Some More Randomly Selected Titles From My Bookshelf

All the King's Men

By Robert Penn Warren

Character study of a Southern demagogue whose career follows in some respects as that of Huey Long.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s witty comedy of manners—one of the most popular novels of all time—that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the “most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its author’s works,” and Eudora Welty in the twentieth century described it as “irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.”

The Persian Boy

By Mary Renault

“It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.”–The Atlantic Monthly The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexander’s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.

I, Claudius

By Robert Graves

Considered an idiot because of his physical infirmities, Claudius survived the intrigues and poisonings of the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and the Mad Caligula to become emperor in 41 A.D. A masterpiece.

Dracula

By Bram Stoker

The classic tale of the bizarre Carpathian count, who drinks human blood to stay alive, and the Englishman who knows his secret

The Catch Trap

By Marion Zimmer Bradley

Tommy Zane's dreams of becoming a trapeze flyer bring him under the tutelage of Mario Santelli, who sees in Tommy's dreams and ambition the chance to regain the greatness that his family, The Flying Santellis, once enjoyed

The War of the Worlds

By H. G. Wells

H.G. Wells's science fiction classic, the first novel to explore the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets, it still startling and vivid nearly after a century after its appearance, and a half-century after Orson Wells's infamous 1938 radio adaptation. The daring portrayal of aliens landing on English soil, with its themes of interplanetary imperialism, technological holocaust and chaos, is central to the career of H.G. Wells, who died at the dawn of the atomic age. The survival of mankind in the face of "vast and cool and unsympathetic" scientific powers spinning out of control was a crucial theme throughout his work. Visionary, shocking and chilling, The War Of The Worlds has lost none of its impact since its first publication in 1898.

Gaudy Night

By Dorothy L. Sayers

“Gaudy Night stands out even among Miss Sayers’s novels. And Miss Sayers has long stood in a class by herself.” —Times Literary Supplement The great Dorothy L. Sayers is considered by many to be the premier detective novelist of the Golden Age, and her dashing sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, one of mystery fiction’s most enduring and endearing protagonists. Acclaimed author Ruth Rendell has expressed her admiration for Sayers’s work, praising her “great fertility of invention, ingenuity, and wonderful eye for detail.” The third Dorothy L. Sayers classic to feature mystery writer Harriet Vane, Gaudy Night is now back in print with an introduction by Elizabeth George, herself a crime fiction master. Gaudy Night takes Harriet and her paramour, Lord Peter, to Oxford University, Harriet’s alma mater, for a reunion, only to find themselves the targets of a nightmare of harassment and mysterious, murderous threats.

The Thin Man

By Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett's classic The Thin Man introduced the world to Nick and Nora Charles, further made famous by the popular Thin Man films. With a new introduction by Denise Mina. Nick Charles seems to find trouble wherever he goes. He thinks his sleuthing days are behind him when Julia Wolf, a former acquaintance, turns up dead. Nick—thanks to some persuasion from his enchanting wife, Nora—finds himself falling back into old habits and making a few polite inquiries. The prime suspect, Julia’s lover and boss Clyde Miller Wynant, has vanished without a trace. Everyone is after him, but Nick is not so sure Wynant is the culprit. And when another dubious figure bursts into their bedroom, waving a loaded handgun, it seems Nick and Nora’s adventure is only just beginning. Nick and Nora Charles are among Dashiell Hammett’s most alluring creations: a rich, glamourous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.

Catch-22

By Joseph Heller

Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to some one dangerously sane -- a masterpiece of our time.

Some More Randomly Selected Titles From My Bookshelf

All the King's Men

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Pride and Prejudice

The Persian Boy

I, Claudius

Dracula

The Catch Trap

The War of the Worlds

Gaudy Night

The Thin Man

Catch-22