A View from the Bridge


Arthur Miller - 2016
    Eddie Carbone is a Brooklyn longshoreman, a hard-working man whose life has been soothingly predictable. He hasn't counted on the arrival of two of his wife's relatives, illegal immigrants from Italy; nor has he recognized his true feelings for his beautiful niece, Catherine. And in due course, what Eddie doesn't know?about her, about life, about his own heart?will have devastating consequences.

The Librarian


Salley Vickers - 2018
    But the apparently pleasant town is not all it seems. Sylvia falls in love with an older man - but it's her connection to his precocious young daughter and her neighbours' son which will change her life and put them, the library and her job under threat.How does the library alter the young children's lives and how do the children fare as a result of the books Sylvia introduces them to?

Great Son


Edna Ferber - 1944
    THE SCENE: Seattle from village to skyscraper city; the Alaskan gold fields.TIME: 1851 - 1941.THE SUBJECT: Four generations of the marvelous Melendys--a frontier family grown rich and ill at ease.THE AUTHOR: Edna Ferber, who wrote So Big, Cimarron, Show Boat, and other great novels straight from the heart of America.

The Recognitions


William Gaddis - 1955
    Gaddis anticipates by almost half a century the crisis of reality that we currently face, where the real and the virtual are combining in alarming ways, and the sources of legitimacy and power are often obscure to us.

I Wish There Was Something That I Could Quit


Aaron Cometbus - 2006
    She is obsessed. She can't sleep. She sits on the porch all night lying in wait. Then she throws bricks, bowling balls, cans of paint. She loves the sound as they connect, meeting metal and glass.

Mayflies


Andrew O'Hagan - 2020
    With school over and the locked world of their fathers before them, they rush towards the climax of their youth: a magical weekend in Manchester, the epicentre of everything that inspires them in working-class Britain. There, against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded, a vow is made: to go at life differently. Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Tully has news.Mayflies is a memorial to youth's euphorias and to everyday tragedy. A tender goodbye to an old union, it discovers the joy and the costs of love.

The Edwardians


Vita Sackville-West - 1930
    A deep sense of tradition binds him to his inheritance, though he loathes the social circus he is a part of. Deception, infidelity and greed hide beneath the glittering surface of good manners. Among the guests at a lavish party are two people who will change Sebastian's life: Lady Roehampton, who will initiate him in the art of love; and Leonard Anquetil, a polar explorer who will lead Sebastian and his free-spirited sister Viola to question their destiny.A portrait of fashionable society at the height of the era, THE EDWARDIANS revealed all that was glamorous about the period - and all that was to lead to its downfall. First published in 1930, it was Vita Sackville-West's most successful book.

Bunny Modern


David Bowman - 1998
     The trade paperback edition of David Bowman's prize-winning first novel, Let the Dog Drive, has developed a cult following. Now Bowman's exuberantly praised second novel -- a hard-boiled comedy about love, abduction, and child care, set in a future where electricity has disappeared and fertility is on the wane, but human passions are as messy as ever -- is also in trade paperback.

The Rack


A.E. Ellis - 1958
    The Rack to my mind is one of this company." - Graham Greene "A terrific book . . . a penetrating examination of the nature of suffering . . . to read it is in itself an experience." - Time and Tide "Quite possibly a masterpiece." - Irish Times "Book of the year if there ever was one." - V. S. Pritchett, New Statesman "A work of sombre power, of soaring comedy." - Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times "[V]ery remarkable . . . Ellis's humour is grim, but behind the book one has the impression of an unusual and powerful mind." - The Observer "Then consider yourself an experiment of the gods in what a man can endure . . ." This is the sardonic advice of a doctor to his patient, a young Englishman suffering from tuberculosis in the days before effective antibiotic treatment, and it sets the theme for this brilliant novel. The hero, Paul Davenant, has arrived at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps with high hopes of a full cure and a normal life. But as the weeks and months pass interminably by, Davenant undergoes endless tests and medical procedures, each more horrific and dehumanizing than the last, all the while facing the possibility that his case may be hopeless. Despite the pain, indignity, and tediousness, Davenant never loses sight of the outrageous, farcical side to his situation, the absurdity of it all. When he falls in love with a fellow patient, he becomes determined to recover his health, but will he succeed, or will all the tortures he has endured have been for nothing? When The Rack was first published in 1958, the critical acclaim was universal: reviewers compared it with the works of Proust, Mann, and Camus and declared it a masterwork destined to take its place among the great novels of the 20th century. This edition, the first in 25 years, features a new introduction by Andrew Sinclair.

White Banners


Lloyd C. Douglas - 1936
    Douglas, was an American minister and author. He was born in Columbia City, Indiana, spent part of his boyhood in Monroeville, Indiana, Wilmot, Indiana and Florence, Kentucky, where his father, Alexander Jackson Douglas, was pastor of the Hopeful Lutheran Church. Douglas was one of the most popular American authors of his time, although he did not write his first novel until he was 50.

The Man Without Qualities


Robert Musil - 1930
    This new translation—published in two elegant volumes—is the first to present Musil's complete text, including material that remained unpublished during his lifetime.

The Maid of Buttermere


Melvyn Bragg - 1987
    The story of an imposter and bigamist, who travels to the North where he marries the maid of Buttermere, a young woman whose natural beauty inspired the dreams and confirmed the theories of a=early 19th century writers.

Old Dogs and Children


Robert Inman - 1991
    A masterpiece of old-fashioned storytelling that vividly evokes one woman's remarkable life and her struggle to make peace with the past. Reading tour.

Two Roads


Chris Crowe - 1994
    It was the night everything changed. It was the night Leisel died.Now, two years later, as Jared reflects on his life, he can't help but wonder at the chain reaction of choices that led him to this: a black nametag and a calling to serve as a missionary of God.It had been Leisel who had first sparked Jared's interest in the gospel. She and Rob had befriended Jared early on in his senior year of high school. But even as all of Rob's choices seem to be leading him away from the Church, all of Jared's choices were drawing him closer to it--and to Leisel. And on the night of the horrible crash, Jared finally understands how life-changing the consequences of a choice can be.

Lawdog: The Life and Times of Hayden Tilden


J. Lee Butts - 2001
    Lee Butts! Legendary as the meanest, most fearless lawdog of the Old West, Hayden Tilden sometimes blurs the line between U.S. Marshal and hired assassin. His adventures all began with one murderous, cold-blooded bastard: Saginaw Bob Magruder. The depraved killer butchered Tilden’s entire family and hurled the young man into a ruthless, bloody crusade for vengeance and a career as a U. S. Marshal. Tracking down Magruder will be just the beginning of Tilden’s adventures, bringing his own brand of justice to the wild and lawless West. “Lawdog has it all. I couldn’t put it down.” —Jack Ballas, author of A Town Afraid “Lawdog should assume its rightful place beside other Western classics.” —Peter Brandvold, bestselling author of Once Hell Freezes Over About the Author: J. Lee Butts is the author of 22 published books and numerous magazine articles and short works. His book Brotherhood of Blood was runner-up for the Western Writers of America Spur Award in 2005. He’s worn many hats over the years (teacher, administrator, pool manager, IBM supervisor, and western author), and he and his late wife lived everywhere from Los Angeles to Dallas. Currently he’s hanging those hats back in White Hall, Arkansas.