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What books are currently the most popular and which are the all time classics? Here we present you with a mixture of those two criteria. We update this list once a month.
Selma Lagerlof
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have …
Kaye Gibbons
A Virtuous Woman is a novel by Kaye Gibbons. It was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection in October 1997.
Ian Rankin
Edinburgh police detective John Rebus, Ian Rankin's popular series detective, is a brilliantly realized character, as moody, dark, and melancholy as Edinburgh itself. In The Falls, he's almost certain that missing university student Philippa Balfour is dead, but he's less sure …
Nora Roberts
Conspiracy in Death is a novel by J. D. Robb. It is the eighth novel in the In Death series, preceding Loyalty in Death.
Stephen Briggs
'They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach which just goes to show they're as confused about anatomy as they gen'rally are about everything else, unless they're talking about instructions on how to stab him, in which case a better way is up and under the …
Forrest Carter
Forrest Carter, from the age of four or five, was inseparable from his part-Cherokee grandfather, who owned a farm and ran a country store nearby. Granpa called him Little Sprout; when he grew taller, he became Little Tree. From Granpa he absorbed the Cherokee ethic; to give …
Ted Hughes
Birthday Letters, published in 1998, is a collection of poetry by English poet and children's writer Ted Hughes. Released only months before Hughes's death, the collection won multiple prestigious literary awards. This collection of eighty-eight poems is widely considered to be …
Anthony Kiedis
Scar Tissue is the autobiography of Red Hot Chili Peppers vocalist Anthony Kiedis. It was released in 2004 by Hyperion and authored by Kiedis with Larry Sloman, who compiled information and interviewed various parties associated with the plot line. The book reached a high of #1 …
Mark Twain
He was Sam Clemens, steamboat pilot, before he was Mark Twain, famous author. His better-known name originated with the lingo of navigation, and much of his writing was informed by his shipboard adventures on one of the world's great rivers. In this classic of American …
Harry Turtledove
The Guns of the South is an alternate history novel set during the American Civil War by Harry Turtledove. It was released in the United States on September 22, 1992. The story deals with a group of time-travelling white supremacist members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging …
Jeff VanderMeer
City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris is the title of a collection of fantasy short stories by American writer Jeff VanderMeer, set in the fictional metropolis of Ambergris. The setting was further explored in the novels Shriek: An Afterword and Finch.
Mark Twain
Letters from the Earth is a posthumously published work of celebrated American author Mark Twain. It comprises essays written during a difficult time in Twain's life, when he was deeply in debt and had recently lost his wife and one of his daughters. The content concerns …
Ray Bradbury
I Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from an included short story of the same title, which took the title from a poem by Walt Whitman published in his collection Leaves of Grass.
Hubert Selby, Jr.
Requiem for a Dream is a 1978 novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., that concerns four New Yorkers whose lives spiral out of control as they succumb to their addictions.
Ismail Kadare
Chronicle in Stone is a novel by Ismail Kadare. First published in Albanian in 1971, and sixteen years later in English translation, it describes life in a small Albanian city during World War II. Translated by Arshi Pipa, an Albanian émigré who lived in the United States, the …
Cees Nooteboom
Rituals is a 1980 novel by the Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom. The narrative follows two friends, one who breaks rules frequently and one who follows them strictly. It was Nooteboom's first novel in 17 years. After finishing The Knight Has Died, he had worked as a journalist and …
Julian Barnes
England, England is a satirical postmodern novel by Julian Barnes, published and shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1998. While researchers have also pointed out the novel's characteristic dystopian and farcical elements, Barnes himself described the novel as a 'semi-farce'. …
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Shah of Shahs, published in 1982, is Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński's analysis of the decline and fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.
