Classics Reading List

Freshmen English

Mr. Koenig’s Classes

 

 

                        Achebe, Chinua.  Things Fall Apart.  World Classic.  First published in 1959.

Set in an Ibo village in Nigeria, the novel recreates pre-Christian tribal life and shows how the coming of the white man led to the breaking up of the old ways.

 

F Ada              Adams, Douglas.  Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A.   World Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1979.

A funny, satiric best-seller about the end of the world and the days that follow it.  Seconds before Earth is destroyed to make room for a galactic freeway, a young man is rescued by an alien friend who whisks him away on a space-traveling adventure.

 

599 Ada          Adamson, Joy.  Born Free: A Lioness of Two worlds.  World Classic.  First published in 1960.

Joy Adamson describes the remarkable relationship she and her husband had with Elsa, a lion cub they cared for during the late 1950s in Kenya, and Elsa's return to the wild as a lioness; includes the many photographs from the original publication.

 

F Age              Agee, James.  Death in the Family, A.  American Classic.  First published in 1957.

The story of a family for the first few days after the accidental death of the 35-year-old husband and father.  The novel shows how such a loss affects the young widow, her two children, her atheistic father and the dead man’s alcoholic brother.

 

F Alb               Albom, Mitch.  Five People You Meet in Heaven, The.   American Classic.  First published in 2003.

A bitter eighty-three-year-old war veteran who believes his life is meaningless dies while trying to save a little girl's life and finds himself in heaven, where five people from his past--some loved ones, some strangers--explain what his years on Earth really meant, and whether or not he succeeded in saving the child.

 

378.1  Alb       Albom, Mitch.  Tuesdays with Morrie.  American Classic.  First published in 1997.

The author, an alumnus of Brandeis University, tells of his meetings with a former professor suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and of the lessons he learned about life and death from his college mentor.

 

                        Alcott, Louisa May.  Jo’s Boys.   American Classic.  First published in 1886.

                                A sequel to "Little Men," which follows the further adventures, successes, and failures of the young men of Plumfield School.

 

F Alc               Alcott, Louisa May.  Little Men.  American Classic.   First published in 1871.

Follows the adventures of Jo March and her husband Professor Bhaer as they try to make their school for boys a happy, comfortable, and stimulating place.

 

F Alc               Alcott, Louisa May.  Little Women.  American Classic.  First published in 1868.

ebook                      The four March sisters experience joys and sorrows as they grow into young women in nineteenth century New England.

 

F Ald               Aldrich, Bess.  Lantern in Her Hand, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1928.

Tells the story of Abbie MacKenzie, who gives up the promise of a comfortable city life to face the challenge of homesteading on the American frontier.

 

B Ang             Angelou, Maya.  I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  American Classic.  Biography.   First published in 1969.

Poet Maya Angelou chronicles her early life, focusing on her childhood in 1930s rural Arkansas, including her rape at the age of five, her subsequent years of muteness, and the strength she gained from her grandmother and Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a respected African-American woman in her town.

 

F Asi               Asimov, Isaac.  Fantastic Voyage.  American Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1966.

Five people are miniaturized and sent on a rescue mission through a man's body where they have sixty minutes to reach and break up a blood clot in his brain.

 

F Asi               Asimov, Isaac.  I, Robot.   American Classic.  First published in 1950.

"The Robot Series.”   Dr. Susan Calvin, the first great practitioner of the new science of robopsychology in 2008, looks back on her career with U.S. Robotics on the occasion of her retirement fifty years later, telling stories of how the mechanical race developed.

 

                        Attaway, William.  Blood on the Forge.  American Classic.   First published in 1969.

Three Moss brothers, Melody, Big Mat, and Chinatown, left their home in Kentucky to see out better fortunes working in the factories of the industrial north in post World War II America, where they lived and worked in the harshest of conditions while struggling to make ends meet.

 

F Aue              Auel, Jean M.  Clan of the Cave Bear.   American Classic.  First published in 1080

Ayla, clearly a member of the Others, is raised by the Clan of the Cave Bear, a rival race of humanoid creatures living in prehistoric Europe.

 

                        Austen, Jane.  Emma.  World Classic.  First published in 1815.

ebook                      Emma, a self-assured young lady in Regency England, is determined to arrange her life and the lives of those around her into a pattern dictated by her romantic fancy.

 

                        Austen, Jane.  Mansfield Park.                  World Classic.  First published in 1814.

ebook                      Fanny Price, a teenaged girl of low social rank brought up on her wealthy relatives' countryside estate, feels the sharp sting of rejection when her cousin Edmund, the only person who treats her as an equal, is won over by a flirtatious, exciting--and unprincipled--London girl.

 

                        Austen, Jane.   Persuasion.   World Classic.  First published in 1817.

ebook                      Anne Elliot, persuaded by family and friends that the charming and handsome Frederick Wentworth is not worthy of her regard, questions her decision to send him away until he returns seven years later, his circumstances much improved.

 

F Aus              Austen, Jane.  Pride and Prejudice.  World Classic.  First published in 1813.

ebook                      In early nineteenth-century England, a spirited young woman copes with the courtship of a snobbish gentleman as well as the romantic entanglements of her four sisters.

 

F Aus              Austen, Jane.  Sense and Sensibility.   World Classic.  First published in 1811.

ebook                      Two sisters of opposing temperaments come to a closer understanding of each other through the shared sufferings of tragic love affairs, but true love finally triumphs.

 

F Bal               Baldwin, James.  Go Tell it on the Mountain.  American Classic.  First published in 1953.

Describes a day in the life of several members of a Harlem fundamentalist church. The saga of three generations of people is related through flashbacks.

 

                        Barrett, William E.  Lilies of the Field, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1962.

                                A young African-American man driving through the Southwest helps a group of German refugee nuns build a church.

 

                        Barth, John.  Giles Goat-Boy.   American Classic.  First published in 1966.

An orphan raised by goats is the only hope for New Tammany College, a school held hostage by WESCAC, its computer system, which has become disturbingly human.

 

F Bau              Baum, L. Frank.  Wizard of Oz.  American Classic.   First published in 1900.

ebook                      After a cyclone transports her to the land of Oz, Dorothy must seek out the great wizard in order to return to Kansas.

 

                        Beckett, Samuel.  Waiting for Godot: tragicomedy in 2 acts.   World Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1952.

                                Two old tramps wait on a bare stretch of road near a tree for Godot.

 

F Bel               Bellamy, Edward.  Looking Backward:  2000 – 1887.  American Classic.  First published in 1888.

Presents Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, originally published in 1888, which follows the adventures of Julian West after he falls asleep in 1887 and awakens to find Boston in the year 2000 a near-perfect society.

 

                        Bellow, Saul.  Adventures of Augie March.   American Classic.  First published in 1953.

A Jewish boy in Depression-era Chicago rejects what he sees as his brother's slavery to family, responsibility, and the almighty dollar and embarks on a bohemian-style journey of discovery.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Herzog.   American Classic.  First published in 1964.

A mid-twentieth-century Jewish man who has failed in all of his major professional and personal endeavors sets out on a philosophical letter writing campaign to anyone and everyone who will read his thoughts--friends, enemies, and strangers.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Humbolt’s Gift.   American Classic.  First published in 1975.

Charlie Citrine has failed to live up to his potential, until Humboldt's gift arrives, a mocking gift from the grave that sends Charlie groping towards redemption.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Mr. Sammler’s Planet.   American Classic.  First published in 1970.

Arthur Sammler, a gentleman, an intellectual, and a Holocaust survivor, struggles to come to terms with modern life and its attendant sorrows.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Seize the Day.  American Classic.  First published in 1956.

                                A portrait of one day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a man on the brink of despair.

 

812.54  Bli      Blinn, William.  Brian’s Song.    American Classic.  Screenplay written in 1971.

A drama about football star Brian Piccolo, who died at twenty-six after a seven-month battle against cancer.

 

822 Bol           Bolt, Robert.  Man for All Seasons, A.   World Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1961.

                                A play based on the historical relationship between Henry VIII and Thomas More whom he appointed Bishop of Canterbury.

 

F Bor               Borland, Hal.  When the Legends Die.  American Classic.  First published in 1963.

An orphaned Ute Indian boy wins stardom on the rodeo circuit but, disillusioned by his success, returns to the ways of his ancestors.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Dandelion Wine.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1957.

                                In a small town in 1928, a twelve year-old boy savors the magic of childhood and the wonders of summer.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Fahrenheit 451.  American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1953.

A story set in the future about a society in which all books are banned.  Deals with issues that the morally, socially, or politically aware human being must face today.

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Martian Chronicles, The.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1950.

The first Earth people to attempt the colonization of Mars try to build their new world in the image of the civilization they left behind.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Something Wicked This Way Comes.  American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in   1962.

Two boys, best friends in a small midwestern town, finally come to understand that of all the terrors threatening them from Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show the greatest menace exists within themselves.

 

373.42 Bra      Braithwaite, E. R. To Sir, With Love.  World Classic.   First published in 1959.

A book about the problems and joys of a black teacher from British Guiana, teaching in a school for difficult teenagers in a white slum in London.  Focuses on the teacher’s attempts to win the respect of his students and to develop their own self-respect.

 

F Bro               Bronte, Charlotte.  Jane Eyre.  World Classic.   First published in 1847.

ebook                      When a penniless governess falls in love with the brooding master of Thornfield, she is unaware of the tragic events that will follow.

 

F Bro               Bronte, Emily.  Wuthering Heights.   World Classic.   First published in 1847.

ebook                      Forced by a storm to spend the night at the home of the somber Heathcliff, Mr. Lockwood uncovers a tale of terror and hatred on the Yorkshire moors.

 

970.4 Bro        Brown, Dee.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.  American Classic.   First published in 1970.

Documented account of the systematic plunder of the American Indians during the second half of the nineteenth century.

 

                        Brown, William Wells.  Clotel.   American Classic.  First published in 1853.

                                Fictional account of the life of the illegitimate, mulatto daughter of Thomas Jefferson, who was sold into slavery.

 

F Buc              Buck, Pearl.  Good Earth, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1931.

The story of a Chinese peasant and his passionate, dogged accumulation of land during famine, drought, and revolution.

 

F Bur              Burdick, Eugene.  Fail-safe.   American Classic.  First published in 1962.

                                A malfunction in a computer defense system leads to a nuclear cataclysm between two superpowers.

