Adas Must Reads: Books I Loved and You Will Too
Discover Ada's Must Reads: a curated list of books Ada loved and highly recommends. Find your next favorite read in this handpicked collection of captivating titles.
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Quo Vadis
by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. A brilliant Polish writer and patriot, he is possibly best known abroad for his monumental historical epic Quo Vadis that portrays the vibrant and dissonant combination of cruel excesses and decadence of Rome during the reign of the corrupt Emperor Nero and the high faith of the emerging era of early Christianity. Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, is a love story of Marcus Vinicius, a passionate young Roman tribune, and Lygia Callina, a beautiful and gentle Christian maiden of royal Lygian descent and a hostage of Rome, raised in a patrician home. At first Marcus, a typical aristocratic Roman libertine of his time, has no notion of love and merely desires Lygia with erotic animalistic intensity. Through political machinations of the elegant Petronius he contrives to have her taken by force from her foster home and into the decadent and terrible splendor of the court of Ceasar, setting in motion a course of events that culminate in his own spiritual redemption. Intricately researched, populated with vibrant historical figures, and gorgeous period detail, bloody spectacle and intimate beauty, this is an epic tapestry of the triumph of love, faith and sacrifice.
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And Then There Were None
by Agatha Christie
One by one, the guests arrived at the mansion on Indian Island, summoned by a mysterious host. And one by one, with terrifying meticulousness, they were stalked by a cunning murderer. Utterly baffling...and yet there was a pattern, concealed in a nursery rhyme hanging over the fireplace.
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The Little Prince
An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in seeking the secret of what is important in life. Howard's new translation of this beloved classic beautifully reflects Saint-Exupery's unique, gifted style. Color and b&w illustrations.
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To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.
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The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
Eddie dies on his eighty-third birthday in a tragic accident - He awakens in the afterlife where he learns that heaven is where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it.
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Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris, bestselling author of "Naked", presents a collection of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French. A number one national bestseller now in paperback.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde
Introduction by Jeffrey Eugenides • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.” Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”
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War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
by Chris Hedges
Looks at the appeal of war, arguing that the ideas of combat are noble and glorious, providing a purpose for living for some people.
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The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
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The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
One of the most powerful and most widely read novels of our time in display-worthy hardcover: A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution—from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (The New York Times). • Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. Like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid's Tale has endured not only as a literary landmark but as a warning of a possible future that is still chillingly relevant. With an introduction by Valerie Martin. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.
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Maus I: A Survivor's Tale
by Art Spiegelman
The bestselling first installment of the graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker) • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • One of Variety’s “Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read” A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.
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Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut
“A free-wheeling vehicle . . . an unforgettable ride!”—The New York Times Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat’s Cradle is one of the twentieth century’s most important works—and Vonnegut at his very best. “[Vonnegut is] an unimitative and inimitable social satirist.”—Harper’s Magazine “Our finest black-humorist . . . We laugh in self-defense.”—Atlantic Monthly
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Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
Ninety-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembers his time in the circus as a young man during the Great Depression, and his friendship with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, the elephant, who gave them hope. Reader's Guide included. Reprint.