Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, Ham on Rye, is the semi-autobiographical story of the early years of his alter ego Henry Chinaski. It is a finely written and honest account of the painful childhood of a boy marked out from his peers. Regularly beaten by his father, Chinaski is shown growing through his difficult and violent adolescence (struck wit...more
Young, beautiful and wealthy, Gloria and Anthony want their marriage to be "a live, glamorous performance". Seemingly perfectly matched, their love begins to deteriorate as each discovers imperfections in the other. In a desperate search for happiness they live riotously - until the final crack-up.
Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behavior becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. I...more
Bronte's second novel is a passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions supposedly upheld by Victorian society. The heroine leaves her dissolute husband and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. An Oxford University Press World Classic.
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED, F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 novel, is heavily based on his own troubled marriage as he describes the moral, physical, and financial decline of a beautiful and gifted couple. Anthony and Gloria Patch seem made for each other, and their idyllic relationship is enhanced by their expectations of inheriting Anthony's grandfather...more
A journalist describes her twenty years as a functioning alcoholic, explaining how she used alcohol to escape the realities of life and personal relationships, until a series of personal crises forced her to confront her problem. Reprint. 90,000 first printing."
In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Lib...more
The Consul staggers from bar to bar hoping to find salvation. The dissolute life suits him until his former wife Yvonne returns with Hugh, the Consul's half-brother. As the trio enjoys a local Mexican festival, they discover the dead body of a peasant, thus beginning a series of events that will decide the Consul's fate. In the course of one day an...more
A sweeping novel of world war, migration, and the search for new beginnings in a new land, The Sound of One Hand Clapping was both critically acclaimed and a best-seller in Australia. It is a virtuoso performance from an Australian who is emerging as one of our most talented new storytellers. It was 1954, in a construction camp for a hydroelectric ...more
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