Anthony Heald
Homer's Iliad can justly be called the world's greatest war epic. The terrible and long-drawn-out siege of Troy remains one of the classic campaigns, the heroism and treachery of its combatants unmatched in song and story. Driven by fierce passions and loyalties, men and gods battle to a devastating conclusion.
"Homer is full of merriment, full of open fun and delicate comedy, even farce—as when Ares, wounded, bursts up to Olympus like
...8) Alone
Among the characters you'll find in this collection of twelve stories by Tobias Wolff are a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life, a timid professor who, in the first genuine outburst of her life, pours out her opinions in spite of a protesting audience, a prudish loner who gives an obnoxious hitchhiker a ride, and an elderly couple on a golden anniversary cruise who endure the offensive conviviality of the ship's social director.
Fondly
...10) Ubik
"From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you'll never be sure you've woken up from."—Lev Grossman, Time
Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business — deploying his teams of anti-psychics...
11) Eifelheim
The alien world of medieval Europe lives again, transformed by the physics of the future, by a winner of the Heinlein Award
Over the centuries, one small town in Germany has disappeared and never been resettled. Tom, a historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. By all logic, the town should have survived. What's so special about Eifelheim?
Father Dietrich is the village priest of Eifelheim, in the
When paranoid schizophrenic killer Michael Hrubek escapes from an institution, there’s no doubt of where he’s headed: to find the woman who put him away and to finally get his revenge.
Lis Atcheson knows he’s out there—the man who...
In his National Book Award–winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to...
16) Elmer Gantry
The destruction of Atlanta is an iconic moment in American history. But this epic siege on American soil has been treated only cursorily by historians. Marc Wortman grandly remedies this situation with The Bonfire, an absorbing narrative history told through the points of view of key participants both Confederate and Union.
The Bonfire reveals an Atlanta of unexpected paradoxes: a new mercantile city dependent on the primitive institution
...Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world. Alma...
19) The good earth
The Good Earth is Buck’s classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple’s fortunes improve over the years: They have sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property...
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, was completed by Mary Shelley at the age of 19. She infused this original novel with Gothic and Romantic elements. Scientist Victor Frankenstein creates a large and powerful creature in the likeness of man, but is disgusted by his own creation and he abandons the being to fend for itself. Spawning generations of horror stories in the genre, Frankenstein is a gruesome warning against playing
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