Bucket List Books

His dark materials

Books 1, 2, 3

Phillip Pullman

The extraordinary story moves between
parallel universes. Beginning in Oxford, it
takes Lyra and her animal-daemon
Pantalaimon on a dangerous rescue
mission to the ice kingdoms of the far North,
where she begins to learn about the
mysterious particles they call Dust - a
substance for which terrible war between
different worlds will be fought...

The hitchhiker’s
guide to the
galaxy

Douglas Adams

Seconds before Earth is demolished to
make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur
Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend
Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised
edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has
been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together, this dynamic pair began a
journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod
Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed, ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch
president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod’s girlfriend,
whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone;
Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet
Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all
the ballpoint pens he’s bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? For all the answers,
stick your thumb to the stars!

The hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien

“In a hole in the ground there lived a
hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled
with the ends of worms and an oozy smell,
nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with
nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was
a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The
Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim
when it was first published in 1937. Now
recognized as a timeless classic, this
introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins,
the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the
spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant
hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the
Magnificent.

inferno

Dante Alighieri

Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to
the very depths of Hell and embarks on his
arduous journey towards God. Together they
descend through the twenty-four circles of
the underworld and encounter the
tormented souls of the damned - from
heretics and pagans to gluttons, criminals
and seducers - who tell of their sad fates and
predict events still to come in Dante's life. In
this first part of his Divine Comedy, Dante
fused satire and humor with intellect and
soaring passion to create an immortal
Christian allegory of mankind's search for self-
knowledge and spiritual enlightenment.

Invisible man

Ralph Ellison

First published in 1952 and immediately
hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one
of those rare novels that have changed the
shape of American literature. For not only
does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across
the racial divide tell unparalleled truths
about the nature of bigotry and its effects on
the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it
gives us an entirely new model of what a
novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the
streets and basements of Harlem, from a
horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a
Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's
nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own
into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a
voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and
white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our
century.

Sense and
sensibility

Jane Austen

'The more I know of the world, the more am
I convinced that I shall never see a man
whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on
her sleeve, and when she falls in love with
the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby
she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that
her impulsive behavior leaves her open to
gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor,
always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic
disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel
experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must
mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where
status and money govern the rules of love.

Jane eyre

Charlotte Bronte

Orphaned into the household of her Aunt
Reed at Gateshead and subject to the
cruel regime at Lowood charity school,
Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in
spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of
governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr.
Rochester, and discovers the impediment
to their lawful marriage in a story that
transcends melodrama to portray a
woman's passionate search for a wider and
richer life than Victorian society traditionally
allowed.

With a heroine full of yearning, the
dangerous secrets she encounters, and the choices she finally makes, Charlotte
Bronte's innovative and enduring romantic novel continues to engage and
provoke readers.

The kite runner

Khaled Hosseini

“It may be unfair, but what happens in a
few days, sometimes even a single day,
can change the course of a whole
lifetime."

Amir is the son of a wealthy Kabul
merchant, a member of the ruling caste of
Pashtuns. Hassan, his servant and constant
companion, is a Hazara, a despised and
impoverished caste. Their uncommon bond
is torn by Amir's choice to abandon his
friend amidst the increasing ethnic,
religious, and political tensions of the dying
years of the Afghan monarchy, wrenching
them far apart. But so strong is the bond between the two boys that Amir
journeys back to a distant world, to try to right past wrongs against the only true
friend he ever had.

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a
wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully
crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is
about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of
redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love,
their sacrifices, their lies.

A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating
backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner
is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind
classic.

