Books Ive Read pt. 2
Explore my curated list of must-read books in 'Books I've Read pt. 2'—discover top recommendations, hidden gems, and personal reviews to inspire your next read.
Book
The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
The revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand's groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim. This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite...of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy...and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator. As fresh today as it was then, Rand’s provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction—that man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress... “A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly...This is the only novel of ideas written by an American woman that I can recall.”—The New York Times
Book
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics “It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Decade • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age. Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award
Book
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
by Michael Chabon
Chabon's "New York Times"-bestselling first novel is a funny, tender coming-of-age story that introduces Art Bechstein, a Holden Caulfield for the post-Boomer/pre-Gen X-er generation.
Book
The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
A New York Times Book Review EDITORS' CHOICE. From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn, comes the vividly told story of Dylan Ebdus growing up white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. In a neighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along with games of stoopball, Dylan has one friend, a black teenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. Through the knitting and unraveling of the boys' friendship, Lethem creates an overwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race and class, superheros, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging, loyalty, and memory. "A tour de force.... Belongs to a venerable New York literary tradition that stretches back through Go Tell It on the Mountain, A Walker in the City, and Call it Sleep." --The New York Times Magazine "One of the richest, messiest, most ambitious, most interesting novels of the year.... Lethem grabs and captures 1970s New York City, and he brings it to a story worth telling." --Time
Book
Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway is the portrait of a single day in a woman's life.
Book
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Book
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
Sethe. Proud and beautiful, she escaped from slavery but is haunted by its heritage - from the fires of the flesh to the heartbreaking challenges to the spirit.
Book
Perfume
by Patrick Suskind
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Set in eighteenth-century France, the classic novel that provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder. In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. Translated from the German by John E. Woods.
Book
The Giver
by Lois Lowry
Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
Book
Tex
by S. E. Hinton
“In Tex, the raw energy for which Hinton has justifiably reaped praise has not been tamed—it’s been cultivated, and the result is a fine, solidly constructed, and well-paced story.”—School Library Journal, Starred An ALA Best Books for Young Adults A School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
Book
The Outsiders
by S. E. Hinton
Over 50 years of an iconic classic! This international bestseller and inspiration for a beloved movie is a heroic story of friendship and belonging. No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends—true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up on “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far. The Outsiders is a dramatic and enduring work of fiction that laid the groundwork for the YA genre. S. E. Hinton's classic story of a boy who finds himself on the outskirts of regular society remains as powerful today as it was the day it was first published. "The Outsiders transformed young-adult fiction from a genre mostly about prom queens, football players and high school crushes to one that portrayed a darker, truer world." —The New York Times "Taut with tension, filled with drama." —The Chicago Tribune "[A] classic coming-of-age book." —Philadelphia Daily News A New York Herald Tribune Best Teenage Book A Chicago Tribune Book World Spring Book Festival Honor Book An ALA Best Book for Young Adults Winner of the Massachusetts Children's Book Award
Book
Look Homeward, Angel
by Thomas Wolfe
Novel of repressive family life in a common-place southern town, autobiographical in character.
Item Not Found
ID: 0192824252
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0140440399
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0553210823
(Type: books)
Book
The Magic Christian
by Terry Southern
Guy Grand is an eccentric billionaire-the last of the big spenders-determined to create disorder in the material world and willing to spare no expense to do it.
Book
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
A book about love and courage and decency and glory. It is written with a wisdom that washes the mind and cools it. With an understanding that rips the heart with compassion.
Item Not Found
ID: 0684826801
(Type: books)
Book
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Александр Исаевич Солженицын
Recounts the experiences of Shukhov, a prisoner at a Soviet work camp in Siberia, as he struggles for survival.
Item Not Found
ID: 0872201864
(Type: books)
Book
Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse
The classic novel of a quest for knowledge that has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers—a perennial favorite for graduation gifts. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the book’s debut, the novel is infused with the sensibilities of Hermann Hesse’s time, synthesizing disparate philosophies–Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism–into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man’s search for meaning. It is the story of the quest of Siddhartha, a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege and comfort to seek spiritual fulfillment and wisdom. On his journey, Siddhartha encounters wandering ascetics, Buddhist monks, and successful merchants, as well as a courtesan named Kamala and a simple ferryman who has attained enlightenment. Traveling among these people and experiencing life’s vital passages–love, work, friendship, and fatherhood–Siddhartha discovers that true knowledge is guided from within.
Item Not Found
ID: 0679729518
(Type: books)
