Think and Enjoy... a list in no order...
Discover a curated list of must-read books to enjoy in no particular order. Find your next favorite read with our diverse and engaging book recommendations.
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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
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ID: 0553379658
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Anthem
by Ayn Rand
Anthem is Ayn Randâs classic tale of a dystopian future of the great âWeââa world that deprives individuals of a name or independenceâthat anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was oneâthe great WE. In all that was left of humanity there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy wordâI. âI worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities.ââAyn Rand
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ID: 0385333471
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ID: 156849663X
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The New York Trilogy
by Paul Auster
The remarkable, acclaimed series of interconnected detective novels City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room, from New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster âExhilarating . . . a brilliant investigation of the storytellerâs art guided by a writer-detective whoâs never satisfied with just the facts.ââThe Philadelphia Inquirer City of Glass: As a result of a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Quinn, a writer of detective stories, becomes enmeshed in a case more puzzling than any he might have written. Ghosts: Blue, a student of Brown, has been hired by White to spy on Black. From a window of a rented room on Orange Street, Blue keeps watch on his subject, who is across the street, staring out of his own window. The Locked Room: Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and a cache of extraordinary novels, plays, and poems. What happened to him and why is the narrator, Fanshaweâs boyhood friend, lured obsessively into his life? Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, this is a uniquely stylized trilogy of detective novels that The Washington Post Book World has classified as âpost-existential private eye. . . . Itâs as if Kafka has gotten hooked on the gumshoe game and penned his own ever-spiraling version.â
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ID: 0679885609
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The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from âthe patron saint of feminist dystopian fictionâ (The New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. Look for The Testaments, the bestselling, award-winning the sequel to The Handmaidâs Tale In Margaret Atwoodâs dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gileadâs commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaidâs Tale is a modern classic. Includes an introduction by Margaret Atwood
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ID: 1563891085
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The Stranger
by Albert Camus
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The StrangerâCamus's masterpieceâgives 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. âThe Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Wardâs translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camusâs 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.â âfrom the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
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House of Stairs
by William Sleator
This chilling, suspenseful indictment of mind control is a classic of science fiction and will haunt readers long after the last page is turned. One by one, five sixteen-year-old orphans are brought to a strange building. It is not a prison, not a hospital; it has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Nothing but endless flights of stairs leading nowhere--except back to a strange red machine. The five must learn to love the machine and let it rule their lives. But will they let it kill their souls? "An intensely suspenseful page-turner." --School Library Journal "A riveting suspense novel with an anti-behaviorist message that works . . . because it emerges only slowly from the chilling events." --Kirkus Reviews
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The River why
by David James Duncan
Since its publication by Sierra Club Books nearly two decades ago, The River Why has become a classic, standing with Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It as the most-read fiction about fly-fishing of our era. Duncan's protagonist, Gus Orviston, is an irreverent young flyfisherman--a vibrant character who makes us laugh easily and feel deeply, and who speaks with startling truth about the way we live. Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus embarks on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery along his beloved Oregon rivers. What he unexpectedly finds is man's wanton destruction of nature and a burning desire to commit himself to its preservation. The River Why is a tale that gives a contemporary voice to the concerns and hopes of all living things on this beautiful, watery planet. It is the story of one man's search for meaning, for love, and for a sane way to live.
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V for Vendetta
by Alan Moore
In an alternate future in which Germany wins World War II and Britain becomes a fascist state, a vigilante named "V" tries to free England of its ideological chains.
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The Man who Fell to Earth
by Walter S. Tevis
T.J. Newton is an extraterrestrial who goes to Earth on a desperate mission of mercy. But instead of aid, Newton discovers loneliness and despair that ultimately ends in tragedy.
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The Sparrow
by Mary Doria Russell
A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end. Praise for The Sparrow âA startling, engrossing, and moral work of fiction.ââThe New York Times Book Review âImportant novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them.ââEntertainment Weekly âPowerful . . . The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence.ââSan Francisco Chronicle âProvocative, challenging . . . recalls both Arthur C. Clarke and H. G. Wells, with a dash of Ray Bradbury for good measure.ââThe Dallas Morning News â[Mary Doria] Russell shows herself to be a skillful storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense.ââUSA Today
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ID: 0613062159
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Walden Two
by Burrhus Frederic Skinner
A Utopian community organized around behaviorist principles offers provocative alternatives to a society lacking direction.
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Animal Farm
by George Orwell
75th Anniversary EditionâIncludes a New Introduction by TĂŠa Obreht George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novelâa scathing satire on a downtrodden societyâs blind march towards totalitarianism. âAll animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.â 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 pennedâa 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 Orwellâs masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.