Roger Lowenstein
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified …
Louis Sachar
Wayside School is Falling Down is an 1989 children's novel by American author Louis Sachar, and the second book in his Wayside School series. Like its predecessor, it contains 30 chapters, although some chapters are interconnected in a more narrative form rather than as separate …
Tony Horwitz
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, or Into the Blue: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, is a travel book by Tony Horwitz, published in 2002. In it, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist travels to various parts of the world, following …
Maeve Binchy
Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy and genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O’Connors in Kilgarret, Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O’Connor, a friendship that will endure through twenty turbulent …
Thomas Mann
"Death in Venice," tells about a ruinous quest for love and beauty amid degenerating splendor. Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but lonely author, travels to the Queen of the Adriatic in search of an elusive spiritual fulfillment that turns into his erotic doom. Spellbound by …
Marina Lewycka
Two Caravans is a novel by Marina Lewycka. It was published by Penguin Books on 29 March 2007 for the United Kingdom market. In the United States and Canada it is published under the title Strawberry Fields. The book follows Lewycka's debut novel A Short History of Tractors in …
Nora Roberts
Combining elements of the supernatural with gripping suspense and seduction, #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts presents the second novel in her Circle Trilogy… He saw where the earth was scorched, where it was trampled. He saw his own hoofprints left in the …
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World is a novel written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that combine profoundly to change …
Celia S. Friedman
Crown of Shadows is a Fantasy novel by C.S. Friedman first published in 1995.
John Updike
It's 1969, and the times are changing. America is about to land a man on the moon, the Vietnamese war is in full swing, and racial tension is on the rise. Things just aren't as simple as they used to be - at least, not for Rabbit Angstrom. His wife has left him with his teenage …
Stephanie Perkins
Anna can't wait for her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a good job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she's not too thrilled when her father unexpectedly ships her off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair, the …
Marcus Luttrell
A Navy SEAL's firsthand account of American heroism during a secret military operation in Afghanistan.Inspiration for a major motion picture by Mark Wahlberg. On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous …
Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj
A collection of some of Tolstoy's most powerful powerful stories The violent spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life that inspired his last period of creativity produced the stories in this compelling and startling collection. They portray the multifaceted nature of desire, from …
Cory Doctorow
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a contemporary fantasy novel by Canadian author Cory Doctorow. It was published in June 2005, concurrently released on the Internet under a Creative Commons license, free for download in several formats including ASCII and PDF. It is …
Norah Vincent
Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man is a book written by journalist Norah Vincent, recounting an 18-month experiment in which she disguised herself as a man—"Ned"—and then integrated into traditionally male-only venues, such as a bowling league and a monastery. She …
Michael Frayn
Headlong is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1999. The plot centres on the discovery of a long-lost painting from Pieter Bruegel's series The Months. The story is essentially a farce, but contains a large amount of scholarship about the painter. Frayn distinguishes between …
Agatha Christie
Sad Cypress is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and threepence – the first price rise …
Anthony Horowitz
Snakehead is the seventh novel in the Alex Rider series written by British author Anthony Horowitz. The book was released in Australia on 28 September 2007, in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2007, and in the US on 13 November 2007. The title comes from the name given to Asian …
William R. Forstchen
One Second After is a 2009 fiction novel by American writer William R. Forstchen. The novel deals with an unexpected electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States as it affects the people living in and around the small American town of Black Mountain, North Carolina. …
Tony Hillerman
Coyote Waits is the tenth crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman published in 1990. It was adapted for television by PBS in 2003. Chee is slow to go to the aid of another officer, Nez, who radios that he has found the …
Georgette Heyer
Arabella is a Regency romance novel written by Georgette Heyer. It records the plight of a relatively poor girl from the English gentry who captures the attention of a very wealthy man by claiming to be an heiress. The story is set in the spring of 1817.
Agatha Christie
The Queen of Mystery has come to Harper Collins! Agatha Christie, the acknowledged mistress of suspense—creator of indomitable sleuth Miss Marple, meticulous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and so many other unforgettable characters—brings her entire oeuvre of ingenious …
Bryan Burrough
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco is a book about the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, written by investigative journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. The book is based upon a series of articles written by the authors for The Wall Street Journal. The book was …
Dean Koontz
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City.A man and a woman meet by chance in a bar. Suddenly they are fleeing the long arm of a clandestine and increasingly powerful renegade government agency -- the woman hunted for the information she possesses, the …
Munro Leaf
What else can be said about the fabulous Ferdinand? Published more than 50 years ago (and one of the bestselling children's books of all time), this simple story of peace and contentment has withstood the test of many generations. Ferdinand is a little bull who much prefers …
J. M. Coetzee
Youth is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical novel by J. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960s London after fleeing the political unrest of Cape Town.
