Literature
Selections:
all book summaries adapted from Amazon.com reviews
|
| Chopin -- The
Awakening
Originally entitled "A Solitary Soul,"
this portrait of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier
is a landmark in American fiction, rooted firmly in
the romantic tradition of Herman Melville and Emily
Dickinson. Here, a woman in search of self-discovery
turns away from convention and society, and toward the
primal, irresistibly attracted to nature and the senses. |
Philbrick -- Mayflower: A Story
of Courage, Community, and War (non-fiction)
In this remarkable effort, National Book Award–winner
Philbrick examines the history of Plymouth Colony. In
the early 17th century, a small group of devout English
Christians fled their villages to escape persecution,
going first to Holland, then making the now infamous 10-week
voyage to the New World. Rather than arriving in the summer
months as planned, they landed in November, low on supplies.
Luckily, they were met by the Wampanoag Indians and their
wizened chief, Massasoit. In economical, well-paced prose,
Philbrick masterfully recounts the desperate circumstances
of both the settlers and their would-be hosts, and how
the Wampanoags saved the colony from certain destruction. |
Mitchell -- Gone with the Wind
Novel by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1936, Gone
With the Wind is a sweeping, romantic story about the
American Civil War from the point of view of the Confederacy.
In particular it is the story of Scarlett O'Hara, a headstrong
Southern belle who survives the hardships of the war and
afterwards manages to establish a successful business
by capitalizing on the struggle to rebuild the South.
Throughout the book she is motivated by her unfulfilled
love for Ashley Wilkes, an honorable man who is happily
married. After a series of marriages and failed relationships
with other men, notably the dashing Rhett Butler, she
has a change of heart and determines to win Rhett back.
|
| Miller -- The
Crucible AND Death of a Salesman (drama)
The Crucible: Based on historical people
and real events, Arthur Miller's play uses the destructive
power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the
rumors of witchcraft in Puritan New England as a powerful
parable about McCarthyism. Death of a Salesman:
the story of the American Dream gone awry when a small
man is destroyed by society's false values. |
| Ellison -- Invisible
Man
First published in 1952, Invisible Man
revealed the pain of a black man's existence in a white
world. It was shocking then, but remains important literature
today. It is the story of a young man's journey--through
the Deep South to the streets of Harlem, through events
and experiences that range from tortured to macabre.
As he moves through time, he learns about the black
world, the white world, and a world of his own. His
passage is a frightening but at the same time enlightening
pilgrimage, for the Invisible Man and for all of us. |
| Larson --
Devil in the White City (non-fiction)
Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events
surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such
drama that readers may find themselves checking the
book's categorization to be sure that The Devil
in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative
novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H.
Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction,
and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming
doctor. |
| Fitzgerald --
Tender is the Night
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s,
Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of
the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American
couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist
at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and
doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle
not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's
harrowing demise. |
| McCullough --
1776 (non-fiction)
David McCullough covers the military side of
the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight
and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and
a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American
Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As
British and American politicians struggled to reach
a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war
was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about the
dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure,
including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that
luck and the whims of the weather played in helping
the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. |
| Chabon --
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Like the comic books that animate and inspire it,
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with
golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses
and even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the
most important questions of love and war, dreams and
art, across pages brimming with longing and hope. Samuel
Klayman--self-described little man, city boy, and Jew--first
meets Josef Kavalier when his mother shoves him aside
in his own bed, telling him to make room for their cousin,
a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague. It's the beginning,
however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. |
| Russo -- Empire
Falls
In the small Maine town of Empire Falls, replete
with long defunct logging and textile mills, the Whiting
clan embarks on its inexorable demise. The family has
owned the town and controlled its environment, economy
and inhabitants for generations. Why and how they bring
about their own demise unfolds slowly, character by
character, incident by incident, year by year, layering
the lives of Whitings and Robys, and learning about
the families' complex interweaving that shapes all of
their members. A comic and compelling ensemble piece. |