Les

miserables

Victor Hugo

Introducing one of the most famous
characters in literature, Jean Valjean—the
noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf
of bread—Les Misérables ranks among the
greatest novels of all time. In it, Victor Hugo
takes readers deep into the Parisian
underworld, immerses them in a battle
between good and evil, and carries them to
the barricades during the uprising of 1832
with a breathtaking realism that is
unsurpassed in modern prose. Within his dramatic story are themes that capture
the intellect and the emotions: crime and punishment, the relentless
persecution of Valjean by Inspector Javert, the desperation of the prostitute
Fantine, the amorality of the rogue Thénardier, and the universal desire to
escape the prisons of our own minds. Les Misérables gave Victor Hugo a
canvas upon which he portrayed his criticism of the French political and judicial
systems, but the portrait that resulted is larger than life, epic in scope—an
extravagant spectacle that dazzles the senses even as it touches the heart.

Life of pi

Yann Martel

Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by
Yann Martel published in 2001. The
protagonist, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, a Tamil
boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of
spirituality and practicality from an early
age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck
while stranded on a boat in the Pacific
Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard
Parker.

Little prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography,
The Little Prince is the most translated book
in the French language. With a timeless
charm it tells the story of a little boy who
leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to
travel the universe, learning the vagaries of
adult behaviour through a series of
extraordinary encounters. His personal
odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth
and further adventures.

Little women

Louisa May Alcott

Following the lives of four sisters on a journey
out of adolescence, Louisa May Alcott's Little
Women explores the difficulties associated
with gender roles in a Post-Civil War America.

Grown-up Meg, tomboyish Jo, timid Beth,
and precocious Amy. The four March sisters
couldn't be more different. But with their
father away at war, and their mother
working to support the family, they have to
rely on one another. Whether they're putting
on a play, forming a secret society, or
celebrating Christmas, there's one thing they
can't help wondering: Will Father return
home safely?

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and
romantic - has fallen completely and utterly
in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-
snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old
daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs
Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert
suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but
when Lo herself starts looking for attention
elsewhere, he will carry her off on a
desperate cross-country misadventure, all in
the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant,
heart-breaking and full of ingenious word
play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable
masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

Lord of the
flies

William Golding

When a plane crashes on a remote island, a
small group of schoolboys are the sole
survivors. From the prophetic Simon and
virtuous Ralph to the lovable Piggy and
brutish Jack, each of the boys attempts to
establish control as the reality - and brutal
savagery - of their situation sets in.

The boys' struggle to find a way of existing in
a community with no fixed boundaries
invites readers to evaluate the concepts involved in social and political
constructs and moral frameworks. Ideas of community, leadership, and the rule
of law are called into question as the reader has to consider who has a right to
power, why, and what the consequences of the acquisition of power may be.
Often compared to Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies also represents a
coming-of-age story of innocence lost.

The lord of

the rings

J.R.R. Tolkien

A fantastic starter set for new Tolkien fans or
readers interested in rediscovering the
magic of Middle-earth, this three-volume
box set features paperback editions of the
complete trilogy -- The Fellowship of the
Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the
King -- each with art from the New Line
Productions feature film on the cover.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is
a genuine masterpiece. The most widely
read and influential fantasy epic of all time, it is also quite simply one of the
most memorable and beloved tales ever told. Originally published in 1954, The
Lord of the Rings set the framework upon which all epic/quest fantasy since has
been built. Through the urgings of the enigmatic wizard Gandalf, young hobbit
Frodo Baggins embarks on an urgent, incredibly treacherous journey to destroy
the One Ring. This ring -- created and then lost by the Dark Lord, Sauron,
centuries earlier -- is a weapon of evil, one that Sauron desperately wants
returned to him. With the power of the ring once again his own, the Dark Lord
will unleash his wrath upon all of Middle-earth. The only way to prevent this
horrible fate from becoming reality is to return the Ring to Mordor, the only
place it can be destroyed. Unfortunately for our heroes, Mordor is also Sauron's
lair. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is essential reading not only for fans of fantasy
but for lovers of classic literature as well...

Love in the time of
cholera

Gabriel marquez

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina
Daza fall passionately in love. When
Fermina eventually chooses to marry a
wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is
devastated, but he is a romantic. As he
rises in his business career he whiles away
the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his
heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last,
and Florentino purposefully attends the
funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four
days after he first declared his love for
Fermina, he will do so again.