 

                        Burroughs, Edgar Rice.  Return of Tarzan.   American Classic.  First published in 1913.

ebook                      Tarzan encounters dangerous situations when he goes to the rescue of La, the priestess of Opar, the lost outpost of Atlantis.

 

F Bur              Burroughs, Edgar Rice.  Tarzan of the Apes.   American Classic.  First published in 1914.

ebook                      Tarzan, abandoned as a baby in the jungle of Africa, is adopted into a tribe of great apes and grows to become Lord of the Jungle until his domain is disturbed by civilized men who cause Tarzan to question his true identity.

 

F But               Butler, Samuel.  Way of All Flesh, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1903.

ebook                      Traces the relationship between parents and children through several generations of a middle-class English family.

 

F Cam             Camus, Albert.  Stranger, The.  World Classic.   First published in 1942.

                                Caught in the grip of forces he does not understand, a quiet, ordinary clerk in Algiers commits a murder.

 

364.1 Cap       Capote, Truman.  In Cold Blood.  American Classic.   First published in 1965.

Examines the lives and deaths of four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and the two men who murdered them on November 15, 1959.

 

F Car              Card, Orson Scott.  Ender’s Game.  American Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1985.

Young Ender Wiggin may prove to be the military genius Earth needs to fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race that will determine the future of the human race.

 

F Cat               Cather, Willa.  Death Comes for the Archbishop.  American Classic.   First published in 1927.

                                The literal and spiritual journey of two French priests who come to the American Southwest as missionaries in the mid-1800s.

 

F Cat               Cather, Willa.  My Antonia.   American Classic.   First published in 1918.

ebook                      The heroin, Bohemian immigrant Antonia Shimerda, is forced to work as a servant on the farms of her neighbors after her father kills himself in despair at his failure to become a successful farmer.  She eventually becomes the patient and strong wife of a Bohemian farmer, the mother of a large family, and a typical woman of the pioneer West.

 

F Cat               Cather, Willa.  O Pioneers!   American Classic.   First published in 1913.

ebook                      Alexandra, daughter of a Swedish immigrant farmer in Nebraska, inherits the family farm and finds love with an old friend.

 

F Cer              Cervantes, Miguel de.  Don Quixote.  World Classic.  Published in 1605, 1615.

F Bar                       Epic tale of an eccentric country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and ebook                              punish evil in sixteenth-century Spain.

 

891.7 Che       Chekhov, Anton.  Cherry Orchard, The.   World Classic.  Drama.  Written in 1904.

891.72 Che             An aristocratic Russian family struggles to maintain their status in a changing world as they are faced with the prospect of selling 808.82 Tuc                                the family estate to a land developer in order to pay off their debts.

                        Chesnutt, Charles W.  Colonel’s Dream.  American Classic.   First published in 1905.

Colonel French returns to his hometown of Clarendon, North Carolina, hoping to use his wealth to bring racial harmony and economic prosperity to the region in the years following the Civil War.

 

                        Chesnutt, Charles W.  House Behind the Cedars.  American Classic.   First published in 1900.

John and Rena Walden, two young African-Americans, decide to cross the color line in the post-Civil War South by attempting to pass for white.

 

F Chr              Christie, Agatha.  And Then There Were None  (Ten little Indians).   American Classic.  Mystery.  Originally published in 1940 in the U.S. as And then there were none.

Ten strangers--each with a sordid past--are summoned by an absent millionaire to a private island off the coast of Devon and begin to die one by one upon arrival.

 

                        Christie, Agatha.  Dead Man’s Folly.   American Classic.  Mystery.  First published in 1956.

Hercule Poirot is summoned by his old acquaintance, writer-detective Ariadne Oliver, to attend a "Murder Hunt" at Nasse House in Devonshire.

 

F Cla               Clark, Mary Higgins.  Stranger is Watching, A.  American Classic.  Mystery.  First published in 1977.

The family of a murder victim, a journalist opposed to capital punishment, and the man convicted of the killing find their lives bound together as the execution hour approaches, while the person who knows the truth about the murder waits to plunge them into an abyss of terror.

 

F Cla               Clark, Walter Van Tilburg.  Ox-Bow Incident, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1940.

When a group of citizens discover that one of their members has been murdered by cattle rustlers, they form an illegal posse, pursue the murderers and lynch them.

 

                        Clarke, Arthur C.  2001: A Space Odyssey.  World Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1968.

The spacecraft Discovery journeys to the outer edge of the solar system, and two navigators become uneasy when Hal, the craft's talking computer system, demonstrates unusual behavior.

 

F Cla               Clarke, Arthur C.  Childhood’s End.  World Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1953.

When the Overlords first came to Earth, they brought peace and prosperity with them, but it soon became apparent that their purpose was the elimination of the human race.

 

F Col               Collins, Wilkie.  Moonstone, The.  World Classic.   First published in 1868.

ebook                      English police Sergeant Cuff tries to locate a fabulous diamond that might have been stolen by a group of Hindus who regard it as a sacred stone.

 

                        Collins, Wilkie.  Woman in White, The.  World Classic.   First published in 1859.

ebook                      Art master Walter Hartright comes to the aid of his student, Laura, whom he has fallen in love with, after the woman's husband steals her fortune and identity, and while helping her, Walter finds a connection between Laura's situation and a mysterious woman in white.

 

                        Conrad, Joseph.  Heart of Darkness.  World Classic.   First published in 1899.

ebook                      Marlow comes face to face with the corruption and despair that lies at the heart of human existence when he undertakes a journey on behalf of a Belgian trading company up the Congo River in search of the tormented white ivory trader, Kurtz.

 

F Con              Conrad, Joseph.  Lord Jim.   World Classic.   First published in 1899.

ebook                      A man who has been branded a coward earns the respect of the Malay people.

                       

                        Conrad, Joseph.  Secret Agent, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1907.

ebook                      In turn-of-the-century London, an undercover, counter-revolutionary mole provokes a radical group he has penetrated into an act of violence that will bring about its own destruction.

 

                        Conroy, Pat.  Prince of Tides, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1986.

Tells the story of the narrator's struggle to overcome the psychological damage inflicted by his dysfunctional childhood in South Carolina.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Last of the Mohicans, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1826.  Sequel to The ebook                         Deerslayer.

                                The second of the Leatherstocking Tales.  The plot revolves around the efforts of Alice and Cora Monro to join their father, the British commander at Fort William Henry.  Their course is blocked by Magua, the leader of a group of Hurons, who are leagued with the French against the British.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Pioneers, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1822.  Sequel to The Pathfinder.

Natty Bumppo makes his first appearance as an older man who has witnessed the coming of civilization to the wilderness.  The central conflict in the book concerns the opposition between the laws of nature, upheld by Natty, and the laws of civilization.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Prairie, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1827. 

This historical novel is the third novel written by Cooper  that features Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero.  Chronologically, The Prairie is the fifrth and final installment of the Leatherstocking Tales and depicts Natty in the final year of his life still proving helpful to people in distress on the American frontier.

 

F Cor              Cormier, Robert.  Chocolate War, The.  American Classic.   First published in 1974.

A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the school’s annual fund raising drive, arousing the wrath of the school bullies—an underground gang called the Vigils.

 

F Cor              Cormier, Robert.  I am the Cheese.  American Classic.   First published in 1977.

                                A young boy's desperate search for his father leads him to discover secrets of his past that might very well threaten his life.

 

F Cra              Crane, Stephen.  Red Badge of Courage.  American Classic.   First published in 1895.

ebook                      One of the great novels of the Civil War.  A young Union soldier, Henry Fleming, tells of his feelings when he is under fire for the first time during the battle of Chancellorsville.  He is overcome by fear and runs from the field, but later returns to lead a charge that reestablishes his own reputation, as well as that of his company.

 

F Cra              Craven, Margaret.  I Heard the Owl Call My Name.  American Classic.   First published in 1967.

                                Sent to live with an Indian tribe in British Columbia, a young minister learns not to fear his impending death.

 

                        Curie, Eve.  Madame Curie.   World Classic.   Biography.   First published in 1937.

                                A biography, written by her daughter, about the life of Madame Curie, her scientific work, her background and her private life.

 

910.4  Dan      Dana, Richard.  Two years before the mast.  American Classic.   First published in 1840.

ebook                      Recounts the joys and hardships of a sailor's life in a daily journal written on a journey around Cape Horn to California between 1834 and 1836 aboard the brig Pilgrim.

 

                        Dennis, Patrick.  Auntie Mame.  American Classic.   First published in 1955.

This novel chronicles the madcap adventures of a boy, Patrick, growing up as the ward of his deceased father’s eccentric sister, Mame Dennis.

 

F Def               Defoe, Daniel.  Robinson Crusoe.  World Classic.   First published in 1719.

ebook                      As the sole survivor of a shipwreck, an Englishman lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island.

 

                        Dickens, Charles.  Bleak House.   World Classic.   First published in 1852.

ebook                      Novel which tells the story of several generations of the Jarndyce family who wait in vain to inherit money that is tied up in a legal dispute in England's notoriously slow-moving Court of Chancery.

 

F Dic               Dickens, Charles.  Christmas Carol, A.   World Classic.   First published in 1843.

ebook                      A Christmas story in which the subject is the conversion of Scrooge, “a grasping old sinner,” by a series of visions of Christmases past, present and to come.

 

F Dic               Dickens, Charles.  David Copperfield.  World Classic.   First published in 1850.

ebook                      A young boy in nineteenth-century London runs away from an unhappy home, finds employment in a wine factory, and becomes acquainted with a wide variety of characters in the city streets.

 

F Dic               Dickens, Charles.  Great Expectations.  World Classic.   First published in 1861.

ebook                      Pip, an orphan in Victorian England, learns that a mysterious benefactor has ensured that he will be educated and raised as a gentleman.

 

F Dic               Dickens, Charles.  Oliver Twist.  World Classic.   First published in 1837.

ebook                      In nineteenth-century England, a young orphan boy lives in the squalid surroundings of a workhouse until he becomes involved with a gang of thieves.

 

F Dic               Dickens, Charles.  Tale of Two Cities, A.  World Classic.   First published in 1859.

ebook                      Historical novel set in Paris and London during the French Revolution, in which a French nobleman, Charles Darnay, renounces his position and leaves his country, then returns during the Terror to save the life of a servant, putting himself in grave danger.

