Book List 2009

name_is_george @ 2009-12-23T14:30:00

2009-12-23T11:30:09Z

The State of Africa by Martin Meredith

'As a popular introduction to the subject it could hardly be bettered' PIERS BRENDON, Sunday Telegraph
'A highly readable digest of half a century of woes in the cradle of mankind' The Economist
'A brilliant and vitally important work for all who wish to understand Africa and its beleaguered people' Booklist
'A series of often vivid country snapshots . . . Meredith is a sure guide to this colossal, sad story' Sunday Times
'As a narrative of Africa's political trajectory since independence, this book is hard to beat . . . Elegantly written as well as unerringly accurate' Financial Times
'In Africa the past does matter. It explains the present and no one is going to move anywhere without it. That is why this book is important . . . [It] is also a great narrative . . . Meredith has given a spectacularly clear view of the African political jungle' Spectator
'[Meredith's] epic account of Africa's post-independence era covers fifty years of tumultuous change as comprehensively as can be hoped for in a single book . . . Magisterial' BBC History Magazine

name_is_george @ 2009-09-29T23:11:00

2009-10-11T22:43:06Z

Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott's droll and delightful 'romance of many dimensions' explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A Square, whose linear world is invaded by an emissary Sphere bringing the gospel of the third dimension on the eve of the new millennium. Part geometry lesson, part social satire, this classic work of science fiction brilliantly succeeds in enlarging all readers' imaginations beyond the limits of our 'respective dimensional prejudices'. In a world where class is determined by how many sides you possess, and women are straight lines, the prospects for enlightenment are boundless, and Abbott's hypotheses about a fourth and higher dimensions seem startlingly relevant today.

name_is_george @ 2009-09-17T12:48:00

2009-09-17T08:57:14Z

The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway

The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Earnest 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.

name_is_george @ 2009-08-14T13:45:00

2009-08-14T09:53:04Z

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published - perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

name_is_george @ 2009-06-29T18:18:00

2009-06-29T14:26:31Z

Invisible Man by 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.

name_is_george @ 2009-06-02T20:29:00

2009-06-03T13:37:03Z

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

When The Fountainhead was first published, Ayn Rand's daringly original literary vision and her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism, won immediate worldwide interest and acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This edition contains a special Afterword by Rand's literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, which includes excerpts from Ayn Rand's own notes on the making of The Fountainhead. As fresh today as it was then, here is a novel about a hero - and about those who try to destroy him.

name_is_george @ 2009-05-26T18:32:00

2009-05-26T14:37:32Z

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under - maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

name_is_george @ 2009-05-13T18:53:00

2009-05-13T15:07:38Z

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she'd never met, a native of Guernsey, the British island once occupied by the Nazis. He'd come across her name on the flyleaf of a second hand volume by Charles Lamb. Perhaps she could tell him where he might fins more books by this author.
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, she is drawn into the world of this man and his friends, all members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a unique book club formed in a unique, spur-of-the-moment way: as an alibi to protect its members from arrest by the Germans.
Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the Society's charming, deeply human members, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Through their letters she learns about their island, their taste in books, and the powerful, transformative impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds there will change her forever.

name_is_george @ 2009-04-27T23:48:00

2009-04-27T19:54:30Z

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt's The Secret History is the original American campus novel. When Richard Papen joins an elite group of clever misfits at his New England college, it seems he can finally become the person he wants to be. But the moral boundaries he will cross with his new friends - and the deaths they are responsible for - will change all their lives forever. The Secret History recounts the terrible price we pay for mistakes made on the dark journey to adulthood.

name_is_george @ 2009-03-18T21:27:00

2009-03-18T18:44:06Z

Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann

Malina is a work of sharp, unforgettable images and an irresistible narrative. Here is the story of lives painfully intertwined: the unnamed narrator, haunted by nightmarish memories of her father, lives with the androgynous Malina, an initially remote and dispassionate man who ultimately becomes an ominous influence. Plunging toward its riveting finale, Malina brutally lays bare the struggle for love and the limits of discourse between women and men.

name_is_george @ 2009-03-07T12:34:00

2009-03-07T10:30:55Z

Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

"Reduce, reuse, recycle," urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in the provocative, visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle-to-grave" manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful and highly effective.

Waste equals food.

Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, the will provide nourishment for something new. They can be conceived as "biological nutrients" that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Or they can be "technical nutrients" that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being "recycled" - really, downcycled - into low-grade materials and uses. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved with making anything can begin to do so as well.

name_is_george @ 2009-02-19T18:26:00

2009-02-19T15:52:02Z

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
by Rainer Maria Rilke

This is the definitive, widely acclaimed translation of the major prose work of one of our century's greatest poets - 'a masterpiece like no other' (Elizabeth Hardwick) -Rilke's only novel, extraordinary for it's structural uniqueness and purity of language. First published in 1910, it has proven to be one of the most influential and enduring works of fiction of our century.

Malte Laurids Brigge is a young Danish nobleman and poet living in Paris. Obsessed with death and with the reality that lurks behind appearances, Brigge muses on his family and their history and on the teeming, alien life of the city. Many of the themes and images that occur in Rilke's poetry can also be found in the novel, prefiguring the modernist movement in its self-awareness and imagistic immediacy.

name_is_george @ 2009-02-14T15:17:00

2009-02-14T12:25:06Z

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde's classic tale of the moral decline of its title character, Dorian Gray. When Dorian has his portrait painted by Basil Hallward and wishes that he would stay young while his picture changes, his wish comes true. In exchange for this Dorian gives up his soul and as he ages the bad deeds that he commits are reflected in his painting and not him. The Picture of Dorian Gray, arguably Wilde's most popular work, was considered quite scandalous when it was first published in the late 1800s in Victorian England.

name_is_george @ 2009-01-16T23:50:00

2009-01-16T21:11:11Z

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around a blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother", Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina - a town that holds the secret of her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a tory that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

name_is_george @ 2009-01-14T19:14:00

2009-01-14T16:19:42Z

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a "utopian" future - where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and a thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.

name_is_george @ 2009-01-11T21:59:00

2009-01-11T19:06:24Z

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Winner of the National Book Award

Quoyle is a hapless, hopeless hack journalist living and working in New York. When his no-good wife is killed in a spectacular road accident, Quoyle heads for the land of his forefathers - the remotest corner of far-flung Newfoundland. With his delinquent daughters in tow, Quoyle finds himself part of an unfolding, exhilarating Atlantic drama in this irresistible comedy of human life and possibility.