The lovely bones

Alice Sebold

The Lovely Bones is the story of a family
devastated by a gruesome murder -- a
murder recounted by the teenage victim.
Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time
novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult
material and delivers a compelling and
accomplished exploration of a fractured
family's need for peace and closure.

Madame
bovary

Gustave Flaubert

When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary
she imagines she will pass into the life of
luxury and passion that she reads about in
sentimental novels and women's
magazines. But Charles is a dull country
doctor, and provincial life is very different
from the romantic excitement for which she
yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams
she takes a lover, and begins a devastating
spiral into deceit and despair.

Memoirs of a
geisha

Arthur Golden

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller,
this brilliant debut novel presents with
seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism
the true confessions of one of Japan's most
celebrated geisha.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world
where appearances are paramount; where
a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest
bidder; where women are trained to
beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a
unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful -
and completely unforgettable.

Middlemarch

George Eliot

'We believe in her as in a woman we might
providentially meet some fine day when we
should find ourselves doubting of the
immortality of the soul'

wrote Henry James of Dorothea Brooke,
who shares with the young doctor Tertius
Lydgate not only a central role in
Middlemarch but also a fervent conviction
that life should be heroic.

By the time the novel appeared to
tremendous popular and critical acclaim in
1871-2, George Eliot was recognized as England's finest living novelist. It was her
ambition to create a world and portray a whole community--tradespeople,
middle classes, country gentry--in the rising provincial town of Middlemarch,
circa 1830. Vast and crowded, rich in narrative irony and suspense,
Middlemarch is richer still in character, in its sense of how individual destinies are
shaped by and shape the community, and in the great art that enlarges the
reader's sympathy and imagination. It is truly, as Virginia Woolf famously
remarked, 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'.

Midnight’s
children

Salman Rushdie

Born at the stroke of midnight, at the
precise moment of India's independence,
Saleem Sinai is destined from birth to be
special. For he is one of 1,001 children born
in the midnight hour, children who all have
special gifts, children with whom Saleem is
telepathically linked.

But there has been a terrible mix up at birth,
and Saleem’s life takes some unexpected twists and turns. As he grows up
amidst a whirlwind of triumphs and disasters, Saleem must learn the ominous
consequences of his gift, for the course of his life is inseparably linked to that of
his motherland, and his every act is mirrored and magnified in the events that
shape the newborn nation of India. It is a great gift, and a terrible burden.

Moby-dick

Or, The Whale

Herman Melville

'Call me Ishmael.'

So begins Herman Melville's masterpiece,
one of the greatest works of imagination in
literary history. As Ishmael is drawn into
Captain Ahab's obsessive quest to slay the
white whale Moby-Dick, he finds himself
engaged in a metaphysical struggle
between good and evil. More than just a
novel of adventure, more than an paean to
whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a
haunting social commentary, populated by some of the most enduring
characters in literature; the crew of the Pequod, from stern, Quaker First Mate
Starbuck, to the tattooed Polynesian harpooner Queequeg, are a vision of the
world in microcosm, the pinnacle of Melville's lifelong meditation on America.
Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is a profound, poetic
inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

Based on the Northwestern University Press edition, this Penguin Classics edition
includes a critical introduction by Andrew Delbanco, as well as valuable
explanatory notes, maps, illustrations and a glossary of nautical terms.

Herman Melville is now regarded as one of America's greatest novelists. Much
of the material for his novels was drawn from his own experience as a seaman
aboard whaling ships. He wrote his masterpiece Moby-Dick in 1851, and died in
1891.

Notes from a
small island

Bill Bryson

After nearly two decades spent on British soil,
Bill Bryson - bestselling author of The Mother
Tongue and Made in America-decided to
return to the United States. ("I had recently
read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million
Americans believed that they had been
abducted by aliens at one time or
another,so it was clear that my people
needed me.") But before departing, he set
out on a grand farewell tour of the green
and kindly island that had so long been his home.

Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a
Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating
nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm,
and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an
uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the
satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.

