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Watchers
by Dean KoontzFrom a top secret government laboratory come two genetically altered life forms. One is a magnificent dog of astonishing intelligence. The other, a hybrid monster of a brutally violent nature. And both are on the loose...Bestselling author Dean Koontz presents his most terrifying, dramatic and moving novel: The explosive story of a man and a woman, caught in a relentless storm of mankind's darkest creation...
1984
by George OrwellA PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell&’s 1984 takes on new life in this edition. &“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.&”—The New Yorker In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Lionel Trilling said of Orwell&’s masterpiece, &“1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.&” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell&’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.
A Separate Peace
by John KnowlesNominated as one of America&’s best-loved novels by PBS&’s The Great American Read. An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
Another Country
by James BaldwinSet in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions--sexual, racial, political, artistic--that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. In a small set of friends, Baldwin imbues the best and worst intentions of liberal America in the early 1970s.
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas AdamsAt last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchiker series.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.
Life, the Universe and Everything. The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.
Mostly Harmless. Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale HurstonJanie is an independent African American woman who grows up with a grandmother who is determined to keep her from the sexual and racial violence of her own past.
Janie's first marriage is filled with hard labor, so she runs off with Joe, a handsome and wealthy storekeeper.
Joe becomes mayor of the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, but Janie is still unfulfilled by her new relationship.
After Joe's death, she lives with another man who brings passion into her world, if not stability.
Soon tragedy strikes and Janie learns to face it head-on with optimism and strength.
[This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 11-12 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest HemingwayThis new edition of The Sun Also Rises celebrates the art and craft of Hemingway's quintessential story of the Lost Generation--presented by the Hemingway family with illuminating supplementary material from the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library.
The Sun Also Rises is a classic example of Hemingway's 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 is "an absorbing, beautifully and tenderly absurd, heartbreaking narrative...a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard, athletic prose" (The New York Times).
This new Hemingway Library Edition celebrates Hemingway's classic novel with a personal foreword by Patrick Hemingway, the author's sole surviving son, and a new introduction by Sean Hemingway, grandson of the author.
Hemingway considered the extensive rewriting that he did to shape his first novel the most difficult job of his life.
Early drafts, deleted passages, and possible titles included in this new edition elucidate how the author achieved his first great literary masterpiece.
White Teeth
by Zadie SmithNATIONAL BESTSELLER • The blockbuster debut novel from &“a preternaturally gifted&” writer (The New York Times) and author of On Beauty and Swing Time—set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, and embracing the comedy of daily existence. One of the New York Times&’s 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyZadie Smith&’s dazzling debut caught critics grasping for comparisons and deciding on everyone from Charles Dickens to Salman Rushdie to John Irving and Martin Amis. But the truth is that Zadie Smith&’s voice is remarkably, fluently, and altogether wonderfully her own.At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England&’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn&’t quite match her name (Jamaican for &“no problem&”). Samad&’s late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal&’s every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith. &“[White Teeth] is, like the London it portrays, a restless hybrid of voices, tones, and textures…with a raucous energy and confidence.&” —The New York Times Book Review
Flowers In The Attic
by V.C. AndrewsCelebrate the fortieth anniversary of the enduring gothic masterpiece Flowers in the Attic—the unforgettable forbidden love story that earned V.C. Andrews a fiercely devoted fan base and became an international cult classic. At the top of the stairs there are four secrets hidden—blond, innocent, and fighting for their lives… They were a perfect and beautiful family—until a heartbreaking tragedy shattered their happiness. Now, for the sake of an inheritance that will ensure their future, the children must be hidden away out of sight, as if they never existed. They are kept in the attic of their grandmother&’s labyrinthine mansion, isolated and alone. As the visits from their seemingly unconcerned mother slowly dwindle, the four children grow ever closer and depend upon one another to survive both this cramped world and their cruel grandmother. A suspenseful and thrilling tale of family, greed, murder, and forbidden love, Flowers in the Attic is the unputdownable first novel of the epic Dollanganger family saga. The Dollanganger series includes: Flowers in the Attic, Petals in the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, Garden of Shadows, Beneath the Attic, and Out of the Attic.
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper LeeLook for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025.Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American ReadHarper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatredOne of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Foundation
by Isaac AsimovThe first novel in Isaac Asimov&’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation seriesTHE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION • Nominated as one of America&’s best-loved novels by PBS&’s The Great American Read For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation. The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the most influential in the history of science fiction, celebrated for their unique blend of breathtaking action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. In Foundation, Asimov has written a timely and timeless novel of the best—and worst—that lies in humanity, and the power of even a few courageous souls to shine a light in a universe of darkness.
