50 Book Challenge Part II
Join the 50 Book Challenge Part II with our curated list of must-read books! Discover top picks, genres, and tips to complete your reading goal. Start your literary journey today!
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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
by Dai Sijie
New York Times Bestseller Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is an enchanting tale that captures the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening. An immediate international bestseller, it tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. There the two friends meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
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Veronica
by Mary Gaitskill
The friendship between Alison, a young woman struggling with her ruined career as a fashion model, and Veronica, an older eccentric and proofreader, survives Alison's return to the world of fashion and Veronica's battle with AIDS.
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The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq
An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence. Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.
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The Devil Wears Prada
by Lauren Weisberger
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE A MUSICAL STARRING VANESSA WILLIAMS • The iconic novel that inspired the hit movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway—a gloriously wicked story about the ultimate Boss from Hell and the deals we make with the devil to get to the top “The degree to which The Devil Wears Prada has penetrated pop culture needs no explanation.”—Vanity Fair Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.” Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child. Andrea is sorely tested each and every day—and often late into the night—with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get her a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not it’s worth the price of her soul.
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Disgrace
by J. M. Coetzee
The provocative Booker Prize winning novel from Nobel laureate, J.M. Coetzee "Compulsively readable... A novel that not only works its spell but makes it impossible for us to lay it aside once we've finished reading it." —The New Yorker At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced, filled with desire, but lacking in passion. When an affair with a student leaves him jobless, shunned by friends, and ridiculed by his ex-wife, he retreats to his daughter Lucy's smallholding. David's visit becomes an extended stay as he attempts to find meaning in his one remaining relationship. Instead, an incident of unimaginable terror and violence forces father and daughter to confront their strained relationship and the equallity complicated racial complexities of the new South Africa. 2024 marks the 25th Anniversary of the publication of Disgrace
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Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi
BEST SELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. “A wholly original achievement.... Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances.... A stark, shocking impact.” —The New York Times: "The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years" In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.
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The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin. • The definitive corrected text, including Faulkner's Appendix One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. “I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire.... I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” —from The Sound and the Fury
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Reasons to Live
by Amy Hempel
Hempel's now-classic collection of short fiction is peopled by complex characters who have discovered that their safety nets are not dependable and who must now learn to balance on the threads of wit, irony, and spirit.
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Waiting for the Barbarians
by J. M. Coetzee
Allegory of the war between oppressor and oppressed.
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Winter's Bone
by Daniel Woodrell
Reaching her sixteenth year in the harsh Ozarks while caring for her poverty-stricken family, Ree Dolly learns that they will lose their house unless her bail-skipping father can be found and made to appear at an upcoming court date. 25,000 first printing.
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