Of mice and
men

John Steinbeck

The compelling story of two outsiders
striving to find their place in an unforgiving
world. Drifters in search of work, George
and his simple-minded friend Lennie have
nothing in the world except each other
and a dream--a dream that one day they
will have some land of their own.
Eventually they find work on a ranch in
California’s Salinas Valley, but their hopes
are doomed as Lennie, struggling against
extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy, becomes a victim
of his own strength. Tackling universal themes such as the friendship of a shared
vision, and giving voice to America’s lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and
Men has proved one of Steinbeck’s most popular works, achieving success as a
novel, a Broadway play and three acclaimed films.

Of mice and
men

John Steinbeck

The compelling story of two outsiders
striving to find their place in an unforgiving
world. Drifters in search of work, George
and his simple-minded friend Lennie have
nothing in the world except each other
and a dream--a dream that one day they
will have some land of their own.
Eventually they find work on a ranch in
California’s Salinas Valley, but their hopes
are doomed as Lennie, struggling against
extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy, becomes a victim
of his own strength. Tackling universal themes such as the friendship of a shared
vision, and giving voice to America’s lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and
Men has proved one of Steinbeck’s most popular works, achieving success as a
novel, a Broadway play and three acclaimed films.

Oliver twist

Charles Dickens

'Let him feel that he is one of us; once fill
his mind with the idea that he has been a
thief, and he's ours, - ours for his life!'

The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs
away from the workhouse only to be taken
in by a den of thieves, shocked readers
when it was first published. Dickens's tale of
childhood innocence beset by evil depicts
the dark criminal underworld of a London
peopled by vivid and memorable
characters — the arch-villain Fagin, the
artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and
the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements
of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, in Oliver
Twist Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment
of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and
mystery.

This is the first critical edition to use the serial text of 1837-9, presenting Oliver
Twist as it appeared to its earliest readers. It includes Dickens's 1841 introduction
and 1850 preface, the original illustrations and a glossary of contemporary
slang.

On the road

Jack Kerouac

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's
years traveling the North American
continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a
side-burned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal
Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two
roam the country in a quest for self-
knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love
of America, his compassion for humanity,
and his sense of language as jazz combine
to make On the Road an inspirational work
of lasting importance.

Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be
"Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication.

Persuasion

Jane Austen

Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's
most adult heroine. Eight years before the
story proper begins, she is happily betrothed
to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but
she precipitously breaks off the
engagement when persuaded by her
friend Lady Russell that such a match is
unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a
deep and long-lasting regret. When later
Wentworth returns from sea a rich and
successful captain, he finds Anne's family on
the brink of financial ruin and his own sister
a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All
the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and
Wentworth be reunited in their love?

Jane Austen once compared her writing to painting on a little bit of ivory, 2
inches square. Readers of Persuasion will discover that neither her skill for
delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her
ability to apply a sharp focus lens to English manners and morals has deserted
her in her final finished work.

The picture of
dorian gray

Oscar Wilde

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner,
Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young
man who sells his soul for eternal youth and
beauty is the author’s most popular work. The
tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration
caused a scandal when it first appeared in
1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the
novel’s corrupting influence, he responded
that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in
Dorian Gray.” Just a few years later, the book
and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials
occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment.
Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil
Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I
would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”

A prayer for
owen meany

John Irving

Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a
Little League baseball game in Gravesend,
New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his
best friend's mother. Owen doesn't believe
in accidents; he believes he is God's
instrument. What happens to Owen after
that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and
terrifying. At moments a comic, self-
deluded victim, but in the end the
principal, tragic actor in a divine plan,
Owen Meany is the most heartbreaking
hero John Irving has yet created.

Pride &
Prejudice

Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a
single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in want of a wife.” So begins Pride
and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s witty comedy
of manners—one of the most popular
novels of all time—that features splendidly
civilized sparring between the proud Mr.
Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet
as they play out their spirited courtship in a
series of eighteenth-century drawing-room
intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894
declared it the “most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently
quintessential of its author’s works,” and Eudora Welty in the twentieth century
described it as “irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.

rebecca

Daphne du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley
again . . .

