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Achebe, Chinua
Things Fall Apart
A monument to the modern African experience as seen from within. Two intertwining stories center around Okonkwo. The first is powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with the arrival of European missionaries.
181 p. 1992
Adult Fiction Book
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Atwood, Margaret.
The Handmaid's Tale
Following a radical, theocratic revolution, Offred becomes a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in the household of an enigmatic Commander. In a time of declining birthrates Offred's only value lies in her fertility. But she can remember living with her own family and working before she lost all her rights.
350 p. 2006
Adult Fiction Book
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Beah, Ishmael
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
This is how wars are fought now: by children hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? More importantly, how does one stop?
229 p. 2007
Adult Nonfiction Book
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Bronte, Charlotte
Jane Eyre
Bronte's novel about the passionate love between Jane Eyre, a young girl alone in the world, and the rich, domineering Rochester has enthralled every kind of reader ever since its publication in 1847.
578 p. 2006
Adult Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Campbell, Joseph
The Power of Myth
Noted mythologist Campbell, interviewed by Bill Moyers, discusses the relationship of ancient myths to modern life, including discussions of recent heros, tales of love and marriage, the power of myth, and mythic themes.
293 p. 1991
Adult Nonfiction Book
Other formats available |
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Diamond, Jared M.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Diamond casts a wide net in the realms of history, geography, and science to address questions essential to humanity's continued survival.
589 p. 2011
Adult Nonfiction Book
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Diaz, Junot
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, Oscar dreams of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the ancient curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love.
339 p. 2007
Adult Fiction Book
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Dickens, Charles
A Tale of Two Cities
Presents Dickens' classic novel of love, courage, and sacrifice set against the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution. During the French Revolution a dissolute English lawyer, Sydney Carton, goes to the guillotine to save a French aristocrat, the husband of the woman he loves.
413 p. 1993
Adult Fiction Book
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Douglass, Frederick.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave Written By Himself
Frederick Douglass' 1845 account of how, as a young slave, he taught himself to read and, as a result, began resisting his white slavemasters to ultimately escape and achieve freedom is a classic of African American literature and an important document in U.S. history.
2009
Adult Nonfiction Book
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Eggers, Dave.
What is the What: the Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee now living in the United States, gives the history of the civil war in Sudan through his eyes. Driven from his home as a boy, Valentino walks with thousands of orphans to Ethiopia, where he finds safety for a time. His travels bring him in contact with government soldiers, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, disease and starvation.
475 p. 2006
Adult Fiction Book
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Fadiman, Anne.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: a Hmong Child her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures
When Lia Lee, the three-month old daughter of Hmong parents, entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.
341 p. 1998
Adult Nonfiction Book
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Fitzgerald, F. Scott
The Great Gatsby
Millionaire Jay Gatsby had once loved beautiful, spoiled Daisy Buchanan, then lost her to a rich boy. Now, mysteriously wealthy, he is ready to risk everything to woo her back.
180 p. 2004
Adult Fiction Book
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Foer, Jonathan Safran
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission: to find the lock that matches a key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.
326 p. 2005
Adult Fiction Book
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Follett, Ken.
Pillars of the Earth
Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent cathedral with a story of betrayal, revenge, and love that begins with the public hanging of an innocent man and ends with the humiliation of a king.
973 p. 1989
Adult Fiction Book
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Gaines, Ernest J.
A Lesson Before Dying
A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach and visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
256 p. 1993
Adult Fiction Book
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Garcia Marquez, Gabriel.
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo, told through the history of the Buendia family. In the noble, ridiculous, and beautiful, of the Buendia family one sees all mankind, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo one sees all of Latin America.
422 p. 1970
Adult Fiction Book
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Heller, Joseph.
Catch-22
Yossarian is a bombardier made to fly increasingly dangerous missions. If he can prove he is insane, he will be sent home. The catch: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous missions, but if he makes the formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.
463 p. 2004
Adult Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Hemingway, Ernest
A Farewell to Arms
The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse.
332 p. 1995
Adult Fiction Book
Other formats available |
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Homer
The Odyssey
In his perilous journey home after the Trojan War, Odysseus must pass through the land of the Cyclopes, encounter Circe the Enchantress, and face the terrible Charybdis and the six headed serpent Scylla.
515 p. 1998
Adult Nonfiction Book
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Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
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. It remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.
259 p. 2006
Adult Fiction Book
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