Some Favorites from Library of America
Discover timeless American fiction with Library of America favorites—featuring John Dos Passos' U.S.A., Eudora Welty's complete novels, and crime classics curated by Robert Polito. Explore essential books from America's literary canon.
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Crime Novels
by Robert Polito
This adventurous volume, with its companion devoted to the 1930s and 40s, presents a rich vein of modern American writing too often neglected in mainstream literary histories. Evolving out of the terse and violent hardboiled style of the pulp magazines, noir fiction expanded over the decades into a varied and innovative body of writing. Tapping deep roots in the American literary imagination, the novels in this volume explore themes of crime, guilt, deception, obsessive passion, murder, and the disintegrating psyche. With visionary and often subversive force, they create a dark and violent mythology out of the most commonplace elements of modern life. The raw power of their vernacular style has profoundly influenced contemporary American culture and writing. Far from formulaic, they are ambitious works which bend the rules of genre fiction to their often experimental purposes.
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Eudora Welty: Complete Novels (LOA #101)
by Eudora Welty
Complete Novels, The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battle, The Optimist's Daughter.
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A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers ; Walden, or, Life in the woods ; The Maine woods ; Cape Cod
No summary available.
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John Dos Passos: U.S.A. (LOA #85)
by John Dos Passos
Unique for its epic scale and panoramic social sweep, Dos Passos' masterpiece comprises three novels--The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money--which create an unforgettable collective portrait of modern America.