 

F Doc               Doctorow, E. L.  Ragtime.  American Classic.   First published in 1975.

This work of historical fiction is mostly set in New York City from about 1900 until 1917 when the U.S. entered into World War I.  The novel entwines three fictional American families and the real lives of Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Theodore Dreiser, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata.

 

F Dor               Dorris, Michael.  Yellow Raft on Blue Water, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1987.

A saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardship and torn by angry secrets, yet joined by the indissoluble bonds of kinship.

 

F Dos               Dostoyevsky, Fyodor.  Crime and Punishment.  World Classic.   First published in 1866.

ebook                      Raskolnikov, an impoverished Russian student, murders a despicable old pawnbroker, reasoning that his evil act is outweighed by humanitarian good, but he discovers the fault in his theory when he is plagued by horror and guilt over his actions. Includes a selection of study aids.

 

                        Douglass, Frederick.  My Bondage and My Freedom.   American Classic.  Autobiography.  First published in

ebook              1855.

                                Presents the 1855 autobiography of Frederick Douglass, telling of his experiences as a slave and discussing his life after he was able to escape to freedom.

 

B Dou             Douglass, Frederick.   Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave.   American Classic. ebook                         Autobiography.   First published in 1845.

                                An autobiographical account by the runaway slave Frederick Douglass that chronicles his experiences with his owners and overseers, and discusses how slavery affected both slaves and slaveholders.

 

F Doy              Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan.  Hound of the Baskervilles.  World Classic.   First published in 1902.

ebook                      Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes mystery, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," about a legendary monster that haunts the moor.

 

                        Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan.  Study in Scarlet, A.   World Classic.   First published in 1887.

ebook                      Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson, investigate the murder of an American and his private secretary.

 

F Dre               Dreiser, Theodore.  American Tragedy, An.  American Classic.   First published in 1925.

The story of a young man whose troubles with women and the law take him from his religious upbringing in Kansas City to the fictional town of Lycurgus, New York.

 

F Dre               Dreiser, Theodore.  Sister Carrie.   American Classic.  First published in 1900.

ebook                      The story of a young woman from Wisconsin who goes to Chicago, becomes an actress, marries and goes to New York, and when her husband loses his job, goes onstage again.

 

                        Du Bois, W. E. B.  John Brown.   American Classic.  Biography.  First published in 1909.

                                Biography of the abolitionist who led the raid on Harper's Ferry at the beginning of the Civil War.

 

301.451  DuB Du Bois, W. E. B.  Souls of Black Folk, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1953.

ebook                      A classic work dealing with the spiritual dimension of the black man's struggle for dignity and self-realization.

 

F DuM             Du Maurier, Daphne.  Rebecca.  World Classic.   First published in 1938.

For months after her death, the memory of Rebecca de Winter continues to dominate everyone at her former

                                home, Manderley, one of the most famous English country houses.

 

F Dum             Dumas, Alexandre.  Count of Monte Cristo.  World Classic.   First published in 1845-1846.

ebook                      The classic novel about Edmond Dantes, a young sailor who is falsely imprisoned, escapes, and assumes a new identity on the island of Monte Cristo.

 

F Dum             Dumas, Alexandre.  Three Musketeers, The.  World Classic.   First published in 1844.

ebook                      Alexandre Dumas's classic novel about the nobleman D'Artagnan who, along with three Musketeers, defend the honor of Anne of Austria against the plots of Cardinal Richeliu during the reign of France's King Louis XIV.

 

F Eli                Eliot, George.  Mill on the Floss, The.  World Classic.   First published in three volumes in 1861.

Young Maggie Tulliver's loyalty to her beloved older brother, Tom, and to the rest of her family, is tragically tested when she falls in love with the son of her father's bitterest enemy.

 

F Eli                Eliot, George.  Silas Marner.  World Classic.   First published in 1861.

ebook                      Embittered by a false accusation and disappointed in friendship and love, the weaver Silas Marner retreats into a life alone with his loom and his gold. Fate steals his gold and replaces it with a golden-haired child.

 

822 Eli            Eliot, T. S.  Murder in the Cathedral.   Classic.   Drama.  First published in 1935.

808.82 Tuc              A drama of the conflict between church and state in 12th century England culminates in the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

 

F Ell                Ellison, Ralph.  Invisible Man.   American Classic.  First published in 1953.

In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an African-American man becomes involved in a series of adventures.

 

F Erd               Erdrich, Louise.  Love Medicine.  American Classic.   First published in 1984.

Presents the story of the Kashpaws and the Lamartines, two extended families who live on and around a Chippewa reservation in North Dakota and of Lipsha Morrissey, a young man who attempts to bring his wandering grandfather back to his long-suffering grandmother with a love medicine made from goosehearts.

 

Esquivel, Laura.  Like Water for Chocolate : a novel in monthly installments, with recipes, romances, and home remedies.  World Classic.   First published in 1989.

A romantic and poignant tale of love and family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico. Includes recipes for dishes prepared in the novel, such as quail in rose petal sauce and chiles in walnut sauce.

 

                        Farrell, J. G.  Singapore Grip.   World Classic.   First published in 1978.

A novel centered around an influential merchant firm during the late 1930's and World War II, which has existed for fifty years in the Crown Colony of Singapore, before the city falls during the war and changes the lives of all involved.

 

F Fas               Fast, Howard.  April Morning.   American Classic.  First published in 1961.

Adam Cooper signs up on the muster roll of the Lexington Militia on April 19th, 1775, and then lives through the first day of conflict with the British, during which his father is killed.

               

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  As I Lay Dying.   American Classic.  First published in 1930.

Describes a family's struggle to get their mother properly buried, while they encounter catastrophes of flood and fire, as well as the chaos of their own feelings.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.    Intruder in the Dust.  American Classic.   First published in 1948.

Charles, a sixteen-year-old white boy, repays a debt he owes to an elderly black man, Lucas. After Lucas is accused of murdering a white man, Charles proves his innocence and saves him from a lynching in a southern town.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  Sound and the Fury, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1929.

                                The members of a genteel Southern family are portrayed as petty failures, drunkards, and pathological liars.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  Unvanquished.  American Classic.   First published in 1934.

Set in Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Sartoris family, who with their code of personal responsibility and courage, stands for the best of the Old South's traditions.

 

F Fer               Ferber, Edna.  Cimarron.  American Classic.  First published in 1929.

Follows the adventures of newspaper editor and lawyer Yancey Cravat, his wife Sabra, and their young son Cim, in Osage, Oklahoma in the years before the territory became a state.

 

F Fer               Ferber, Edna.  Giant.  American Classic.   First published in 1952.

A novel about Leslie Benedict, a New England woman who meets and marries a Texas rancher whose life is consumed by a rivalry with Jett Rink, a former employee who made good.

 

                        Ferber, Edna.  Saratoga Trunk.   American Classic.  First published in 1941.

                                Follows the adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Clint Maroon as they travel to New Orleans to find peace with their past.

                       

                        Ferber, Edna.   Show Boat.   American Classic.  First published in 1926.

Tells the story of Magnolia Ravenal and of her marriage to the river gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, black sheep son of an aristocratic family. It is also the story of their daughter Kim, who became a famous Broadway actress.

 

F Fer               Ferber, Edna.   So Big.   American Classic.   First published in 1924.

The story follows the life of Selina De Jong, her marriage, widowhood, eventual success as a truck farmer.  Circumstances force Selina to take over working on the farm to give her son Dirk a future.

 

                        Fielding, Henry.  The history of Tom Jones, a foundling.   World Classic.   First published in 1749.

ebook                      A comic novel in which Tom Jones, abandoned as an infant, is adopted by Squire Allworthy and amuses himself with amorous escapades until the day he decides to leave home and seek his fortune and real identity.

 

                        Fielding, Henry.  Joseph Andrews.   World Classic.   First published in 1742.

Joseph, a footman in eighteenth-century England, must protect his virtue from the advances of several women, including Lady Booby, and Betty, a chambermaid.

 

F Fit                Fitzgerald, F. Scott.   Great Gatsby, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1925.

Tells the tragic love story of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, a dashing, enigmatic millionaire obsessed with an elusive, spoiled young woman.

 

                        Fitzgerald, F. Scott.   This Side of Paradise.   American Classic.   First published in 1920.

ebook                      The coming of age story of, Amory Blaine, a young college man in his twenties including his years in prep school and his times at Princeton.

 

                        Flanagan, Thomas.  Year of the French, The.  American Classic.   First published in 1979.

In 1798, Irish patriots determined to free their country from England join forces with French troops and travel the Irish countryside, drumming up support from peasants and land owners alike as they plan to overthrow the English rule, until a devastating counterattack destroys their dreams.

 

F For               Forbes, Esther.  Johnny Tremain.  American Classic.   First published in 1943.

After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution.

 

F For               Forster, E. M.  Passage to India, A.   World Classic.   First published in 1952.

A classic account of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century revealing the menace lurking just under the surface of ordinary misunderstanding.

 

940.54 Fra      Frank, Anne.  Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl.  World Classic.   First published in 1947.

A thirteen-year-old Dutch-Jewish girl records her impressions of the two years she and seven others spent hiding from the Nazis before they were discovered and taken to concentration camps. Includes entries previously omitted.

 

F Fra               Frank, Pat.  Alas, Babylon.   American Classic.  First published in 1959.

The story of a group of people who rely on their own courage and ingenuity to survive in a small Florida town that escaped nuclear bombing.

 

 

 

F Gai               Gaines, Earnest.  Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1971.

The narrator of this story, a 110-year-old African-American woman reminisces about her life, which has stretched from the days of slavery to the black militancy and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

 

F Gai               Gaines, Earnest.  Lesson Before Dying, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1993.

Tells the story of a young African-American man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who tries to impart to him his learning and pride before the execution.

 

F Gar              Gardner, John.  Grendel.  American Classic.   First published in 1971.

Grendel, the monster, tells his side of the Beowulf story, and compares his values with the chief values of human beings.

 

812  Gib          Gibson, William.  Miracle Worker, The.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1957.

William Gibson's play about teacher Annie Sullivan's determined quest to give twelve-year-old Helen Keller, blind, deaf, and mute, the gift of language.

 

B Gil               Gilbreth, Frank B.  Cheaper by the Dozen.   American Classic.  First published in 1948.

Reveals the family life of the twelve Gilbreth children and their engineer father who runs the household with his unique methodology.

