Fifteen tales encompass the story of a man obsessed with the disappearance of an elephant from a local zoo and that of a young mother whose sleeplessness provides her with a foretaste of death.
These are beautifully written stories, often funny, always moving."--Chicago TribuneWith the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal...more
The tragic death of their best friend has a profound influence on the passionate relationship between Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, and Naoko, an introspective, beauty, as Toru finds himself drawn to an independent, sexually liberated young woman.
Two volume set of The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham including: Volume 1; East and West, 955 pages, 30 stories. Volume 2; The World Over, 681 pages, 61 stories.
Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic book tells the story of Philip Carey, a sensitive boy born with a clubfoot who is orphaned and raised by a religious aunt and uncle. Philip yearns for adventure, and at eighteen leaves home, e...more
Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie francaise and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses and wily financiers ...more
Set in Southern Rhodesia under white rule, Doris Lessing's first novel is at once a riveting chronicle of human disintegration, a beautifully understated social critique, and a brilliant depiction of the quiet horror of one woman's struggleagainst a ruthless fate.Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, fr...more
How shall we begin?This is the story of a book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—not an Earth book, never published on Earth and, until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or even heard of by any Earthman. Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.orThis is the story of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a number-one best ...more
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir.” –Los Angeles Times“Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, [Kurt Vonnegut’s] crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted. . . . [Reading A Man Without a Country is] like sitting down on the couch for a long chat with an old friend.” –The New...more