First published in 1957, this novel epitomized to the world the Beat philosophy. It chronicles a spontaneous and wandering life style founded both on jazz and drug-induced visions.
The indisputable bible of the Beat Generation, "On the Road" (1957) fictionalizes Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend, Neal Cassidy.
Hesse's classic tells of the turmoil of Emil Sinclair, a docile young man who is drawn by his schoolmates into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention.
As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss Ne...more
Jeanette, the protagonist of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and the author's namesake, has issues--"unnatural" ones: her adopted mam thinks she's the Chosen one from God; she's beginning to fancy girls; and an orange demon keeps popping into her psyche. Already Jeanette Winterson's semi-autobiographical first novel is not your typical coming-of-age...more
A brilliant psychological portrait of a troubled young man’s quest for self-awareness, this coming-of-age novel achieved instant critical and popular acclaim upon its 1919 publication. A landmark in the history of 20th-century literature, it reflects the author’s preoccupation with the duality of human nature and the pursuit of spiritual fullfi...more
Based on George Eliot's own growing-up years, this 1860 novel is her most overtly autobiographical work. Even the precisely described scenery reflects the area in Warwickshire where she was raised. THE MILL ON THE FLOSS is the story of affectionate, willful Maggie Tulliver, who is hungry for knowledge and experience, and her more conventional and i...more
Little Altars Everywhere is the New York Times bestselling companion to Rebecca Wells' celebrated novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Told in the alternating voices of Vivi and her husband, Big Shep, along with Sidda, her siblings Little Shep, Lulu, Baylor, as well as the almost-but-not-quite family Cheney and Willetta, Wells embraces nea...more