 

                        Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.  Yellow Wallpaper, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1892.

Classic 19th century psychological short story of a woman who is prevented from becoming a writer and is imprisoned in her bedroom.

 

F Gol               Golding, William.  Lord of the Flies.  World Classic.   First published in 1954.

After a plane crash strands them on a tropical island while the rest of the world is ravaged by war, a group of British schoolboys attempts to form a civilized society but descends into brutal anarchy.

 

                        Goldman, William.  Princess Bride, The.    American Classic.  Fairy tale.  First published in 1973.

Westley, a farm boy, goes off to seek his fortune shortly after declaring his love for Buttercup, the most beautiful woman in the world, but their relationship is put to the test when his ship is captured by pirates and she is summoned to become the bride of the prince.

 

F Gre              Greene, Bette.  Summer of My German Soldier.   American Classic.  First published in 1973.

                                When German prisoners of war are brought to her Arkansas town during World War II, twelve-year-old Patty, a Jewish girl, befriends one of them and must deal with the consequences of that friendship. 

 

                        Grey, Zane.  Riders of the Purple Sage.   American Classic.  First published in 1912.

ebook                      Jane Withersteen, a wealthy young woman and ranch owner in Mormon Utah in the late 1800s, having angered the Church elders by refusing to marry, is championed by Lassiter, a gunman who has a special dislike for the Mormons.

 

301.45  Gri     Griffin, John H.  Black like Me.   American Classic.  First published in 1960.

The author, a white man, recounts his experiences when he darkened his skin and traveled through the South as an African-American man.

 

F Gri               Grisham, John.  Painted House, A.  American Classic.   First published in 2003.

Seven-year-old Arkansas farm boy Luke Chandler loses his innocence over the course of a contentious and strenuous cotton harvest in 1952, during which time Luke's family hires several Mexicans and an Ozark family and Luke begins keeping dangerous secrets.

                       

F Gri               Grisham, John.  Time to Kill, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1996.

In Clanton, Mississippi, the life of a ten-year-old is shattered by two drunken and remorseless men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhumane crime, until her African-American father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his own hands.

 

F Gue              Guest, Judith.  Ordinary People.   American Classic.  First published in 1976.

After spending eight months in a mental institution following a suicide attempt, seventeen-year-old Conrad returns home and finds that he must rebuild his life.

 

B Gun             Gunther, John.  Death Be Not Proud:  a Memoir.  American Classic.   First published in 1949.

                                A biography of the author's son, who died at seventeen after a fourteen-month illness caused by a brain tumor.

 

                        Haggard, H. Rider.  King Solomon’s Mines.   World Classic.   First published in 1885.

The story of three men who trek to the remote interior of Africa in search of a lost friend. At the end of their perilous journey, they find their friend and the spectacular diamond mines of King Solomon.

 

B Hal              Haley, Alex.  Roots:  the Saga of an American Family.   American Classic.   First published in 1976.

                                A black American traces his family's origins back to the African who was brought to America as a slave in 1767.

 

                        Hall, Oakley.  Warlock.   American Classic.  Western.  First published in 1958.

After Deputy Canning is shot down, the people of Warlock send for Clay Blaisedell, a newly hired gun-slinging lawman who tries to restore order to the mythical silver mining town of Warlock, Calif.

 

 

F Ham             Hammett, Dashiell.  Maltese Falcon, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1930.

In San Francisco in 1928, Sam Spade searches for a priceless statuette. He finds himself torn between loyalty to his murdered partner and an opportunity for personal gain.

 

F Ham             Hammett, Dashiell.   Thin Man, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1934.

                                Detectives Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder.

 

812 Han          Hansberry, Lorraine.  Raisin in the Sun, A.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1959.

A three-act play concerned with the tensions in a middle- class African American family living on Chicago's Southside in the 1950s.

 

                        Hardy, Thomas.  Far From the Madding Crowd.   World Classic.   First published in 1874.

Gabriel Oak, in love with the beautiful heiress Bathsheba Everdene, waits patiently while she works her way through the hearts of local men.

 

F Har              Hardy, Thomas.   Jude the Obscure.   World Classic.   First published in 1895.

ebook                      The story of Jude Fawley, an impoverished stonemason who aspires to the ministry and fails to fulfill the opposite expectations of the two women he loves in Victorian society.

 

F Har              Hardy, Thomas.  Mayor of Casterbridge.    World Classic.   First published in 1886.

ebook                      Michael Henchard, an unemployed farmhand, gets drunk and sells his wife and baby daughter. Years later, when he is the Mayor of Casterbridge, his past is brought back to haunt him, and he reverts to drinking.

 

                        Hardy, Thomas.  Tess of the d’Urbervilles.   World Classic.   First published in 1891.

ebook                      A young woman who attempts to restore her family's fortunes, is seduced by a heartless aristocrat, and is punished by society's double standards when she gets a chance at real love.

 

F Haw             Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  House of the Seven Gables.   American Classic.  First published in 1854.

ebook                      Follows the Pyncheon family who lived for generations under a dead man's curse until his death restored their house.

 

F Haw             Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  Scarlet Letter, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1850.

ebook                      Classic tale about Hester Prynne, her lover, their child, and Hester's husband, and the effect of sin on the mind and spirit of these characters.               

 

                        Head, Ann.  Mr. And Mrs. Bo Jo Jones.    American Classic.  First published in 1967.

                                A pregnant sixteen-year-old bride and her seventeen-year-old groom have serious problems adjusting to their new life.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Citizen of the Galaxy.   American Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1957.

A youth who has known only the primitive life of a galaxy slave is purchased by a beggar who turns out to be a man with many extracurricular activities.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Have Space Suit—Will Travel.  American Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1958.

A high school senior wins a space suit in a soap jingle contest, takes a last walk wearing "Oscar" before cashing him in for college tuition, and suddenly finds himself on a space odyssey.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Starman Jones.  American Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1953.     

When his stepmother's remarriage drives him from home, Max and a hobo fake their way into the Space Stewards, Cooks, and Purser's Clerks brotherhood to get an opportunity for space travel in an age when only the wealthy are privileged.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Stranger in a Strange Land.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1961.

After his arrival on Earth from his home on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith becomes the founder and pastor of a new religious sect.

 

F Hel               Heller, Joseph.  Catch 22.   American Classic.   First published in 1961. 

Captain Yossarian, a paranoid bomber pilot stationed in the Italian theater during World War II, faces a "catch-22" in this comic novel when he wants to fly fewer combat missions.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  Farewell to Arms, A.   American Classic.   First published in 1929.

                                An American ambulance officer serving on the Austro-Italian front deserts to join an English nurse after the retreat of Caporetto.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  For Whom the Bell Tolls.   American Classic.   First published in 1940.

The story of an American, Robert Jordan, who fought during the Civil War in Spain with the anti-fascist guerrillas in the mountains of Spain.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  Old Man and the Sea, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1952.

                                An old fisherman battles the sea and sharks to bring home the giant marlin he caught.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  Sun Also Rises, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1926.

Focuses on a "lost generation" of Americans who fought in France during World War I and who expatriated themselves from America after the war.

 

 

 

F Her              Herbert, Frank.  Dune.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1965.

Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe.

 

B Her              Herriot, James.  All Creatures Great and Small.   World Classic.   Autobiography.  First published in 1972.

                                Presents the first-hand account of a young English veterinarian starting his career in the Yorkshires nearly forty years ago.

 

F Her              Hersey, John.  Bell for Adano, A.  American Classic.   First published in 1944.

                                During World War II an American Major is placed in charge of the Italian village of Adano.

 

940.54  Her    Hersey, John.  Hiroshima.  American Classic.   First published in 1946.

                                An account of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, from the viewpoint of the people who lived through it.

 

F Hes              Hesse, Hermann.  Siddhartha.   World Classic.  First published in German in 1923, translated in 1951.

A moral allegory, set in ancient India, about one soul's quest for the ultimate answer to the enigma of man's role in this world. The hero, Siddhartha, undergoes a series of experiences to emerge in a state of peace and wisdom.

 

                        Hesse, Hermann.  Steppenwolf.   World Classic.  First published in German in 1927.

Harry Haller, a joyless, reclusive intellectual, finally learns to reconcile the warring parts of his personality after meeting Hermine, a woman who knows how to enjoy life.

 

F Hil               Hilton, James.  Goodbye, Mr. Chips.   World Classic.  First published in 1934.

A retired teacher reminisces about his years at Brookfield school, the thousands of boys he taught, his happy marriage, and about the comic and tragic events in his life.

 

F Hil               Hilton, James.   Lost Horizon.   World Classic.  First published in 1933.

Conway, one of four people whose plane crashed while they were fleeing a civil war in a foreign land, is rescued along with the rest of his group by a mysterious Chinese man who takes them to safety in Shangri-la, a land of peace and beauty where they are offered near immortality on the condition that they never leave.

 

                        Hinton, S.E.  Rumble Fish.   American Classic.  First published in 1975.

                                A junior high school boy idolizes his older brother, the coolest, toughest guy in the neighborhood, and wants to be just like him.

 

                        Hinton, S.E.  Tex.   American Classic.  First published in 1979.

The love between two teen-age brothers helps to alleviate the harshness of their usually parentless life as they struggle to grow up.

 

                        Hinton, S.E.  That was Then, This is Now.   American Classic.  First published in 1971.

Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate.

 

                        Howells, William Dean.  Hazard of New Fortunes.   American Classic.  First published 1889.

    A novel that juxtaposes people of various classes and places in 1880s New York City and examines the social realities of people in this time period, focusing on the middle-class March family.

 

F How             Howells, William.   Rise of Silas Lapham, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1885.

ebook                      Yankee Silas Lapham, a self-made millionaire, attempts to crash Boston's old-guard, aristocratic society.

 

                        Hughes, Langston.  Tambourines to Glory.   American Classic.  First published in 1958.

                                Classic novel about two women from Harlem in the 1950s who find their way out of poverty by starting a street ministry.

 

F Hug              Hugo, Victor.  Hunchback of Notre Dame.   World Classic.  First published in French in 1830, translated in 1831.

In fifteenth-century Paris, a disfigured man named Quasimodo, who was abandoned as an infant in the cathedral of Notre-Dame and now lives in its bell tower, must come to the aid of a beautiful gypsy girl named Esmeralda after she repels the advances of the cruel archdeacon Don Claude Frollo.

