Fiction I like
Explore my curated list of favorite fiction books! Discover captivating novels, must-read classics, and hidden gems that will inspire your next great read.
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The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game
by Patricia Highsmith
Three classic psychological crime thrillers by a master of the macabre appear here together in hardcover for the first time. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES STARRING ANDREW SCOTT, JOHNNY FLYNN, AND DAKOTA FANNING. Suave, agreeable, and completely amoral, Patricia Highsmith's hero, the inimitable Tom Ripley, stops at nothing--not even murder--to accomplish his goals. In achieving for himself the opulent life that he was denied as a child, Ripley shows himself to be a master of illusion and manipulation and a disturbingly sympathetic combination of genius and psychopath. As Highsmith navigates the mesmerizing tangle of Ripley's deadly and sinister games, she turns the mystery genre inside out and takes us into the mind of a man utterly indifferent to evil. The Talented Mr. Ripley - ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME In a chilling literary hall of mirrors, Patricia Highsmith introduces Tom Ripley. Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel, Ripley is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him--exactly like him. Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal. Turning the mystery form inside out, Highsmith shows the terrifying abilities afforded to a man unhindered by the concept of evil. Ripley Under Ground In this harrowing illumination of the psychotic mind, the enviable Tom Ripley has a lovely house in the French countryside, a beautiful and very rich wife, and an art collection worthy of a connoisseur. But such a gracious life has not come easily. One inopportune inquiry, one inconvenient friend, and Ripley's world will come tumbling down--unless he takes decisive steps. In a mesmerizing novel that coolly subverts all traditional notions of literary justice, Ripley enthralls us even as we watch him perform acts of pure and unspeakable evil. Ripley's Game Connoisseur of art, harpsichord aficionado, gardener extraordinaire, and genius of improvisational murder, the inimitable Tom Ripley finds his complacency shaken when he is scorned at a posh gala. While an ordinary psychopath might repay the insult with some mild act of retribution, what Ripley has in mind is far more subtle, and infinitely more sinister. A social slight doesn't warrant murder of course--just a chain of events that may lead to it.
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The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Story of three sons of a drunkard: Ivan, a materialist, Alyosha, a mystic, and Mitya, tried and convicted for murdering their father.
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The Stand
by Stephen King
June 16, 1985. That is when the horror began--the evil that started in a laboratory and took over America.
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The Shining
by Stephen King
The author's best-selling vision of horror in a winter-bound Colorado luxury hotel follows the Torrance family on a harrowing journey into the heart of evil. Reissue.
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A Painted House
by John Grisham
Racial tension, a forbidden love affair, and murder are seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy in a 1950s Southern cotton-farming community
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The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER ā¢ A monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, The Magic Mountain is an enduring classic. With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alpsāa community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an āordinary young manā who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas.
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Foucault's Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
"As brilliant and quirky as THE NAME OF THE ROSE, as mischievous and wide-raning....A virtuoso performance." THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Three clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over.... Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised.
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Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert Anson Heinlein
This is the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with "psi" powers--telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, and the ability to take control of the minds of others--and yet with complete innocence regarding the mores of man.
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The Teachings of Don Juan
by Carlos Castaneda
"Published by arrangement with the University of California Press."--T.p. verso.
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The Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouacās classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature āIn [On the Road] Kerouacās heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity.āāChicago Tribune First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouacās most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americansāmountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writerāwhose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Franciscoās Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.
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Njal's Saga
Ā
An Icelandic family saga, probably from the 13th century, in a modern translation.
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Officers and Gentlemen
by Evelyn Waugh
This is the second volume in the 'Sword of Honor' trilogy. The other volumes in this trilogy include: 'Men at Arms' and 'The End of the Battle'.
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The Guns of the South
by Harry Turtledove
"It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read." Professor James M. McPherson Pultizer Prize-winning BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM January 1864--General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equpped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: Its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantitites to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47.... Selected by the Science Fiction Book Club A Main Selection of the Military Book Club
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The Master and Margarita
by ŠŠøŃ Š°ŠøŠ» ŠŃŠ»Š³Š°ŠŗŠ¾Š²
Mikhail Bulgakov's devastating satire of Soviet life was written during the darkest period of Stalin's regime. Combining two distinct yet interwoven parts-one set in ancient Jerusalem, one in contemporary Moscow-the novel veers from moods of wild theatricality with violent storms, vampire attacks, and a Satanic ball; to such somber scenes as the meeting of Pilate and Yeshua, and the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of Gethsemane; to the substanceless, circus-like reality of Moscow. Its central characters, Woland (Satan) and his retinue-including the vodka-drinking, black cat, Behemoth; the poet, Ivan Homeless; Pontius Pilate; and a writer known only as The Master, and his passionate companion, Margarita-exist in a world that blends fantasy and chilling realism, an artful collage of grostesqueries, dark comedy, and timeless ethical questions.
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John Le CarrƩ
George Smiley is assigned to uncover the identity of the double agent operating in the highest levels of British intelligence.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert M. Pirsig
While cycling through the western states, a disillusioned American questions the meaning of existence after confronting the ghost of his former, uninstitutionalized self.
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The Complete Sherlock Holmes #2 Boxed Set
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Titles include "Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1" and "Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2".
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
by Hunter S. Thompson
50th Anniversary Edition ā¢ With an introduction by Caity Weaver, acclaimed New York Times journalist This cult classic of gonzo journalism is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken. Also a major motion picture directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
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Harry Potter
by J. K. Rowling
During his third year at Hogwarts School for witchcraft and wizardry, Harry Potter must confront the devious and dangerous wizard responsable for his parents death.