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where
our heroine is swept off her feet by the
dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his
sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned
and working as a lady's maid, she can
barely believe her luck. It is only when they
arrive at his massive country estate that
she realizes how large a shadow his late
wife will cast over their lives--presenting her
with a lingering evil that threatens to
destroy their marriage from beyond the
grave.

The remains of the
day

Kazuo Ishiguro

In 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at
Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring
trip through the West Country. The six-day
excursion becomes a journey into the past of
Stevens and England, a past that takes in
fascism, two world wars, and an unrealized
love between the butler and his
housekeeper. Ishiguro's dazzling novel is a
sad and humorous love story, a meditation
on the condition of modern man, and an
elegy for England at a time of acute change.

The Secret
garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to
live at her uncle's great house on the
Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets.
The mansion has nearly one hundred
rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked
up. And at night, she hears the sound of
crying down one of the long corridors.

The gardens surrounding the large
property are Mary's only escape. Then,
Mary discovers a secret garden,
surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of
two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the
garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?

Secret
history

Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic
classics professor, a group of clever,
eccentric misfits at an elite New England
college discover a way of thinking and
living that is a world away from the
humdrum existence of their
contemporaries. But when they go beyond
the boundaries of normal morality they slip
gradually from obsession to corruption and
betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil.

The shadow of the
wind

Ruiz Carlos Zafon

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the
aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and
Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son
who mourns the loss of his mother, finds
solace in a mysterious book entitled The
Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax.
But when he sets out to find the author’s
other works, he makes a shocking
discovery: someone has been
systematically destroying every copy of
every book Carax has written. In fact,
Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s
seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets-
-an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Slaughter house
five

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic
Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy
Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time
after he is abducted by aliens from the
planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling
display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim
simultaneously through all phases of his life,
concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's)
shattering experience as an American
prisoner of war who witnesses the
firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or
simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost
no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and
so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of
war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."

Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as
important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's
experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea
against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the
same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in
Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a
unique poignancy - and humor.

The stranger

Albert Camus

The Stranger is not merely one of the most
widely read novels of the 20th century, but
one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in
1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale
of a disaffected, apparently amoral young
man has earned a durable popularity (and
remains a staple of U.S. high school literature
courses) in part because it reveals so vividly
the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear
of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have
been given a purely modern inflection in the
hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who
won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted
for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of The Stranger, however, is
that it's not mired in period philosophy.

The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless
inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and,
somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and
eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the
arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character.
The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that
Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then
attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly
damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous
and inevitable.

The sun also rises

Ernest Hemingway

The quintessential novel of the Lost
Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of
Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a
classic example of his spare but powerful
writing style. A poignant look at the
disillusionment and angst of the post-World
War I generation, the novel introduces two of
Hemingway's most unforgettable characters:
Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story
follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless
Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of
1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of
Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is
an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing
illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish
Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

Swallows and
amazons

Arthur Ransome

The first title in Arthur Ransome's classic
series, originally published in 1930: for
children, for grownups, for anyone
captivated by the world of adventure and
imagination. Swallows and Amazons
introduces the lovable Walker family, the
camp on Wild Cat island, the able-bodied
catboat Swallow, and the two intrepid
Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett.

The tale of two
cities

Charles Dickens

After eighteen years as a political prisoner
in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette
is finally released and reunited with his
daughter in England. There the lives of two
very different men, Charles Darnay, an
exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney
Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English
lawyer, become enmeshed through their
love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil
roads of London, they are drawn against
their will to the vengeful, bloodstained
streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the
lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

Tess of the
D’Ubervilles

Thomas Hardy

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family
poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy
D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their
family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec
proves to be her downfall. A very different
man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love
and salvation, but Tess must choose
whether to reveal her past or remain silent
in the hope of a peaceful future.