 

F Hug              Hugo, Victor.  Les Miserables.   World Classic.  First published in 1862.

Nineteenth-century French novel about Jean Valjean, a peasant who is released from prison, where he spent nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving family, only to find himself threatened by people and events from his past.

 

F Hur              Hurston, Zora Neale.  Their Eyes Were Watching God.   American Classic.   First published in 1937.

An African-American woman searches for a fulfilling relationship through two loveless marriages and finally finds it in the person of Tea Cake, an itinerant laborer and gambler.

 

F Hux              Huxley, Aldous.  Brave New World.   World Classic.  First published in 1932.

A satirical novel about the utopia of the future, a world in which babies are decanted from bottles and the great Ford is worshipped.

 

839.8 Ibs         Isben, Henrik.  Doll’s House, A.   World Classic.  First published in 1879.

839 Ibs                    Nineteenth-century drama that examines the human struggle against the humiliating constraints of social conformity.

 

 

 

 

F Irv                Irving, John.  Prayer for Owen Meany, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1989. 

A terrifying and unforgettable story of what happens in Meany's life as a result of hitting a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother.

 

F Jac            Jackson, Helen Hunt.  Ramona.  American Classic.   First published 1884.

Ramona, an illegitimate half-Indian orphan, lives a privileged life as a ward on the Moreno ranch until her love for an Indian causes her to leave the ranch and plunges her into the tragedies and poverty of life among the Indians.

 

F Jac               Jackson, Shirley.  Haunting of Hill House.  American Classic.   First published in 1959.

                                Four visitors to Hill House are unaware that the old evil mansion will soon choose one of them to make its own.

 

F Jac               Jackson, Shirley.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle.   American Classic.  First published in 1962.

Merricat Blackwood protects her sister, Constance, from the curiosity and hostility of the villagers after murders occur on the family estate.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Daisy Miller.   American Classic.   First published in 1878.

ebook                      Classic novella about a captivating young American, Daisy Miller, whose behavior causes conflicting feelings in the mind of would-be suitor, Winterbourne.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Portrait of a Lady, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1881.

    In the late 1800s, American girl Isabel Archer travels to England to fulfill her potential with her eccentric English aunt, and captures the hearts of a British aristocrat, a brash American, and the adoration of her invalid cousin, leading to intrigue, deception, and betrayal.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Turn of the Screw, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1898.

Presents the nineteenth-century short story in which a governess believes her two charges, ten-year-old Miles and eight-year-old Flora, are being haunted by the ghosts of former servants.

 

F Joy               Joyce, James.  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A.   World Classic.  First published in 1916.

                                Traces the childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood of Stephen Dedalus, a character based on author James Joyce's life.

 

830 Kaf           Kafka, Franz.  Metamorphosis, The.   World Classic.  First published in 1915.

A young man wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant beetle-like insect. He becomes an object of disgrace to his family and an alienated man.

 

                        Kafka, Franz.  Trial, The.   World Classic.  First published in 1925.

Joseph K. is suddenly arrested and must spend the rest of his life fighting a charge against him about which he can get no information.

 

B Kel              Keller, Helen.  Story of My Life, The.   American Classic.   Biography.  First published in 1903.

    An autobiography of Helen Keller, written while she was a young woman, in which she tells of her early life, her relationship with her teacher Anne Sullivan, and her struggles to triumph over blindness and deafness.

 

920  Ken         Kennedy, John F.  Profiles in Courage.   American Classic.  First published in 1956.

Presents John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning study of men who, at a risk to themselves, stood fast for a principle, covering John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, Robert Taft, and others.  

 

F Ker               Kerouac, Jack.  On the Road.   American Classic.  First published in 1957.

A thinly fictionalized autobiography chronicling the author’s cross-country adventure across North America on a quest for self-knowledge as experienced by his alter-ego, Sal Paradise and Sal's friend Dean Moriarty--Kerouac's real life friend Neal Cassady.

 

F Kes               Kesey, Ken.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.   American Classic.   First published in 1962.

The struggle for power between a head nurse and a male patient in a mental institution leads to a climax of hate, violence, and death.

 

F Key              Keyes, Daniel.  Flowers for Algernon.  American Classic.   First published in 1966.

Charlie Gordon, born with an unusually low IQ, must face his gradual return to his former state when the astounding results of an experimental surgery that increased his intelligence prove to be only temporary.

 

F Kin               Kingsolver, Barbara.  Bean Trees, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1988.

Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson. There she finds friends and discovers resources in apparently empty places.

 

    Kingston, Maxine Hong.   Woman Warrior:  memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts.   American Classic.  First published in  1976.

    A memoir of the American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants who lived within the traditions and fears of the Chinese past as well as the realities of the alien modern American culture.

 

                        Kipling, Rudyard.  Captains Courageous.   World Classic.  First published in 1897.

A sheltered American heir to a fortune is saved from drowning by a New England fishing schooner and, living amidst the shipmen, must learn to survive on his own strength.

 

 

F Kip               Kipling, Rudyard.  Kim.   World Classic.  First published in 1901.

                                Classic story of Kim, an Irish orphan who grows up in British India and has a life of adventure and intrigue.

 

F Kno              Knowles, John.  Separate Peace, A.    American Classic.   First published in 1959.

Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend Phineas were roommates in a New Hampshire boarding school. Their friendship is marred by Finny's crippling fall, an event for which Gene is responsible and one that eventually leads to tragedy.

 

305.23  Kot     Kotlowitz, Alex.  There Are No Children Here: the story of two boys growing up in the other America.   American Classic.   First published in 1991.

Explores life in an inner city Chicago housing project discussing the residents' daily encounters with neighborhood violence, drugs, and gangs.

 

959.704 Kov    Kovic, Ron.  Born on the Fourth of July.   American Classic.   First published in 1976.

                                A veteran of Vietnam describes his experiences in the war and his reentry into American society after he was paralyzed.

 

917.9804  Kra KraKauer, Jon.  Into the Wild.  First published in 1996.

Tells the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four-year-old who walked into the Alaskan wilderness on an idealistic journey and was found dead of starvation four months later. Attempts to discover what led the young man to that point.

 

796.522  Kra   KraKauer, Jon.  Into Thin Air.  First published in 1997.

The author relates his experience of climbing Mount Everest during its deadliest season and examines what it is about the mountain that makes people willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense.

 

                        LaFarge, Oliver.  Laughing Boy.   American Classic.  First published in 1929.

A young silversmith, Laughing Boy, falls in love with Slim Girl, a beautiful educated Navajo girl; however, their relationship is threatened by the changing way of life in the American Southwest.

 

                        L’Amour, Louis.  Hondo.   American Classic.  First published in 1983.

The story of a lonely, harsh man, yet beneath the harshness and the necessary violence, he was a kind and just man who had come to terms with the land in which he lived.

 

F L’Am           L’Amour, Louis.  Sackett’s land.  American Classic.   First published in 1975.

                                The adventures of members of the Sackett family in the frontier West.

 

                        L’Amour, Louis.  To the Far Blue Mountains.   American Classic.  First published in 1976.

                                Follows the adventures of members of the Sackett family in the frontier West.

 

                        Larsen, Nella.  Passing.  American Classic.   First published in 1929.

Irene, an African-American woman with a comfortable life, is disturbed by the return of a childhood friend, Clare, who has passed for white since adolescence and now wants to rejoin the African-American community.

 

                        Lawrence, D. H.  Sons and Lovers.   World Classic.  First published in 1913.

ebook                      Paul Morel, a painter from a British working-class family, is unable to choose between his possessive mother and two young beautiful women.

 

812  Law         Lawrence, Jerome.  Inherit the Wind.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1951.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's 1951 play based on the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, July 1925, which opened the debate over the teaching of creationism and evolution.                              

 

F Lee               Lee, Harper.  To Kill a Mockingbird.   American Classic.   First published in 1960.

Scout Finch, the young daughter of a local attorney in the Deep South during the 1930s, tells of her father's defense of an African-American man charged with the rape of a white girl.

 

                        Leroux, Gaston.  Phantom of the Opera, The.   World Classic.  First published in 1909-1910.

ebook                      A viscount seeks to unravel the mystery of the Paris Opera House and rescue the woman he loves from the threat of the phantom of the opera.

                                                                                                                                                         

F Lew              Lewis, Sinclair.  Arrowsmith.   American Classic.  First published in 1925.

The story of a doctor who struggles to maintain his integrity as he is forced to give up successive positions as an instructor in medicine, small town doctor, and research pathologist-by various obstacles.

 

F Lew              Lewis, Sinclair.  Babbitt.  American Classic.   First published in 1922.

ebook                      George Babbitt, a successful middle-aged businessman living in 1920s Ohio, is shocked when his best friend is convicted of murder.

 

F Lew              Lewis, Sinclair.   Main Street.  American Classic.   First published in 1920.

ebook                      After marrying doctor Will Kennicott, young, free-spirited Carol Milford finds it difficult to adjust to life in a small town in Minnesota.

 

 

 

F Lip               Lipsyte, Robert.  Contender, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1967.

After a successful start in a boxing career, a Harlem high school dropout decides that competing in the ring isn't enough of life and resolves to aim for different goals.

 

                        Llewellyn, Richard.  How Green was My Valley.   World Classic.   First published in 1939.

Tells the story of Huw Morgan, his gentle but tyrannical father, his strong-willed brothers and sisters, and his brave and beloved mother.

 

F Lon              London, Jack.   Sea Wolf, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1904.

Humphrey Van Weyden, having endured weeks of brutality at the hands of Captain Wolf Larsen, decides to take desperate measures to save himself and rest of the crew aboard the "Ghost."

 

                        London, Jack.  Star Rover, The.  American Classic.   First published in 1915.

A novel based on London's own brief experience in jail, in which death row inmate Darrell Standing tells tales of life inside California's San Quentin prison.

 

F Lon              London, Jack.   White Fang.   American Classic.   First published in 1905.

ebook                      Chronicles a wolf-dog's struggles to survive in two worlds, those of people and other dogs, where he endures abuse and a career as a vicious fight dog before learning to trust one of the "gods," a human.

 

320.1 Mac       Machiavelli, Niccolo.  Prince, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1532.

Presents fifteenth-century Italian leader Niccolo Machiavelli's treatise on political power, statecraft, and the qualities of the ideal ruler.

