Classics

Harper 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 hatred....

Like every other hobbit, Bilbo Baggins likes nothing better than a quiet evening in his snug hole in the ground, dining on a sumptuous dinner in front of a fire....

This tome brings together all of Lovecraft's harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were when first released....

When Autobiography of a Yogi first appeared in 1946, it was acclaimed as a landmark work in its field....

At a time when women were destined to become housewives, Jacqueline Susann let us dream. Anne, Neely, and Jennifer become best friends as struggling young women in New York City trying to make their mark....

When an aging brother and sister adopt an orphan boy to help with chores around their farm, neither is prepared for the feisty and imaginative redheaded girl who is mistakenly brought to them....

Parker's quips and light verse have become embedded in the American literary landscape. In these selected stories is the chance to draw on her insight into the social and emotional realities of life....

Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature....

Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down....

One of Jane Austen’s most beloved works, Pride and Prejudice, is vividly brought to life by Academy Award nominee Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)....

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers....

The Overlords appeared suddenly over every city - intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior to humankind....

In this short story, Virgina Woolf writes about a “steam of consciousness” of a person enjoying music. Our narrator hears a string quartet and is entranced by the players, their movements, and their song. 

Mr. Wrenn is part Walter Mitty and part Forrest Gump - decades before either came to be. A most well-meaning but completely unsophisticated 36-year-old clerk in a novelty and souvenir company, he dreams of great travels, adventure, and romance. He lives in a boarding house in New York City and travels by cattle boat to Europe when an unexpected windfall puts one thousand dollars in his hands. His good-hearted misunderstandings of the world around him amuse and entertain. He does realize his dreams. 

Educated in Amherst, Massachusetts, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (1819-1906) accompanied her physician-husband to California in 1849. The Shirley Letters (1922) is the book edition of a series of letters written by Mrs. Clappe to her sister in 1851 and 1852. They were first published under the pseudonym of Dame Shirley in the Pioneer magazine, 1854-55. In these letters, Louise Clappe writes of life in San Francisco and the Feather River mining communities of Rich Bar and Indian Bar.

"The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" is closely modelled on the 18h-century novels that Charles Dickens loved as a child, such as "Robinson Crusoe", in which the fortunes of a hero shape the plot. The likeable young Nicholas, left penniless on the death of his father, sets off in search of better prospects. His meandering route to happiness includes work as a teacher at Dotheboys Hall, where the brutal Wackford Squeers ill-treats his impoverished pupils, and a spell as an actor with the absurdly melodramatic Crummles troupe.

Dickens's Little Nell became one of his best-known heroines when "The Old Curiosity Shop" was first published in 1841. Virtuous and stoic, Nell takes care of her grandfather in his gloomy shop until his gambling debts force the pair of them to flee London. They are hunted by the grotesque and villainous moneylender Quilp and Nell's own worthless brother, Fred, who wrongly believes that their grandfather has a hidden fortune. Through a kaleidoscopic round of people and events, Nell and her grandfather eventually reach a safe refuge, although neither of them is destined to enjoy it for long.

"White Nights" is one of Dostoyevsky's shorter works told from the standpoint of an ultimate introvert, brought briefly out of his shell by love. It might have been written 170 years ago, but certain aspects of it are very relatable to the modern listener, especially to those of us who gravitate toward solitude and introversion.