Louis de Bernieres
Louis de Bernières's sardonic pen has concocted a spicy olla podrida of a novel, set in a fictitious Latin American country, with all the tragedy, ribaldry, and humor Bernières can muster from a debauched military, a clueless oligarchy, and an unconventional band of guerrillas. …
David Liss
America, 1787. Ethan Saunders, once among General Washington’s most valued spies, is living in disgrace after an accusation of treason cost him his reputation. But an opportunity for redemption comes calling when Saunders’s old enemy, Alexander Hamilton, draws him into a …
Ayn Rand
The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism is a 1964 collection of essays and papers by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden. Most of the essays originally appeared in The Objectivist Newsletter, except for "The Objectivist Ethics", which was a paper Rand delivered at the …
Julia Quinn
In every life there is a turning point.A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one's life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London's most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.After a lifetime of …
Saul Bellow
THE BRILLIANT AND CONTROVERSIAL CRITIQUE OF AMERICAN CULTURE WITH NEARLY A MILLION COPIES IN PRINT In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and …
T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Women is a 2009 novel by T. C. Boyle. It is a biographical novel of Frank Lloyd Wright, told through his relationships with four women: the young Montenegrin dancer Olgivanna; Miriam, the morphine-addicted and obsessive Southern belle; Mamah, whose life ended in a massacre …
Anais Nin
Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin is a 1986 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anaïs Nin. It corresponds temporally to the first volume of Nin's published diaries, written between October 1931 and October 1932, yet …
Alasdair Gray
Lanark, subtitled A Life in Four Books, is the first novel of Scottish writer Alasdair Gray. Written over a period of almost thirty years, it combines realist and dystopian surrealist depictions of his home city of Glasgow. Its publication in 1981 prompted Anthony Burgess to …
Mordecai Richler
Barney's Version is a novel written by Canadian author Mordecai Richler, published by Knopf Canada in 1997.
Vikram Chandra
Sacred Games is a book by Vikram Chandra published in 2006. It has received notable reviews.
Jon Halliday
Mao: The Unknown Story is a 2005 biography of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong written by the husband and wife team of writer Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday, and depicts Mao as being responsible for more deaths in peacetime than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. In …
Steve Martin
Pure Drivel is a collection of stories by Steve Martin, published in 1998, many of which first appeared in The New Yorker.
Jonathan Carroll
The Land of Laughs is fantasy novel by Jonathan Carroll. It was first published by Viking Press in 1980 and is the author's first novel. The novel was notably reprinted by Orion Books in 2000 as volume 9 of their Fantasy Masterworks series.
Patrick O'Brian
The Nutmeg of Consolation is the fourteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1991. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Building a schooner on an island in the South China Sea as food …
Richard Brautigan
Trout Fishing in America is a novella written by Richard Brautigan and published in 1967. It is technically Brautigan's first novel; he wrote it in 1961 before A Confederate General From Big Sur which was published first. Trout Fishing In America is an abstract book without a …
Terry Pratchett
Where's My Cow? is a picture book written by Terry Pratchett and illustrated by Melvyn Grant. It is based on a book that features in Pratchett's Discworld novel Thud!, in which Samuel Vimes reads it to his son. Where's My Cow? was released on 23 September 2005, to coincide with …
Chuck Klosterman
Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta is a book written by Chuck Klosterman, first published by Scribner in 2001. It is a history of heavy metal music, with a particular emphasis on the glam metal that flourished during Klosterman's formative years in the …
Brian Jacques
The Pearls of Lutra is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 1996. It is the ninth book in the Redwall series. The American edition of the novel was published simply as Pearls of Lutra.