 

                        Malory, Sir Thomas.  Le Morte d’Arthur.  World Classic.   First published in 1485.

The standard account of King Arthur and his knights, the story of the dream of the Round Table, knightly honor, and a just earthly government, all dissolved through human frailty.

 

305.4092 Mah        Mahmoody, Betty.  Not without my daughter.   American Classic.  First published in 1987.

The true story of Betty Mahmoody's desperate struggle to survive and to escape with her daughter from the alien and frightening culture of Iran.

 

F Mal              Malamud, Bernard.  Fixer, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1966.

Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman, is accused of the murder of a young Russian boy and refuses to confess to a crime he did not commit in spite of the injustices committed against him.

 

B Mal              Malcolm X.  Autobiography of Malcolm X, The.  American Classic.   First published in 1965.

The personal story of the man who rose from hoodlum, thief, dope peddler, and pimp to become a leader of the Black Revolution of the 1960s.

 

                        Mann, Thomas.  Magic Mountain, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1924.

The story of Hans Castorp, an unassuming young engineer who ponders the meaning of life, time, and love while being treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium.

 

                        Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.   One Hundred Years of Solitude.  World Classic.   First published in 1967.

                                The rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo as told through the history of the Buendia family.

 

F Mar              Marshall, Catherine.  Christy.   American Classic.  First published in 1967.

In 1912, nineteen-year-old Christy Huddleston leaves her comfortable home to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in an isolated area of the Great Smokies.

 

F Mau             Maugham, William Somerset.  Of Human Bondage.   World Classic.   First published in 1915.

ebook                      An autobiographical novel about a young man with the doublehandicap of being clubfooted and an orphan.  Philip Carey is brought up by a self-indulgent Victorian clergyman, sheds his religious faith as a young man, and begins to study art in Paris, but finally returns to London to qualify as a doctor.

 

F McC             McCullers, Carson.  Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1940.

A deaf mute who has lost his only friend to a hospital for the insane becomes the recipient of the confidences of several other town residents.

 

F McC             McCullers, Carson.  Member of the Wedding, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1946.

Frankie Addams, a motherless twelve-year-old raised by her father and the family's African-American cook, struggles with conflicting feelings about her brother's upcoming wedding.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Bartleby the Scrivener.  American Classic.   First published in 1853.

                                Bartleby, a copyist at a New York City law office, begins to inexplicably refuse work with the line "I would prefer not to".

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Benito Cereno.   American Classic.  First published in 1855.

ebook                      A story of rebellion aboard a slave ship.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Billy Bud.   American Classic.  First published in 1924.

                                Powerful tale of innocence victimized by harsh reality on the high seas.

 

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Moby Dick.  American Classic.   First published in 1851.

ebook                      American epic tells a tale about a captain of a whaleship and his obsession to catch the whale named Moby Dick.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Typee.   American Classic.  First published in 1846.

ebook                      Story of Toby and Tommo, two sailors who flee their harsh life as sailors only to fall into the hands of the mysterious Typee tribe.

 

812  Mil          Miller, Arthur.  Crucible, The.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1953.

                                A vengeful teenager in 1692 Salem accuses her former lover and his wife of witchcraft.

 

812  Mil          Miller, Arthur.  Death of a Salesman.   American Classic.   Drama.  First published in 1949.

Pulitzer Prize-winning play in which Willy Loman, a sixty-three-year-old traveling salesman, is forced to face the reality he has avoided all his life.

 

F Mil               Miller, Walter.  Canticle for Leibowitz, A.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1959.

Many years after a nuclear war, scholars seeking the old learning come to a monastery where much knowledge has been preserved.

 

F Mit               Mitchell, Margaret.  Gone With the Wind.   American Classic.  First published in 1936.

After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.

 

F Mom            Momaday, N. Scott.  House Made of Dawn.   American Classic.  First published in 1969.

Abel, a young American Indian home from a foreign war, finds himself torn between his father's world on the reservation and the lure of industrial America.

 

                        Monsarrat, Nicholas.  Cruel Sea, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1951.

                                The story of the Battle of the Atlantic as reported by the men who fought the German submarines.

 

F Mon             Montgomery, Lucy.  Anne of Green Gables.   World Classic.   First published in 1908.

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

 

                        Moody, Anne.  Coming of Age in Mississippi.   American Classic.  Autobiography.  First published in 1968.

                                The personal story of a young African-American woman growing up in 1940s and 1950s Mississippi.

 

                        Morrison, Toni.  Beloved.   American Classic.  First published in 1987.

Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio, struggles to keep Beloved, an intruder, from gaining possession of her present while throwing off the legacy of her past.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Bluest Eye, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1970.

An eleven-year-old African-American girl in Ohio, in the early 1940s, prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Song of Solomon.   American Classic.  First published in 1977.

Follows the life of Macon Dead, Jr., the son of the richest black family in a midwestern town, as he leaves home on a quest for personal freedom.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Sula.   American Classic.  First published in 1974.

Sula Peace returns to her hometown of Medallion, Ohio, in 1937 after a decade away, bringing danger and controversy into the life of her childhood friend Nel--now a conventional housewife--with whom she shares a dark secret.     

 

F Nor               Nordhoff, Charles.  Mutiny on the Bounty.   American Classic.   First published in 1932.

A fictionalized account of the 1789 mutiny in which the crew of the "H.M.S. Bounty" rebelled against the tyrannical Captain Bligh and set him overboard along with eleven other crew members.

 

                        O’Brien, Tim.  Going after Cacciato.   American Classic.  First published in 1978.

                                An American soldier in Vietnam decides to leave the war and simply walks out of the jungle, with the intent of going to Paris.

 

                        O’Brien, Tim.   Northern Lights.   American Classic.  First published in 1975. 

In 1970, two brothers, one who went to Vietnam and one who didn't, are forced to help each other survive a sudden Minnesota north woods blizzard.

 

F O’Br            O’Brien, Tim.  Things They Carried, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1990.

A collection related fiction short stories with recurring characters, interwoven plot and themes told by a foot soldier retelling his experiences in the Vietnam War.

 

F O’Co           O’Connor, Flannery.  Wise Blood.  American Classic.   First published in 1952.

After his release from the army at age twenty-two, Hazel Motes of Eastrod, Tennessee, moves to a Southern city where he falls under the spell of Asa Hawks, a blind street preacher who is led around by his daughter, Sabbath Lily.

 

 

 

                        O’Neill, Eugene.  Long Day’s Journey into Night.   American Classic.   Drama.  First published in 1941.

Depicts the struggles of the Tyrone family as they face drug addiction, alcohol abuse, tuberculosis, and lost dreams in this semi-autobiographical play.

 

F Orc              Orczy, Emmuska.  Scarlet Pimpernel, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1905.

A classic adventure novel in which Sir Percy Blakeney defies French revolutionaries in order to save innocent men and women from being put to death in the guillotine.

 

F Orw             Orwell, George.  Animal Farm.   World Classic.   First published in 1946.

                                A political satire in which the animals take over running the farm but find their utopian state turning into a dictatorship.

 

F Orw             Orwell, George.  1984.  World Classic.   First published in 1945.

                                Depicts life in a totalitarian regime of the future.

 

F Par               Parks, Gordon.  Learning Tree, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1963.

                                An African-American youth in a small town in Kansas finds himself the only witness to a murder.

 

F Pas               Pasternak, Boris.  Doctor Zhivago.   World Classic.   First published in 1958.

In Russia, Yuri Zhivago is a young doctor and poet trying to care for his wife and family when he meets Lara, the love of his life. When revolution breaks out, their world is torn apart, and their lives are at risk.

 

F Pat               Paton, Alan.  Cry, the Beloved Country.   World Classic.   First published in 1948.

Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo travels to Johannesburg on an errand for a friend and to visit his son, Absalom, only to learn Absalom has been accused of murdering white city engineer and social activist Arthur Jarvis and stands very little chance of receiving mercy.

 

F Pec               Peck, Robert Newton.  Day No Pigs Would Die, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1972.

To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns "doing what's got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter.

 

                        Peck, Richard.  Something for Joey.   American Classic.  Biography.  First published in 1978.

    Biography of football player John Cappelletti, winner of the 1973 Heisman Trophy, and his younger brother Joey, who fought a losing battle with leukemia.

 

F Pla               Plath, Sylvia.  Bell Jar, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1963.

The author presents a first-person narrative that chronicles the mental break-down of Esther Greenwood from the doctor's office to the asylum.

 

                        Potok, Chaim.  Chosen, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1967.

Recounts the story of Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders--one an orthodox Jew, the other the son of a Hasidic rabbi--and the course of their friendship as they grow up in Brooklyn.

 

398  Pyl          Pyle, Howard.  Story of King Arthur and his Knights, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1903.

Tells of King Arthur, his rise to the throne, the winning of his queen, and the stories of the three worthies of his court, Merlin, Sir Pellias, and Sir Gawaine.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  Anthem.   American Classic.  First published in 1938.

ebook                      In a future world, only one man dares to think, strive, and love as an individual in the midst of a paralyzing collective humanity.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  Atlas Shrugged.   American Classic.  First published in 1957.

A satire on the follies and dangers of collectivism in which the United States is faced with the prospect of economic collapse when the country's leading innovators and industrialists go into hiding.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  Fountainhead, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1943.

The story of a gifted young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  We the Living.   American Classic.  First published in 1936.

In the time of the Russian Revolution, Kira is torn between two men who love her, one a Communist, the other an aristocrat.

 

F Rem             Remarque, Erich.  All Quiet on the Western Front.   World Classic.    First published in 1929.

                                Depicts the experiences of a group of young German soldiers fighting and suffering during the last days of World War I.

 

F Ric               Rice, Anne.  Interview with the Vampire.  American Classic.   First published in 1976.

                                Presents the confessions of Louis, a vampire, and tells of his relationship with the vampire Lestat.

 

808.812 Twe   Rose, Reginald.  Twelve Angry Men.   American Classic.   Drama. First published in 1954.

A play in which a juror in a murder trial holds out on a guilty verdict and tries to get the other jurors to look at the situation without being swayed by their personal prejudices or biases.

 

 

 

842 Ros           Rostand, Edmond.  Cyrano de Bergerac.   World Classic.   Drama.  First published in 1897.

ebook                      Classic play about an unattractive swordsman who falls in love with a beautiful woman, but courts her for a handsome but slow-witted suitor.

