companion, and he falls deeply in love with her, discovering that he can tame her unruly nature. Their tumultuous but passionate romance is threatened by the Lintons, who are determined to civilise Cathy. She endeavours to be a lady when they are present, but is as wild as ever when they are not—and remains forever untameable by anyone other than her lover, Heathcliff.When she will not marry him, Heathcliff's terrible vengeance ruins them all—but still his and Cathy's love will not die...A story of doomed love and revenge with a brilliant new introduction of passion fulfilled.

On Religion


Mark Twain - 1963
    WagnerWilliam Dean HowellsEnglish As She Is TaughtA Simplified AlphabetAs Concerns Interpreting The DeityConcerning TobaccoThe BeeTaming The BicycleIs Shakespeare Dead?The War PrayerThou Shalt Not KillThe FlyLetters From The EarthAbout the Publisher: Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, Esoteric and Mythology. Forgotten Books is about sharing information, not about making money. All books are priced at wholesale prices. We are also the only publisher we know of to print in large sans-serif font, which is proven to make the text easier to read and put less strain on your eyes.