Some terrific authors
Discover a curated list of terrific authors and must-read books, from George Orwell's *Animal Farm* to Hermann Hesse's *Steppenwolf* and Albert Camus' *The Stranger*. Explore classic fiction, thought-provoking novels, and inspiring biographies in this hand-picked collection for avid readers.
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The Stranger
by Albert Camus
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward. Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. “The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and Âdevious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.” –from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
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Animal Farm
by George Orwell
75th Anniversary Edition—Includes a New Introduction by Téa Obreht George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.
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The Soloist
by Mark Salzman
As a child, Renne showed promise of becoming one of the world's greatest cellists. Now, years later, his life suddenly is altered by two events: he becomes a juror in a murder trial for the brutal killing of a Buddhist monk, and he takes on as a pupil a Korean boy whose brilliant musicianship reminds him of his own past.
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Writing Down the Bones
by Natalie Goldberg
A collection of essays in which the author explores methods of writing based on her experience in Zen meditation.
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Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
An autobiographical novel featuring Harry Haller in "an experimental mix of symbolism, realism, and fantasy."--Cover.
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The Dead Zone
by Stephen King
Beware, The Wheel of Fortune… Johnny, the small boy who skated at breakneck speed into an accident that for one horrifying moment plunged him into…the dead zone. Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half-year trip into…the dead zone. John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed power—the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in…the dead zone.
