Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Great books of the Western world volume 24
Language
English
Description
First published in four volumes between 1532 and 1552, Rabelais' comic masterpiece chronicles the adventures of a giant, Gargantua, and his son, Pantagruel. More than four centuries later, the terms "gargantuan" and "Rabelaisian" are synonymous with earthy humor, a surfeit of good food and drink, and pleasures of the flesh. This series of exaggerated fables was condemned upon its initial publication by the censors of the Collège de la Sorbonne....
Author
Language
English
Description
When a bumbling holy man mistakenly baptizes a colony of penguins, God endows the animals with souls and their formerly peaceful community declines into a maelstrom of violence and sin. This witty allegory lampoons French history from ancient to modern times, taking satirical swipes at socialists, royalists, industrialists, militarists, and even the Dreyfus affair, and concluding with a remarkably prescient view of the future. Indeed, more than a...
3) Siddhartha
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"Written in a prose of almost biblical simplicity and beauty, Siddhartha is the story of a soul's long quest for the answer to the enigma of man's role on earth. As a youth, the young Indian Siddhartha meets the Buddha but isn't content with the disciple's role. He must work out his own destiny--a torturous road on which he experiences a love affair with the beautiful courtesan Kamala, the temptation of success and riches, the heartache of struggling...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne's masterpiece. Published in French as L'Île Mystérieuse in 1874, this novel is a sequel to Verne's earlier Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas. After hijacking a balloon from a Confederate camp, a band of five northern prisoners escape the American...
5) Babbitt
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
When George Babbitt, a middle-aged, middle class man, becomes disenchanted with his life, he begins to rebel against the social customs that keep him feeling confined. Babbitt, written by a Nobel Prize winning author, Sinclair Lewis, satirizes American culture through the depiction of a man who is never satisfied, despite his good fortune.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling classic frontier adventure novel that inspired two award-winning films! Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America's foremost writers. True Grit his most famous novel, was first published in 1968, and became the basis for two movies, the 1969 classic starring John Wayne and, in 2010, a new version starring Academy Award® winner Jeff Bridges and written and directed by the Coen brothers. True Grit tells...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Synopsis: The author of The Time Machine and War of the World conjures up an island where a mad doctor experiments with turning animals into grotesque human-like creatures. The island is discovered by survivors of a South Pacific shipwreck. Read the prescient 1896 story as a social satire and as a foreshadow of science-to-come such as gene-splicing and bioengineering.
9) The group
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains “juicy . . . witty . . . brilliant” (Cosmopolitan).
At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one...
At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one...
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
A family burdened by the sins of their forebears seeks redemption in this Gothic masterpiece from one of the most influential voices in American literature In a small New England town, the haunted halls of Pyncheon House trap its current owners-Hepzibah Pyncheon and her brother, Clifford-in an atmosphere of gloom and despair. Two hundred years ago, their ancestor seized the property from a man sentenced to death for practicing witchcraft. At his execution,...
11) 1984
Author
Series
A Signet Classic volume CP 100
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
A satire on the horrors of totalitarianism, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is set in a society run by Big Brother where people are made to conform to orthodoxy by the Thought Police. Winston Smith yearns for truth and liberty, but he comes to realize that he cannot outwit the forces at work.
12) Typhoon
Author
Series
Pub. Date
1922.
Language
English
Description
Captain MacWhirr cannot fathom anything outside the facts of his own life. His first mate, Mr. Jukes, is the perfect contrast as an imaginative man prone to speaking in figurative language. Though they are opposites, MacWhirr and Jukes respect each other and run a tight ship, until the crew notices the barometer predicting a serve storm. Jukes and the crew suggest alternate paths to MacWhirr, but he is unconvinced. Since MacWhirr has not experienced...
13) Silas Marner
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"A man becomes a recluse when he's accused of a crime he did not commit Silas Marner is a skilled weaver working long hours in London for a Calvinist sect that does not appreciate him. When the congregation's funds are stolen, Silas is framed for the theft and excommunicated. Presumed guilty, abandoned by the love of his life, evicted from his modest home, and humiliated by the men he called his brothers, Silas wanders north to a small village in...
14) The comedians
Author
Pub. Date
[1966]
Language
English
Description
Strangers in Port-au-Prince are united in the corruption, fear, and revolt of Duvalier-era Haiti in "the most interesting novel of [Greene's] career" ( The Nation ). Haiti, under the rule of Papa Doc and his menacing paramilitary, the Tontons Macoute, has long been abandoned by tourists. Now it is home to corrupt capitalists, foreign ambassadors and their lonely wives -- and a small group of enterprising strangers rocking into port on the Dutch cargo...
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
A New York City 14-year-old boy has more in common with his cat than his father. My father is always talking about how a dog can be very educational for a boy. This is one reason I got a cat. Dave Mitchell and his father yell at each other a lot, and whenever the fighting starts, Dave's mother gets an asthma attack. That's when Dave storms out of the house. Then Dave meets Tom, a strange boy who helps him rescue Cat. It isn't long before Cat introduces...
16) Daisy Miller
Author
Language
English
Description
A Timeless Classic of Societal Customs, Cultural Disputes, and The Cost of Non-Conformity
Henry James' novella Daisy Miller, features one of his greatest heroines. At first glance it seems to be a simple story of a lovely young, independent American girl traveling through Europe. But her flouting of social conventions has the potential to lead to catastrophe as she disrupts the rigid social rules of the Old World, attracting and scandalizing all...
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Published in 1926 to explosive acclaim, The Sun Also Rises stands as perhaps the most impressive first novel ever written by an American writer. A roman ̉clef about a group of American and English expatriates on an excursion from Paris's Left Bank to Pamplona for the July fiesta and its climactic bull fight, a journey from the center of a civilization spiritually bankrupted by the First World War to a vital, God-haunted world in which faith and honor...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
From the author of The Scarlet Letter : The thrilling tale of three American artists whose search for artistic inspiration leads to romance and murder. The sculpture galleries and classical architecture of nineteenth-century Rome set the stage for Nathaniel Hawthorne's gothic romance The Marble Faun. While touring the Eternal City in search of inspiration and authentic beauty, American artists Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon soon discover that their Italian...
19) Animal farm
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
The animals of the farmyard rebel against Farmer Jones in the name of equality.
20) Daddy-Long-Legs
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A trustee of the John Grier orphanage has offered to send Judy Abbott to college. The only requirements are that she must write to him every month, and that she can never know who he is. Judy's life at college is a whirlwind of friends, classes, parties, and a growing friendship with the handsome Jervis Pendleton. With so much happening in her life, Judy can scarcely stop writing to the mysterious "Daddy-Long-Legs"!
Interlibrary Loan
Didn't find what you need? Items not owned by Main Library Alliance members might be available in other libraries across New Jersey. You can search JerseyCat and place a request for the item to be sent to your library.
If your library doesn't permit JerseyCat requests or the item can't be found, you can also contact your library for assistance.Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Try our Materials Request Service. Submit Request