 

                        Sabatini, Rafael.  Scaramouche.   World Classic.   First published in 1921.

ebook                      Lawyer Andre-Louis Moreau, appalled by the death of his best friend at the hands of a member of the aristocracy, assumes the role of the clown Scaramouche with an acting troupe in pre-Revolutionary France and proceeds to speak out against the unjust French government.

 

F Sal               Salinger, J. D.  Catcher in the Rye.   American Classic.   First published in 1951,

                                An adolescent boy, knowing he is about to be dropped by his school, spends three days and nights in New York City.

 

F Sar               Saroyan, William.  Human Comedy, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1944.

Working as a telegraph messenger in California during World War II, fourteen-year-old Homer Macauley gains an understanding of the world and an acceptance of his brother's death.

 

F Sch               Schaefer, Jack.  Shane.   American Classic.  First published in 1949.

A stranger rides into a small Wyoming town in 1889 and creates a lasting impact on its inhabitants, especially on young Bob Starrett and his family.

 

F Sco               Scott, Sir Walter.  Ivanhoe.   World Classic.   First published in 1819.

ebook                      Relates the adventures of the Saxon knight Ivanhoe in 1194, the year of Richard the Lion-Hearted's return from the Third Crusade.

 

F Sha              Shaara, Jeff.  Gods and Generals.   American Classic.  Written as a prequel to The Killer Angels.  First published in 1996.

This Civil War novel traces the lives, passions, and careers of military leaders Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joshua Chamberlain, and Robert E. Lee, who all meet on the same battlefield for the first time at Fredericksburg, where they experience the battle from four very different points of view.

 

F Sha              Shaara, Michael.  Killer Angels, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1974.

A fictional account of four days in July, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg discussing tactics, plans, and preparations for battle from both the Northern and Southern points of view.

 

820.8 Pyg        Shaw, George Bernard.  Pygmalion.   World Classic.   First published in 1913.

                                A play about Eliza Doolittle, an untutored flower girl who is transformed into a "duchess" with the help of Henry Higgins.

 

F She              Shelley, Mary.  Frankenstein.   World Classic.   First published in 1818.

ebook                      Mary Shelley's classic nineteenth-century horror classic about a crazed doctor who creates a monster from dead body parts.

 

943.086 Shi    Shirer, William L.  Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1960.

Describes the rise of Adolf Hitler to power, the birth of the Nazi party, the Nazification of Germany, the war and the last days of the Third Reich.

 

F Shu              Shulman, Irving.  West Side Story:  a Novelization.   American Classic.  First published in 1961.  A novelization of the Broadway musical "West Side Story

Maria, a young Puerto Rican girl living in New York, and sister to Sharks gang leader Bernardo, falls in love with Tony, former leader of the rival gang, the Jets, setting the stage for tragedy.

 

F Shu              Shute, Nevil.  On the Beach.   World Classic.   First published in 1957.

                                Survivors of an atomic war face an inevitable end as radiation poisoning moves toward Australia from the north.

 

                        Shute, Nevil.  Town Like Alice, A.   World Classic.   First published in 1950.

Tells the story of a young woman, Jean, who sets out on a journey following the memory of a lost love in Malaya who she met during World War II when she survived a Japanese death march.

 

F Smi              Smiley, Jane.  Thousand Acres, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1991.

Dark truths and long-suppressed emotions come to the surface in 1979 when a successful Iowa farmer decides to cut one of his daughters out of his will.

 

F Sin               Sinclair, Upton.  Jungle, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1906.

ebook                      Describes the conditions of the Chicago stockyards through the eyes of a young immigrant struggling in America.

 

F Sol               Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich.  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.  World Classic.  First published in 1963.

The story of a man-made hell--the Soviet work camps - and of one man's struggle to survive in the face of the most determined efforts to destroy him.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Grapes of Wrath, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1939.

The story of a farm family's Depression-era journey from the Dustbowl of Oklahoma to the California migrant labor camps in search of a better life.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Pearl, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1947.

                                Terrible events follow the discovery of a magnificent pearl by a poor Mexican fisherman.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Red Pony, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1933.

                                Ten-year-old Jody learns about life and death through her ownership of a beautiful red pony.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Tortilla Flat.   American Classic.  First published in 1935.

Above the town of Monterey on the California coast lies the shabby district of Tortilla Flat where Danny and his colorful group of friends live and where their revels recall the exploits of King Arthur's knights.

 

                        Stendahl.  Red and the Black, The.   World Classic.  First published in 1930.

Julien Sorel, the handsome, ambitious son of a country carpenter in nineteenth-century France, understands that the only way to insinuate himself into Parisian society is through hypocrisy--a skill at which he excels until scandal brings his social climbing to a tragic end.

 

F Ste               Stevenson, Robert Louis.  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.   World Classic.   First published in 1886.

ebook                      Dr. Jekyll, a kind and well-respected London physician, is transformed into a murderous madman by taking a secret drug of his own creation.

 

F Ste               Stevenson, Robert Louis.  Kidnapped.   World Classic.   First published in 1886.

ebook                      In 1751, David Balfour, a Scottish boy, is cheated out of his inheritance by his uncle, who has him kidnapped, sold as a slave, and thrown onto a ship--but with the help of a fugitive, David fights his captors, makes a daring escape amidst a shipwreck, and hopes to survive a treacherous journey home.

 

F Ste               Stevenson, Robert Louis.  Treasure Island.   World Classic.   First published in 1883.

ebook                      Classic novel about Jim Hawkins, a young boy who finds a treasure map and embarks upon an exciting journey to find the buried treasure of Captain Flint.

 

                        Stewart, Mary.  Crystal Cave, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1970.

Merlin, the son of a Welsh princess, survives a perilous childhood on his way to fulfill his destiny as mentor, advisor, and friend to King Arthur.

 

                        Stewart, Mary.   Hollow Hills, The.    World Classic.   Sequel to: The crystal cave.  First published in 1973.

Sequel to: The crystal cave. The second novel in the Arthurian Saga finds prophet and enchanter Merlin Ambrosius keeping watch over his orphaned charge, young Arthur Pendragon, until the fateful day when Arthur fulfills his destiny by pulling a fabled sword from a stone to claim the throne of Britain.

 

                        Stewart, Mary.   Last Enchantment, The.   World Classic.   3rd in Arthurian Saga.  First published in 1979.

                                As King Arthur struggles to achieve unity in Britain, Merlin realizes that all of his prophecies are coming true.

 

F Sto               Stoker, Bram.  Dracula.   World Classic.   First published in 1897.

ebook                      Having discovered the double identity of the wealthy Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, a small group of people vow to rid the world of the evil vampire.

 

F Sto               Stowe, Harriet Beecher.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin.   American Classic.   First published in 1852.

Presents the controversial novel, published in 1852, in which author Harriet Beecher Stowe offers an indictment of the pre-Civil War South through the story of Uncle Tom, an elderly slave who maintains his human dignity in the face of cruelty, suffering, and death.

 

F Sty               Styron, William.  Sophie’s Choice.   American Classic.   First published in 1979.

Three friends, Stingo, a twenty-two-year-old writer; Sophie, a survivor of the Nazi camps; and Nathan, her mercurial lover, share magical, heart-warming times until doom overtakes them as Sophie's and Nathan's darkest secrets are revealed.

 

F Swi               Swift, Jonathan.  Gulliver’s Travels.   World Classic.   First published in 1726.

The voyages of an Englishman carry him to a land of people six inches high, a land of giants, an island of sorcerers, and a land where horses are masters of human-like creatures.

 

                        Tada, Joni Eareckson.  Joni:  an unforgettable story.   American Classic.  First published in 1989.

Christian author and artist Joni Eareckson Tada describes the physical, emotional, and spiritual struggle she underwent after a diving accident left her quadriplegic at the age of seventeen.

 

F Tan               Tan, Amy.  Joy Luck Club.   American Classic.   First published in 1989.

In 1949 four Chinese women began meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong. They called their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Forty years later they look back and remember.

 

940.54             Ten Boom, Corrie.   Hiding Place, The.   .   World Classic.   First published in 1971.

This true story of two sisters sent to a Nazi concentration camp for helping Jews tells how their faith helped them to overcome its horrors.

 

F Tha               Thackeray, William Makepeace.  Vanity Fair.  World Classic.   First published in 1848.

ebook                      A satirical look at Victorian manners recounting the experiences of two finishing school graduates, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley.

 

F Tol                Tolkien, J. R. R.  Fellowship of the Ring.   World Classic.  Fantasy.   Volume I of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Frodo the hobbit and a band of warriors from the different kingdoms set out to destroy the Ring of Power before the evil Sauron grasps control.

 

F Tol                Tolkien, J. R. R.  Hobbit, The, or There and Back Again.   World Classic.  Fantasy.   First published in 1937.

Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.

 

F Tol                Tolkien, J. R. R.  Lord of the Rings Trilogy.    World Classic.  First published in 1954-1955.

A one-volume edition of the trilogy which tells of the quest undertaken by the hobbit Frodo and his companions to journey across Middle-earth and cast the evil One Ring, into the Cracks of Doom. Includes fifty specially commissioned paintings by Alan Lee.

 

F Tol                Tolkien, J. R. R.   Return of the King.   World Classic.  Fantasy.   Volume III of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Tells of the opposing strategies of the wizard Gandalf and the evil Sauron as Frodo amd Sam struggle to end the great darkness with the Ring of Power.

 

F Tol                Tolkien, J. R. R.  Two Towers, The.   World Classic.  Fantasy.   Volume II of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Recounts the deeds of the individual members of the Fellowship of the Ring after being divided by an attack of orc-soldiers, following Frodo and his servant Samwise on their continuing quest to destroy the Ring of Power in the Mountain of Fire.

 

F Tol                Tolstoy, Leo.  War and Peace.    World Classic.   First published in 1869.

Classic epic novel about the lives of five aristocratic families in Moscow and St. Petersburg against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars of 1805 to 1814.

 

                        Trumbo, Dalton.  Johnny Got His Gun.   American Classic.  First published in 1939.