The three
musketeers

Alexander Dumas

One of the most celebrated and popular
historical romances ever written. The Three
Musketeers tell the story of the early
adventures of the young Gascon
gentleman d'Artagnan and his three
friends from the regiment of the King's
Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

Under the watchful eye of their patron M.
de Treville, the four defend the honour of
the regiment against the guards of the
Cardinal Richelieu and the honor of the queen against the machinations of the
Cardinal himself as the power struggles of 17th-century France are vividly
played out in the background.

But their most dangerous encounter is with the Cardinal's spy: Milady, one of
literature's most memorable female villains.

Time traveler’s
wife

Audrey Niffenegger

A MOST UNTRADITIONAL LOVE STORY, this is
the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a
dashing, adventuresome librarian who
inadvertently travels through time, and
Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a
natural sequential course. Henry and
Clare’s passionate affair endures across a
sea of time and captures them in an
impossibly romantic trap that tests the
strength of fate and basks in the bonds of
love.

To kill a
mocking bird

Harper Lee

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a
sleepy Southern town and the crisis of
conscience that rocked it, To Kill A
Mockingbird became both an instant
bestseller and a critical success when it was
first published in 1960. It went on to win the
Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made
into an Academy Award-winning film, also
a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes
readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience,
kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18
million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by
a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always
considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a
masterpiece of American literature.

ulysses

James Joyce

James Joyce’s Ulysses, published in 1922,
remains one of the most challenging and
rewarding works of English literature. Not
only does it narrow its temporal focus to a
single day, it also widens its scope to follow
three major characters—Stephen Dedalus,
Leopold Bloom, and Molly Bloom—and
even the city of Dublin itself. Stylistically,
Ulysses is unique not only because it
changes style with every episode, but
because the narrative refuses to remain
obedient to the story; it increasingly peels
away from the plot and indulges in
independent raillery of the reader over the heads of the characters. The
narrative “wanders” in a way that celebrates the craft, humor, and meaning of
exploration, thereby resembling other famous wanderers: Odysseus, Bloom, the
Jews, and Bloom’s simultaneously adulterous and faithful wife, Molly.

Vanity fair

William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a
novel by William Makepeace Thackeray,
first published in 1847–48, satirizing society in
early 19th-century Britain. The book's title
comes from John Bunyan's allegorical story
The Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678
and still widely read at the time of
Thackeray's novel. Vanity fair refers to a
stop along the pilgrim's progress: a never-
ending fair held in a town called Vanity,
which is meant to represent man's sinful
attachment to worldly things. The novel is
now considered a classic, and has inspired
several film adaptations.

War & Peace

Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the
lives of private and public individuals during
the time of the Napoleonic wars and the
French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the
Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre,
Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately
connected with the national history that is
played out in parallel with their lives. Balls
and soirees alternate with councils of war
and the machinations of statesmen and
generals, scenes of violent battles with
everyday human passions in a work whose
extraordinary imaginative power has never
been surpassed.

The prodigious cast of characters, seem to act and move as if connected by
threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and
providence. Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and scenes of
domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them.

Watership down

Richard Adams

Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural
landscape, this stirring tale of adventure,
courage and survival follows a band of
very special creatures on their flight from
the intrusion of man and the certain
destruction of their home. Led by a
stouthearted pair of friends, they journey
forth from their native Sandleford Warren
through the harrowing trials posed by
predators and adversaries, to a mysterious
promised land and a more perfect society.

The wind in
the willows

Kenneth Grahame

Meet little Mole, willful Ratty, Badger the
perennial bachelor, and petulant Toad.
Over one hundred years since their first
appearance in 1908, they've become
emblematic archetypes of eccentricity,
folly, and friendship. And their
misadventures-in gypsy caravans, stolen
sports cars, and their Wild Wood-continue
to capture readers' imaginations and
warm their hearts long after they grow up.
Begun as a series of letters from Kenneth Grahame to his son, The Wind in the
Willows is a timeless tale of animal cunning and human camaraderie. This
Penguin Classics edition features an appendix of the letters in which Grahame
first related the exploits of Toad.