Piers Anthony
Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn is the eighth book of the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. This book is a story within a story as one of Castle Roogna's ghosts, Jordan the Barbarian, tells Princess Ivy his story of betrayal and death via the magical medium of the Tapestry.
Norman Maclean
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories is a semi-autobiographical collection of three stories by author Norman Maclean published in May 1976 by the University of Chicago Press. It contains: "A River Runs Through It" "Logging and Pimping and 'Your pal, Jim'" "USFS 1919: The …
David Baldacci
The Simple Truth is a crime novel written by David Baldacci. The book was initially published on November 18, 1998 by Grand Central Publishing.
Humphrey Carpenter
There may be a corner of the world where the name J.R.R. Tolkien is unknown, but you would be hard-pressed to find it. Since their publication, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been published in every major language of the world. And though he single-handedly gave a …
Stephen R. Donaldson
The Real Story is the first book of The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson, a science fiction series.
Karen Miller
The Innocent Mage is the first book in the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker fantasy series written by Australian author Karen Miller.
Joyce Carol Oates
The Gravedigger's Daughter is a 2007 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. It is her 36th published novel. The novel was based on the life of Oates's grandmother, whose father, a gravedigger settled in rural America, injured his wife, threatened his daughter, and then committed suicide. …
James Patterson
James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell: Author One-on-One In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together blockbuster authors James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell and asked them to interview each other. Find out what two of the top authors of their genres have to say about their …
Dean Koontz
Whispers is a novel by American suspense author Dean Koontz, originally published in 1980. It was the first of Koontz's novels to appear on the New York Times Bestsellers List, and is widely credited with launching his career as a best-selling author. The novel was also adapted …
Iain Banks
The Steep Approach to Garbadale is a novel by the Scottish writer Iain Banks, published in 2007. The novel had at least two working titles, Matter and Empire!
Laurie Lee
Cider with Rosie is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee. It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War. It has sold over six million copies worldwide. The novel is an account of Lee's childhood in the village of Slad, …
Arthur Schnitzler
Rhapsody: A Dream Novel, also known as Dream Story, is a 1926 novella by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. The book deals with the thoughts and psychological transformations of Doctor Fridolin over a two-day period after his wife confesses having had sexual fantasies …
Andrej Kurkow
Penguin Lost is a novel by Andrey Kurkov. Originally published in 2005 in Russian, it was translated and published in English in 2010. It is the sequel to the author's novel Death and the Penguin.
Louise Erdrich
Tracks is a novel by Louise Erdrich, published in 1988. It is the third in a tetralogy of novels beginning with Love Medicine that explores the interrelated lives of four Anishinaabe families living on an Indian reservation near the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. Within …
Chris Crutcher
Deadline is a 2007, young adult novel by young adult writer Chris Crutcher. The story follows 18-year-old Ben Wolf who has been diagnosed with a rare, incurable blood disease. Instead of receiving treatment Ben decides to pack a lifetime of living in one year. Ben Wolf has big …
Steven Brust
The Phoenix Guards is the first novel in the Khaavren Romances, a fantasy series by Steven Brust set in the fictional world of Dragaera. The novel is heavily influenced by the d'Artagnan Romances written by Alexandre Dumas. Brust describes the book as "a blatant ripoff of The …
Anne Bishop
Sebastian is the first novel of the Landscapes of Ephemera duology written by Anne Bishop and introduces the world Ephemera.
Robert Charles Wilson
Darwinia is a 1998 science fiction, alternate history novel written by Robert Charles Wilson. It won a Prix Aurora Award for Best Long Form in 1999, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel that same year. Darwinia was written in segments, in Vancouver, Whitehorse, …
Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes is a 2003 collection of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. Each chapter describes a different world and the society that inhabits it; these societies share similarities with Earth's cultures in some respects, but may be notably dissimilar in other respects. Many …
Nora Roberts
Eternity in Death is a novel written by J. D. Robb. It is one of the few In Death stories to incorporate elements of the supernatural. It takes place before Creation in Death
Irvine Welsh
Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance is a collection of three novellas by Irvine Welsh.
Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the Rainbow is a 1998 book by Richard Dawkins, discussing the relationship between science and the arts from the perspective of a scientist. Dawkins addresses the misperception that science and art are at odds. Driven by the responses to his books The Selfish Gene and …
Jonathan Coe
The Closed Circle is a 2004 novel by British author Jonathan Coe, and is the sequel to his 2001 novel The Rotters' Club. We re-encounter the main characters from The Rotters' Club - Benjamin Trotter, Doug Anderton and Philip Chase, and also become better-acquainted with some of …
T. H. White
The Sword in the Stone is a novel by T. H. White, published in 1938, initially as a stand-alone work but now the first part of a tetralogy The Once and Future King. A fantasy of the boyhood of King Arthur, it is a sui generis work which combines elements of legend, history, …
Katharine Kerr
Daggerspell is a fantasy novel by Katharine Kerr. Her first novel, it is also the first book in the Celtic themed, multi-reincarnational Deverry cycle.
Piers Anthony
Juxtaposition is a book published in 1982 that was written by Piers Anthony.
Roddy Doyle
The Commitments is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle, and is the first episode in The Barrytown Trilogy. It is a tale about a group of unemployed young people in the north side of Dublin, Ireland, who start a soul band.
Ismail Kadare
Two Irish-American scholars from Harvard journey to Albania in the 1930s with a tape recorder (a 'new fangled' invention) in order to record the last genuinely oral epic singers. Their purpose, they say, is to show how Homer's epics might have been culled from a verbal …
Søren Kierkegaard
Love can be surprising. Love can be heartbreaking. Love can be an art. But love is the singular emotion that all humans rely on most . . . and crave endlessly, no matter what the cost. United by this theme of love, the nine titles in the Penguin Great Loves collection include …
Brian Jacques
The Long Patrol is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 1997. It is the tenth book in the Redwall series, and it was a New York Times bestseller.
Baldassare Castiglione
The Book of the Courtier is a courtesy book. It was written by Baldassare Castiglione over the course of many years, beginning in 1508, and published in 1528 by the Aldine Press in Venice just before his death; an English edition was published in 1561. It addresses the …
Bernard Cornwell
Sword Song is the fourth historical novel in The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell, published in 2007. Uhtred leads battles against the Danes, as King Alfred strengthens the defenses of his kingdom of Wessex in the 9th century.
Carlos Fuentes
Aura is a novel by Carlos Fuentes, first published in 1962 in Mexico. The first English translation, by Lysander Kemp, was published in 1965 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Jack Weatherford
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World is a history book written by Jack Weatherford, Dewitt Wallace Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College. It is a narrative of the rise and influence of Genghis Khan and his successors, and their influence on European …
Helen Garner
The Spare Room is a novel by Australian writer Helen Garner, set over the course of three weeks while the narrator, Helen, cares for a friend dying of bowel cancer. The Spare Room was published in 2008.
Oriana Fallaci
A Man is a novel written by Oriana Fallaci chronicling her relationship with the attempted assassin of Greek dictator George Papadopoulos.
Günter Grass
Cat and Mouse, published in Germany in 1961 as Katz und Maus, is a novella by Günter Grass, the second book of the Danzig Trilogy, and the sequel to The Tin Drum. It is about Joachim Mahlke, an alienated only child without a father. The narrator Pilenz "alone could be termed his …
Richard Feynman
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a collection of short works from American physicist Richard Feynman, including interviews, speeches, lectures, and printed articles. Among these is his famous 1959 lecture There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, his report on the Space Shuttle …
Ernest Hemingway
The Garden of Eden is the second posthumously released novel of Ernest Hemingway, published in 1986. Begun in 1946, Hemingway worked on the manuscript for the next 15 years, during which time he also wrote The Old Man and the Sea, The Dangerous Summer, A Moveable Feast, and …
Anne Rice
Exit to Eden is a 1985 novel by Anne Rice, initially published in under the pen name Anne Rampling, but subsequently under Rice's name. The novel explores the subject of BDSM in romance novel form. The novel also brought attention to Rice's published works that differed from the …
Herge
Tintin and the Picaros is the twenty-third volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It was the last Tintin adventure to be completed by Hergé, serialized in Tintin magazine in 1976. Tintin and his friends are invited to San Theodoros by …
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Talk Talk is a novel by T. C. Boyle first published in 2006, about a young deaf woman who becomes the victim of a credit card fraud and identity theft. As the police are unwilling to help, the woman and her boyfriend are determined to track down the criminal themselves.