Doña Barbara
by Rómulo GallegosThe classic novel of Venezuelan ranchers battling over land and love—a forerunner of magic realism set in the &“steamy, tumescent, lust driven&” plain (Larry McMurtry, from the foreword). Rómulo Gallegos is best known for being Venezuela&’s first democratically elected president. But in his native land he is equally famous as a writer responsible for one of Venezuela&’s literary treasures, the novel Doña Barbara. First published in 1929, it is one of the first examples of magical realism, laying the groundwork for later authors such as Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. Following an epic dispute over a Venezuelan estate, Doña Barbara is an examination of the conflict between town and country, violence and intellect, male and female. Doña Barbara is a beautiful woman with such a ferocious power over men that she is rumored to be a witch. When her cousin Santos Luzardo returns to the plains in order to reclaim his land and cattle, he reluctantly faces off against Doña Barbara, and their battle becomes simultaneously one of violence and seduction.Doña Barbara is a suspenseful tale that blends fantasy, adventure, and romance. Bringing the Venezuelan plains to life—with their dangerous ranchers, intrepid cowboys, and damsels in distress—it has inspired numerous adaptations on the big and small screens.
Frankenstein
by Mary ShelleyThe world's most famous work of horror fiction: a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel presents the epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch.
In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror.
Based on the third edition of 1831, this Penguin Classics edition, with an introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle, contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley's preface to the first edition.
It also includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with A Fragment by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori's The Vampyre: A Tale.
Little Women
by Louisa May AlcottNominated as one of America&’s best-loved novels by PBS&’s The Great American ReadIt is no surprise that Little Women, the adored classic of four devoted sisters, was loosely based on Louisa May Alcott&’s own life. In fact, Alcott drew from her own personality to create a heroine unlike any seen before: Jo, willful, headstrong, and undoubtedly the backbone of the March family. Follow the sisters from innocent adolescence to sage adulthood, with all the joy and sorrow of life in between, and fall in love with them and this endearing story. Praised by Madeleine Stern as &“a book on the American home, and hence universal in its appeal,&” Little Women has been an avidly read tale for generations.
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens'Hold your noise! Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!' Little orphan Pip scarcely imagines how a terrifying encounter with a convict on the lonely marshes will later transform his life.
Pip is more troubled by his visits to strange old Miss Havisham - her decaying wedding dress and the house full of memories - and the beautiful girl Estella who makes him ashamed of his country manners and coarse hands.
A blacksmith's apprentice could never hope to win Estella, but then, young Pip's future might not turn out quite as expected. . .
Includes exclusive material: In 'The Backstory' you can learn about Victorian convicts and the alternative ending to Great Expectations!
The Help
by Kathryn StockettThe #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film.
Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure.
Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...
One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel MárquezOne of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career.
The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family.
It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendia family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel.
Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel Garcia Marquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas and Lowell BairSet against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monet Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.From the Hardcover edition.
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret AtwoodNow a Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. The Handmaid's Tale is an instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times)The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid’s Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.
Moby-Dick
by Herman MelvilleMoby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance.
Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale that on the previous whaling voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee.
The novel was a commercial failure but during the 20th century, its reputation as a Great American Novel was established.
The product of a year and a half of writing, the book draws on Melville's experience at sea, on his reading in whaling literature, and on literary inspirations such as Shakespeare and the Bible.
The white whale is modeled on the notoriously hard to catch actual albino whale Mocha Dick, and the ending is based on the sinking of the whaler Essex by a whale.
The detailed and realistic descriptions of whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God.
In addition to narrative prose, Melville uses styles and literary devices ranging from songs, poetry, and catalogs to Shakespearean stage directions, soliloquies, and asides.
Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon&’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages.One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS&’s The Great American Read!Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an &“outlander&”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content:• An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon&’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series • An interview with Diana Gabaldon • An Outlander reader&’s guide Praise for Outlander &“Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.&”—San Francisco Chronicle &“History comes deliciously alive on the page.&”—New York Daily News
Pilgrim's Progress
by John BunyanHere is one of the most influential Christian allegorical stories ever written. In it we follow Christian on his journey to the Celestial City. The journey is fraught with peril and Christian must overcome many obstacles and temptations along the way. Powerful, inspirational, and thought provoking.
The Coldest Winter Ever
by Sister SouljahA New York Times and USA TODAY Bestseller &“50 Most Impactful Black Books of the Last 50 Years.&” —Essence Nominated as one of America&’s best-loved novels by PBS&’s The Great American Read The instant classic from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Life After Death brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable novel.I came busting into the world during one of New York&’s worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn&’t want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top. Twenty-five years and over one million copies later, The Coldest Winter Ever is a bestseller and a national treasure, a classic handed down from one reading generation to the next. Whether you are reading it for the first time or have cherished it for years, you will never forget this Winter&’s tale.
Dune
by Frank Herbert• DUNE: PART TWO • THE MAJOR MOTION PICTUREDirected by Denis Villeneuve, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert • Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Léa Seydoux, with Stellan Skarsgård, with Charlotte Rampling, and Javier BardemFrank Herbert&’s classic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time.Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of Paul Atreides—who would become known as Muad'Dib—and of a great family's ambition to bring to fruition mankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua AchebeTHINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria.
The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society.
The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries.
These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.
THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.
[This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 9-10 at http://www.corestandards.org.]