Books I Read from Jan. 2003 - May 2003
Explore my curated list of books read from January to May 2003. Discover top 2003 reads, from bestsellers to hidden gems, with insights and recommendations.
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Clarissa
by Samuel Richardson
"Oh thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guilty hour, for a whole age of repentance!" Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire. Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, and translated into French and German, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels. In his introduction, Angus Ross examines characterization, the epistolary style, the role of the family and the position of women in Clarissa. This edition also includes a chronology, suggestions for further reading, tables of letters, notes, a glossary and an appendix on the music for the "Ode to Wisdom." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Native Son
by Richard A. Wright
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
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East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
The biblical account of Cain and Abel is echoed in the history of two generations of the Trask family in California.
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Le Morte D'Arthur
by Sir Thomas Malory
In a time when there were damsels in distress to save and mythical dragons to slay, King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table were there to render justice in the face of any danger. From the incredible wizardry of Merlin to the undeniable passion of Sir Launcelot, these tales of Arthur and his knights offer epic adventures with the supernatural as well as timeless battles with our own humanity. Keith Baines's splendid rendition of Le Morte d'Arthurfaithfully preserves the original flavour of Malory's masterpiece - that of banners and bloodshed, knights and ladies, Christians and sorcerers, sentiment and savagery. It remains a vivid medieval tapestry woven about a central figure who symbolises the birth of an age of chivalry.
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A Star Called Henry
by Roddy Doyle
Doyle's ambitious new novel is a passionate love story that takes a subversive look behind the legends of Irish republicanism through the eyes of one of Michael Collins' infamous boys--a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike, a lover.
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Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
by Roddy Doyle
Winner of the Booker Prize – Roddy Doyle’s witty, exuberant novel about a young boy trying to make sense of his changing world It is 1968. Patrick Clarke is ten. He loves Geronimo, the Three Stooges, and the smell of his hot water bottle. He can't stand his little brother Sinbad. His best friend is Kevin, and their names are all over Barrytown, written with sticks in wet cement. They play football, lepers, and jumping to the bottom of the sea. But why didn't anyone help him when Charles Leavy had been going to kill him? Why do his ma and da argue so much, but act like everything is fine? Paddy sees everything, but he understands less and less. Hilarious and poignant, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha charts the triumphs, indignities, and bewilderment of a young boy and his world, a place full of warmth, cruelty, confusion and love.
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by Laurence Sterne
Edited by Joan New and Melvyn New.
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ID: 0140186476
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ID: 0192839403
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The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon
Oedipa Maas finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy.
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The Great Gatsby
by Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Tells the tragic love story of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.
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The Winter of Our Discontent
by John Steinbeck
A New Englander learns the bitter lesson that it is not possible to be a little dishonest
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ID: 0140189378
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Ceremony
by Leslie Marmon Silko
One Navajo family, on a New Mexico reservation, struggles to survive in a world no longer theirs in the years just before and after World War II.
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ID: 0862785804
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Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust
by Nathanael West
Two classic short stories, one about a male reporter who writes an advice column, and the other, about people who have migrated to California in expectation of health and ease.
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ID: 0345373162
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