Michel Tournier
An international bestseller and winner of the Prix Goncourt, The Erl-King is a magisterial tale of innocence, perversion and obsession. It follows the passage of strange, gentle Abel Tiffauges from submissive schoolboy to adult misfit - a man without a sense of belonging until …
Dai Sijie
Having enchanted readers on two continents with Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie now produces a rapturous and uproarious collision of East and West, a novel about the dream of love and the love of dreams. Fresh from 11 years in Paris studying Freud, bookish …
Ian Rankin
Given his contempt for authority, his tendency to pursue investigative avenues of his own choosing, and his habitually ornery manner, it's a wonder that John Rebus hasn't been booted unceremoniously from his job as an Edinburgh cop. He certainly tempts that fate again in A …
Agatha Christie
Dead Man's Folly is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1956 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 5 November of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.95 and the UK edition at twelve …
Eugène Ionesco
Often called the father of the Theater of the Absurd, Eugène Ionesco wrote groundbreaking plays that are simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and profound. Now his classic one acts The Bald Soprano and The Lesson are available in an exciting new translation by Pulitzer …
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Oscar Wilde claimed that Humiliated and Insulted is "not at all inferior to the other great masterpieces," and Friedrich Nietzsche is said to have wept over it. Its construction is that of an intricate detective novel, and the reader is plunged into a world of moral degradation, …
Octavia E. Butler
Wild Seed is a science fiction novel by writer Octavia Butler. Although published in 1980 as the fourth book of the Patternist series it is the earliest book in the chronology of the Patternist world. The other books in the series are, in order within the Patternist …
Louisa May Alcott
An Old-Fashioned Girl is a novel by Louisa May Alcott. It was first serialised in the Merry's Museum magazine between July and August in 1869 and consisted of only six chapters. For the finished product, however, Alcott continued the story from the chapter "Six Years Afterwards" …
Alice Hoffman
A “captivating...truly original novel” (Cosmopolitan) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic.“Ms. Hoffman writes quite wonderfully about the magic in our lives and in the battered, indifferent world.”—The New York Times Book ReviewWhen Keith Rosen runs …
Iain Banks
A Song of Stone is a novel by Scottish writer Iain Banks, published in 1997.
Berkeley Breathed
Bloom County Babylon: Five Years of Basic Naughtiness is the fourth collection of the comic strip series Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed. It was published in 1986. It is preceded by Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things and followed by Billy and the Boingers Bootleg. As a …
André Gide
The Counterfeiters is a 1925 novel by French author André Gide, first published in Nouvelle Revue Française. With many characters and crisscrossing plotlines, its main theme is that of the original and the copy, and what differentiates them – both in the external plot of the …
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
The Enchanter is a novella written by Vladimir Nabokov in Paris in 1939. As Волшебник it was his last work of fiction written in Russian. Nabokov never published it during his lifetime. After his death, his son Dmitri translated the novella into English in 1986 and it was …
Simon Winchester
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 is a book by Simon Winchester.
