My Alltime Favorites - In No Particular Order
Discover a curated list of all-time favorite books in no particular order. Explore timeless classics, hidden gems, and must-reads for every book lover.
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The Professor and the Madman
by Simon Winchester
Mysterious (mistße · ries), a. [f. L. mystérium Mysteryi + ous. Cf. F. mystérieux.] 1. Full of or fraught with mystery; wrapt in mystery; hidden from human knowledge or understanding; impossible or difficult to explain, solve, or discover; of obscure origin, nature, or purpose. It is known as one of the greatest literary achievements in the history of English letters. The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857, took seventy years to complete, drew from tens of thousands of brilliant minds, and organized the sprawling language into 414,825 precise definitions. But hidden within the rituals of its creation is a fascinating and mysterious story--a story of two remarkable men whose strange twenty-year relationship lies at the core of this historic undertaking. Professor James Murray, an astonishingly learned former schoolmaster and bank clerk, was the distinguished editor of the OED project. Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon from New Haven, Connecticut, who had served in the Civil War, was one of thousands of contributors who submitted illustrative quotations of words to be used in the dictionary. But Minor was no ordinary contributor. He was remarkably prolific, sending thousands of neat, handwritten quotations from his home in the small village of Crowthorne, fifty miles from Oxford. On numerous occasions Murray invited Minor to visit Oxford and celebrate his work, but Murray's offer was regularly--and mysteriously--refused. Thus the two men, for two decades, maintained a close relationship only through correspondence. Finally, in 1896, after Minor had sent nearly ten thousand definitions to the dictionary but had still never traveled from his home, a puzzled Murray set out to visit him. It was then that Murray finally learned the truth about Minor--that, in addition to being a masterful wordsmith, Minor was also a murderer, clinically insane--and locked up in Broadmoor, England's harshest asylum for criminal lunatics. The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness and genius, and the incredible obsessions of two men at the heart of the Oxford English Dictionary and literary history. With riveting insight and detail, Simon Winchester crafts a fascinating glimpse into one man's tortured mind and his contribution to another man's magnificent dictionary.
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by Clive Staples Lewis
Four English school children find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter.
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Reading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER âą We all have dreamsâthings we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisiâs dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were readingâPride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolitaâtheir Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisiâs account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Nafisiâs class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of âthe Great Satan,â she decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense. Azar Nafisiâs luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of womenâs lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice. Praise for Reading Lolita in Tehran âAnyone who has ever belonged to a book group must read this book. Azar Nafisi takes us into the vivid lives of eight women who must meet in secret to explore the forbidden fiction of the West. It is at once a celebration of the power of the novel and a cry of outrage at the reality in which these women are trapped. The ayatollahs donâ t know it, but Nafisi is one of the heroes of the Islamic Republic.ââGeraldine Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire
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About a Boy
by Nick Hornby
A wise, hilarious novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Dickens and Prince, Funny Girl and High Fidelity Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women â women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will â might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers â bright, attractive, available women â thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them. SPAT: Single Parents â Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasnât going to let the fact that he didnât have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldnât be the first thing heâd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained forâŠ
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To Kill a Mockingbird 40th
by Harper Lee
The explosion of racial hate and violence in a small Alabama town is viewed by a little girl whose father defends a Black man accused of rape
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The Big Over Easy
by Jasper Fforde
A novel describing the murder investigation of the fictional egg Humpty Dumpty.
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Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER âą An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writerâs world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times). âSuperb writing adviceâŠ. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.â âThe New York Times Book Review For a quarter century, more than a million readersâscribes and scribblers of all ages and abilitiesâhave been inspired by Anne Lamottâs hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anneâs fatherâalso a writerâin the iconic passage that gives the book its title: âThirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that heâd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brotherâs shoulder, and said, âBird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.ââ
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The Lord of the Rings
by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Contains The Fellowship of the ring, The Two towers, and The Return of the king, appendices, indexes, and notes on the text.
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Mere Christianity
by C. S. Lewis
A forceful and accessible discussion of Christian belief that has become one of the most popular introductions to Christianity and one of the most popular of Lewis's books. Uncovers common ground upon which all Christians can stand together.
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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.
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Three Nights in August
by Buzz Bissinger
Showing that human nature--not statistics--dictates the outcome of ballgames, the authors watch from the dugout as a spectacular series unfolds between theCardinals and their archrivals, the Cubs.
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Mystery and Manners
by Flannery O'Connor
The essays and articles in this volume are concerned mainly with the art of fiction--its quality, in regional writing; its nature and its aims; and its relatino to the writer's religion.
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A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle
This special edition ofA Wrinkle in Timeincludes a new essay that explores the science behind the fantasy. Rediscover one of the most beloved children's books of all time:A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L'Engle: Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a "tesseract," which, if you didn't know, is a wrinkle in time. Meg's father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?
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