Gordons All Time Favourites

Explore Gordon's All Time Favourites—a curated list of beloved books that have stood the test of time. Discover must-read classics and hidden gems!

Item Not Found
ID: 0553212168
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 999373926X
(Type: books)
The Lord of the Rings Cover
Book

The Lord of the Rings

by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Three-volume boxed set edition lavishly illustrated in full color by Alan LeeOne Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind themIn ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth still it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell, by chance, into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.On his eleventy-first birthday, Bilbo dissapeared bequeathing to his young cousin, Frodo, the Ruling Ring, and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the wizard, the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
Item Not Found
ID: 0446674613
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0385125054
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0800630165
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0671733672
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0743203046
(Type: books)
The Diversity of Life Cover
Book

The Diversity of Life

by Edward O. Wilson

This classic by the distinguished Harvard entomologist tells how life on earth evolved and became diverse, and now, how diversity and life are endangered by us, truly. While Wilson contributed a great deal to environmental ethics by calling for the preservation of whole ecosystems rather than individual species, his environmentalism appears too anthropocentric: "We should judge every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity." And: "Signals abound that the loss of life's diversity endangers not just the body but the spirit." This reprint of the 1992 Belknap Press publication contains a new foreword. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Item Not Found
ID: 0394746163
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 067974195X
(Type: books)
The Power Broker Cover
Book

The Power Broker

by Robert A. Caro

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York. One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens—the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses—and brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller. But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man—an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives. We see how Moses began: the handsome, intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd, an idealist. How, rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment, he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals. How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways, playlands and beaches—and then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape, the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway, the hopeless sprawl of Long Island, the massive failures of public housing, and countless other barriers to humane living. How, inevitably, the accumulation of power became an end in itself. Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor. He was held in fear—his dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him. He was, he claimed, above politics, above deals; and through decade after decade, the newspapers and the public believed. Meanwhile, he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as "Triborough"—a government whose records were closed to the public, whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Moses—an immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions, on banks, on all the city's political and economic institutions, and on the press, and on the Church. He doled out millions of dollars' worth of legal fees, insurance commissions, lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he coveted: power. He dominated the politics and politicians of his time—without ever having been elected to any office. He was, in essence, above our democratic system. Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years, through the governorships of Smith, Roosevelt, Lehman, Dewey, Harriman and Rockefeller, and in the city for 34 years, through the mayoralties of La Guardia, O'Dwyer, Impellitteri, Wagner and Lindsay, He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollars—he was undoubtedly America's greatest builder. This is how he built and dominated New York—before, finally, he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller). But his work, and his will, had been done.
Item Not Found
ID: 0912148098
(Type: books)
Built to Last Cover
Book

Built to Last

 

No summary available.
Item Not Found
ID: 039309040X
(Type: books)
Anton Chekhov's Short Stories Cover
Book

Anton Chekhov's Short Stories

by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The thirty-four stories in this volume span Chekhov s creative career."
Item Not Found
ID: 0896330230
(Type: books)
The Remains of the Day Cover
Book

The Remains of the Day

by Kazuo Ishiguro

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is “an intricate and dazzling novel” (The New York Times) about the perfect butler and his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
Midnight's Children Cover
Book

Midnight's Children

by Salman Rushdie

The story of Saleem Sinal, born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, the moment India became independent. Saleem's life parallels the history of his nation.
Item Not Found
ID: 0140433880
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0312243243
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0312254016
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0060920432
(Type: books)
Item Not Found
ID: 0851703003
(Type: books)
A Suitable Boy Cover
Book

A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth

Tells the story of four large extended families in 1950s India against the political and religious upheavals of the time.