Tove Jansson
A New York Review Books OriginalWinner of the Best Translated Book AwardDeception—the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others—is the subject of this, Tove Jansson’s most unnerving and unpredictable novel. Here Jansson takes a darker look at the subjects that animate …
William Pène du Bois
The Twenty-One Balloons is a novel by William Pène du Bois, published in 1947 by the Viking Press and awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1948. The story is about a retired schoolteacher whose ill-fated balloon trip leads him to discover …
J. M. Coetzee
Foe is a 1986 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who landed on the same island inhabited by "Cruso" and Friday as their adventures were …
Matt Ruff
Fool on the Hill is a 1988 comic fantasy novel by Matt Ruff, set at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Roger Fisher
Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In is a best-selling 1981 non-fiction book by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury. Reissued in 1991 with additional authorship credit to Bruce Patton, the book made appearances for years on the Business Week "Best Seller" list. …
Mende Nazer
Mende Nazer lost her childhood at age twelve, when she was sold into slavery. It all began one horrific night in 1993, when Arab raiders swept through her Nuba village, murdering the adults and rounding up thirty-one children, including Mende. Mende was sold to a wealthy Arab …
Joan Didion
Play It as It Lays is a 1970 novel by the American writer Joan Didion. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The book was made into a 1972 movie starring Tuesday Weld as Maria and Anthony Perkins as BZ. Didion co-wrote …
George Carlin
Brain Droppings is a 1997 book by comedian George Carlin. This was Carlin's "first real book" and contains much of Carlin's stand-up comedy material. According to the cover, the book contains "jokes, notions, doubts, opinions, questions, thoughts, beliefs, assertions, …
Kazuo Ishiguro
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turning from the one certainty in his …
Nick Flynn
"A stunningly beautiful new memoir . . . a near-perfect work of literature." ―Stephen Elliot, San Francisco Chronicle Nick Flynn met his father when he was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a …
Mercedes Lackey
The White Gryphon is the second novel in the Mage Wars trilogy. The book takes place 10 years after the end of The Black Gryphon. The story is the continuation of Skandranon and the others from Urtho's lands.
Richard Preston
The Cobra Event is a 1998 thriller novel by Richard Preston describing an attempted bioterrorism attack on the United States. The perpetrator of the attack has genetically engineered a virus, called "Cobra", that fuses the incurable and highly contagious common cold with one of …
Sara Shepard
Pretty Little Liars is the first book in the Pretty Little Liars series by Sara Shepard. It tells the story of four girls - Hanna, Aria, Emily and Spencer - after the disappearance of their clique leader, Alison. The book was written for the book packaging company Alloy …
Margot Adler
Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today is a sociological study of contemporary Paganism in the United States written by the American Wiccan and journalist Margot Adler. First published in 1979 by Viking Press, it was later …
Irvine Welsh
With a title like Glue, it would seem reasonable to assume that Irvine Welsh's fifth book is a meditation on the pitfalls of solvent abuse. In fact the word refers to the bonds that unite four boys, all of whom have grown up in "the scheme"--i.e., Edinburgh's slum-clearance …
Oscar Wilde
There has been a ghost in the house for three hundred years, and Lord Canterville's family have had enough of it. So Lord Canterville sells his grand old house to an American family. Mr Hiram B. Otis is happy to buy the house and the ghost - because of course Americans don't …
Theodor Fontane
In 1919 Thomas Mann hailed Effi Briest (1895) as one of "the six most significant novels ever written." Set in Bismarck's Germany, Fontane's luminous tale of a socially suitable but emotionally disastrous match between the enchanting seventeen-year-old Effi and an austere, …
Mo Hayder
Tokyo is a 2004 novel by British crime writer Mo Hayder. It was short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award, as well as several others. Tokyo was reviewed by the internationally-read UK newspaper, the Guardian as well as by Kirkus Reviews under its US title.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophical Investigations is a highly influential work by the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In it, Wittgenstein discusses numerous problems and puzzles in the fields of semantics, logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of …
Jerry Spinelli
Donald Zinkoff is one of the greatest kids you could ever hope to meet. He laughs easily, he likes people, he loves school, he tries to rescue lost girls in blizzards, he talks to old ladies. The only problem is, he's a loser. Until fourth grade, Zinkoff's uncontrollable …
Michel Onfray
Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is a 2005 book by French author Michel Onfray. According to Onfray, the term "athéologie" is taken from a project of a series of books written and compiled by Georges Bataille under the vocable La Somme …
Thomas Mullen
Set against the backdrop of one of the most virulent epidemics that America ever experienced–the 1918 flu epidemic–Thomas Mullen’s powerful, sweeping first novel is a tale of morality in a time of upheaval.Deep in the mist-shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest is a …
Edith Wharton
A tale of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams played out against the lush, summer backdrop of the Massachusetts Berkshires, Edith Wharton called Summer her 'hot Ethan.' In their rural settings and their poor, uneducated protagonists, Summer and Ethan Frome represent a …
Diane Duane
High Wizardry is the third novel of the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. It was published in 1990.
