The Fount
Discover The Fount: Your ultimate guide to a curated list of must-read books. Find your next literary adventure with our expertly selected collection.
Book
The Little Friend
by Donna Tartt
Although the Cleves generally revelled in every detail of their family history, the events of 'the terrible Mother's Day' were never, ever discussed. On that day, nine-year-old Robin Cleves, loved by all for his whims and peculiarities, was found hanging by the neck from a rope slung over a black-tupelo tree in his own garden. Eleven years later, the mystery - with its taunting traces of foul play - was no nearer a solution than it had been on the day it happened.This isn't good enough for Robin's youngest sister Harriet. Only a baby when the tragedy occurred, but now twelve-years-old and steeped in the adventurous daring of favourite writers such as Stevenson, Kipling and Conan Doyle, Harriet is ready and eager to find and punish her brother's killer. Her closest friend Hely - who would try anything to make Harriet love him - has sworn allegiance to her call for revenge. But the world these plucky twelve-year-olds are to encounter has nothing to do with child's play: it is dark, adult and all too menacing. In Donna Tartt's Mississippi, the sense of place and sense of the past mingle redolently with rich human drama to create a collective alchemy. Here eccentric great aunts bustle about graciously despite faded fortunes and a child's inquiring mind not only unearths telling family artefacts, but stirs up a neighbourhood nest of vipers and larceny. THE LITTLE FRIEND is a profoundly involving novel which demonstrates how the imaginary life embraces what literature we read, what special places we inhabit and what kindred souls we recognize, to help crack open even the darkest secrets life has hiding for us.
Book
Ishmael
by Daniel Quinn
One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author. âA thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.ââThe New York Times Book Review Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime. So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorillaâa journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankindâs place in it. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanityâs origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves? Explore Daniel Quinnâs spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL ⢠MY ISHMAEL ⢠THE STORY OF B Praise for Ishmael âAs suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.ââThe Austin Chronicle âBefore weâre halfway through this slim book . . . weâre in [Daniel Quinnâs] grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet from ourselves. We want to change our lives.ââThe Washington Post âArthur Koestler, in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of the dinosaur, formulated what he called the Dinosaurâs Prayer: âLord, a little more time!â Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time.ââLos Angeles Times
Book
Wicked
by Gregory Maguire
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil? Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.
Book
Exquisite Corpse
by Poppy Z. Brite
From the acclaimed author of Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Wormwood comes the provocative and thrilling serial killer novel that #1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub calls âa guidebook to hell.â To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the ambition of bringing his art to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his own art to limits even Compton hadnât previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim. Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of Londonâs Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of New Orleansâs French Quarter, Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. With âintelligence, sweep, nerve, knowledge, and deeply unsettling erotic powerâ (Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk), Exquisite Corpse is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.
Book
The Chronicles of Narnia Rack Box Set (Books 1 to 7)
by C. S. Lewis
Collection includes all seven of the novels in the series.
Book
Sex, Art, and American Culture
by Camille Paglia
A collection of twenty of Paglia's out-spoken essays on contemporary issues in America's ongoing cultural debate such as Anita Hill, Robert Mapplethorpe, the beauty myth, and the decline of education in America.
Book
The Cobra Event
by Richard Preston
âOne of those books you literally canât put down . . . makes The Hot Zone virusâfar away in a rainforestâlook like no big deal.ââDetroit Free Press Five days ago, a homeless man on a subway platform died in agony as startled commuters looked on. Yesterday, a teenager started having violent, uncontrollable spasms in art class. Within minutes, she too was dead. Dr. Alice Austen is a medical pathologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. What she knows is that the two deaths are connected. What she fears is that they are only the beginning. . . . âManages to grab you with the authenticity of its scientific detective work and haunt you with its sheer plausibility.ââEntertainment Weekly
Book
The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
Set in the period between the world wars, this novel tells of two sisters, their trials, and their survival.
Book
H.R. Giger's Necronomicon
by Hansruedi Giger
This volume brings together around 200 of Giger's paintings, sketches and photographs, as well as autobiographical passages and the artist's personal reflections on his work.