Marcella Hazan
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is a 1993 JBF Awards winning book by Marcella Hazan.
Vince Flynn
Consent to Kill is the seventh novel by Vince Flynn and the sixth in a series that features CIA counterterrorism agent Mitch Rapp. In this thriller, Flynn focuses on the war on terror exploring all its aspects, from the president of the United States, to the CIA, the foot …
Marilyn French
The Women's Room is the debut novel by American feminist author Marilyn French, published in 1977 by Jove Books. It launched French as a major participant in the Feminist Movement and, while French states it is not autobiographical, the book reflect many autobiographical …
Dennis Lehane
Moonlight Mile is a crime novel written by Dennis Lehane, published on November 2, 2010. It is the sixth novel in the author's Kenzie-Gennaro series, focusing on private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. The book is a sequel to Lehane's 1998 bestselling novel …
Patrick O'Brian
The Wine-Dark Sea is the sixteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1993. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The chase of the Franklin brings the Surprise to Peru and the undercover …
Robert Crais
The Watchman is a 2007 detective novel by Robert Crais. It is the eleventh in a series of linked novels centering on the private investigator Elvis Cole's partner Joe Pike.
Jennifer Crusie
Getting Rid of Bradley is a contemporary romance novel written by Jennifer Crusie and first published in 1994, with a reissue in 2008. The book tells the story of Lucy Savage, a woman recently jilted by her husband Bradley, a suspected embezzler that Detective Zachary Warren …
Tim Powers
On Stranger Tides is a 1987 historical fantasy novel written by Tim Powers. It was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and placed second in the annual Locus poll for best fantasy novel. On Stranger Tides takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy. It features …
George S. Clason
The Richest Man in Babylon is a book by George Samuel Clason which dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set in ancient Babylon. Through their experiences in business and managing household finance, the characters in the parables learn simple lessons in …
Daniel Quinn
The Story of B is a 1996 novel written by Daniel Quinn and published by Bantam Publishing. It chronicles a young priest's movement away from his religion and toward the teachings of an international lecturer known as B, expanding upon many of the philosophical ideas introduced …
David Wong
David Wong has updated the Lovecraft tradition and infused it with humor that rather than lessening the horror, increases it dramatically. Every time I set the book down down, I was wary that something really was afoot, that there were creatures I couldn't see, and that because …
Marilyn Manson
The Long Hard Road Out of Hell is the autobiography of Marilyn Manson, leader of the American rock band Marilyn Manson. The book was released on February 14, 1998 and written with the help of Neil Strauss. It follows Manson's life from when he was a child, born as Brian Hugh …
Nicholson Baker
The Fermata is a 1994 novel by Nicholson Baker. It is about a man named Arno Strine who can stop time, and uses this ability to embark on a series of sexual adventures.
John Steakley
Armor is a military science fiction novel by John Steakley. It has some superficial similarities with Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers but concentrates more on the psychological effects of violence on human beings rather than on the political aspects of the military, which …
Glen Duncan
I, Lucifer is a 2003 novel by Glen Duncan, told from the point of view of the eponymous fallen angel, who has taken on a human body formerly belonging to a struggling writer.
Scott Turow
The Burden of Proof, published in 1990, is Scott Turow's second novel, somewhat of a sequel to Presumed Innocent. The Burden of Proof follows the story of defense attorney Sandy Stern in the aftermath of his wife's death, and the growing realization that there is much about his …