A young man who was severely wounded in World War One thinks about his life and about the horror and futility of war and its toll on him.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.   American Classic.   First published in 1885.

ebook                      Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, and Jim, an escaped slave, make a break for freedom down the Mississippi River on a raft, sharing many adventures along the way.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Adventures of Tom Sawyer.   American Classic.  First published in 1876.

ebook                      The tale of a mischievous boy growing up in a nineteenth-century Mississippi River town.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, A.  American Classic.   First published in 1889.

ebook                      Nineteenth-century mechanic Hank Morgan suffers a blow to the head and wakes up in King Arthur's Court where he tries to introduce modern technology and political ideas to the inhabitants.   

 

818 Twa          Twain, Mark.  Innocents Abroad, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1869.

    Mark Twain's classic 1869 chronicle of his travels with a group of fellow "pilgrims" through Europe and the Holy Land, in which he makes fun of both European snobbery and American coarseness.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Life on the Mississippi.   American Classic.  First published in 1883.

ebook                      An account of life on the Mississippi in the old steamboat days and Twain's experiences as a pilot.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Prince and the Pauper, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1881.

ebook                      When young Edward VI of England and a poor boy who resembles him exchange places, each learns something about the other's very different station in life.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Pudd’nHead Wilson.  American Classic.   First published in 1894.

ebook                      Hoping to ensure a better life for her child, a young slave woman exchanges her light-skinned baby for her master's.              

 

                        Twain, Mark.  Tramp Abroad, A.   American Classic.  First published in 1880.

ebook                      An edited version of Mark Twain's description of his adventures on a walking trip across Europe.

 

F Tyl                Tyler, Anne.  Accidental Tourist, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1985.

Macon Leary, the lonely author of guidebooks for traveling businessmen, has become very set in his ways, but he is forced into an engagement with life after meeting Muriel, a woman with a talent for finding adventure.

 

F Upd              Updike, John.  Centaur, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1963.

Retells the myth of Chiron, wisest of the centaurs who gives up immortality for Prometheus, in a modern setting where Chiron is a high-school science teacher, George Caldwell, and Prometheus is his fifteen-year-old son, Peter.

 

                        Updike, John.  Rabbit at Rest.  American Classic.   First published in 1990.

Ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom has acquired heart trouble, a second grandchild, and he is looking for a reason to live.

                   

F Tyl                Updike, John.  Rabbit Run.   American Classic.  First published in 1960.

Twenty-six-year-old Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, unhappy with his life, deserts his pregnant wife and young son and becomes involved with another woman, but when his wife gives birth, he returns home, only to be met by tragedy.

 

F Ver               Verne,  Jules.  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.   World Classic.   First published in 1869.

Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus, find three men in the sea and take them on a journey to the ocean bottom to see riches and cities, but the men try to escape when they realize they are not happy aboard the ship.

 

F Ver               Verne,  Jules.  Around the World in Eighty Days.    World Classic.   First published in 1873.

ebook                      Eccentric Englishman Phileas Fogg accepts a bet made at his London club to complete a journey around the world in only eighty days.

 

                        Voltaire.  Candide.   World Classic.   First published in 1759.

ebook                      The story of a simple, optimistic man whose travels take him from one disaster to another.

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Breakfast of Champions.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.   First published in 1973.

Dwayne Hoover, a successful automobile dealer in Midland City, suddenly decides that he is a machine and begins to act accordingly. Science fiction writer Kilgore Trout is on his way to the Midland City Festival of the Arts. When they meet, the result is catastrophe.              

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Cat’s Cradle.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1963.

In the year 2000, a young man discovers ice-nine, which can set off a chain reaction more deadly than a nuclear bomb, and a new prophet whose teachings sweep the world.

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Sirens of Titan.   American Classic.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1959.

The richest, most depraved man in America blasts off in his private space ship for parts unknown with the one beautiful woman capable of resisting him.          

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.   Slaughterhouse-Five.    American Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1969.

A fourth-generation German-American is tortured by his memories of the firebombing of Dresden in 1944 which he witnessed while a prisoner of war.

 

F Wal              Walker, Alice.  Color Purple, The.   American Classic.   First published in 1982.

    Tells the story of two sisters: Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a child-wife living in the South, in the medium of their letters to each other and in Celie's case, the desperate letters she begins, "Dear God."

 

                        Wallace, Edgar and Merian C. Cooper.  King Kong.   World Classic.   First published in 1933.

A novelization of the classic "King Kong" film about a giant gorilla that was captured from Skull Island and brought to New York City.

 

F War             Warren, Robert Penn.  All the King’s Men.   American Classic.   First published in 1946.

Willie Stark, a well-intentioned, idealistic, back-country lawyer is unable to resist greed for power and lust for politics during his rise and fall as an American demagogue.

 

301.451  Thr   Washington, Booker T.  Up from Slavery.  American Classic.   First published in 1901.

ebook                      Booker T. Washington, the son of a slave woman and a white man, recounts his rise from slavery to become the most influential black leader of his time in the U.S., and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

 

812 Was         Wasserman, Dale.  Man of La Mancha.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1966.

Based on Don Quixote, this is a popular and enduring play.

 

                        Wells, H. G.  First Men in the Moon, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1901.

ebook                      Cavor, a scientist, and his materialistic companion Bedford, travel to the moon in a ship built by Cavor, where they encounter a hostile race of biologically engineered creatures.

 

F Wel              Wells, H. G.  Invisible Man, The.   World Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1897.

ebook                      The tale of a scientist who discovers how to make his body become invisible, but, when he can't make himself visible again, becomes violently insane.

 

                        Wells, H. G.  Island of Dr. Moreau, The.   World Classic.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1896.

                                Dr. Moreau, a scientist, finds an isolated island that gives him the freedom to create hideous creatures with human intelligence.

 

F Wel              Wells, H. G.  The Time Machine.   World Classic.   Science Fiction.   First published in 1895.

The Time Traveller journeys 800,000 years into the future and discovers two bizarre races at war on the Earth, the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks.

 

F Wel              Wells, H. G.  War of the Worlds.   World Classic.   Science Fiction.   First published in 1898.

ebook                      As life on Mars becomes impossible, Martians and their terrifying machines invade the Earth.

 

                        Wells, H. G.  When the Sleeper Wakes.   World Classic.   Science Fiction.   First published in 1910.

ebook                      In the 1890s, Graham, a radical pamphleteer, resorts to medication to help his insomnia and falls into a deep sleep that lasts two hundred years; when he awakens he learns he is revered by an adoring population that views him as their leader.

 

F Wel              Welty, Eudora.  Optimist’s Daughter, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1972.

A woman who has left the South returns when her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back to the small Mississippi town where she grew up.

 

F Wha             Wharton, Edith.  Ethan Frome.   American Classic.   First published in 1911.

Contains the story of Ethan Frome, a New England farmer who is married to a hypochondriac, but in love with his wife's lively cousin, Mattie.

 

F Wha             Wharton, Edith.  House of Mirth, The.  First published in 1905.

ebook                      Lily Bart, an orphaned child of a New York merchant, calmly prepares a campaign to marry for the power and luxury that money brings.

 

F Whi             White, Theodore.  Once and Future King, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1940.

                                Tells the story of the youth and reign of King Arthur, the establishment of the Round Table, and the search for the Holy Grail.

 

940.53 Wei     Wiesel, Elie.  Night.  World Classic.   First published in 1958.

                                Presents a true account of the author's experiences as a Jewish boy in a Nazi concentration camp.

 

                        Wilde, Oscar.  Importance of Being Earnest, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1899.

ebook                      Jack Worthing creates a fictitious brother Earnest who lives in London to escape his dull country routine, but finds the lie backfiring when he falls in love.

 

F Wil              Wilde, Oscar.  Picture of Dorian Gray, The.   World Classic.   First published in 1891.

ebook                      A remarkably handsome youth, Dorian Gray, meets Lord Henry Wotton and is corrupted into a life of terrible evil.

 

F Wil              Wilder, Thornton.  Bridge of San Luis Rey.   American Classic.  First published in 1927.

A tiny footbridge in Peru breaks, and five people hurtle to their deaths. For Brother Juniper, a humble monk who witnesses the catastrophe, the question is: Why those five?

 

808.82 Gas V.3    Wilder, Thornton.  Our Town.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1938.

Portrays life in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire, in the early 1900's through the routine daily events and the major moments in the lives of George Gibbs, Emily Webb, and their families; and how their lives, although mundane, are touched by the universal forces of love, despair, apathy, nature, and death.

 

258  Wil         Wilkerson, David.  Cross and the Switchblade, The.   American Classic.  First published in 1963.

A minister who left his small church in Pennsylvania to go to New York City relates his experiences working with streetgang members.

 

                        Williams, John.  Butcher’s Crossing.   American Classic.  First published in 1960.

Will Andrews drops out of Harvard, heads west, and end up at Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town, where he is talked into joining a growp of men eager to make their fortune hunting buffalo in the Colorado Rockies.

 

808.82  Six     Williams, Tennessee.  Glass Menagerie, The.    American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1944.

Amanda, a dominating mother, hopes to match her crippled daughter, Laura, with an eligible "gentleman caller;" her son, Tom, supports the family; and the painfully shy Laura evades her mother's schemes and reality by retreating to the make-believe world of her glass animal collection.

 

808.82  Tue     Williams, Tennessee.  Streetcar Named Desire, A.   American Classic.  Drama.  First published in 1947.

Blanche DuBois, a haggard and fragile southern beauty finds her pathetic last grasp at happiness cruelly destroyed in large part by her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski.

 

F Wol              Wolfe, Thomas.  Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life.   American Classic.   First published                       in 1929.

Describes the coming of age of Eugene Gant, his boyhood in North Carolina and his growing passion to experience life.

 

Wolfe, Thomas.  Of Time and the River:  a Legend of Man’s Hunger in His Youth.   American Classic.  First published in 1935.

Sequel to: Look homeward angel. Follows Eugene Grant in his desperate search for fulfillment from rural North Carolina, through England and France, to his ultimate return home.

 

F Wol              Wolfe, Thomas.  You Can’t Go Home Again.   American Classic.  First published in 1940.

The story of an American artist who flees scandal, bitterness, and despair as he journeys from his family home in a small Southern town to the gaudy capitals of prewar Europe.

 

                        Woolf, Virginia.  To the Lighthouse.   World Classic.   First published in 1927.

Describes a party gathered at a house on the Scottish coast, in later years only caretakers have the house, and in the last part of the story the house is again filled with surviving family members.

 

812 Wou         Wouk, Herman.  Caine Mutiny, The:  A Novel of world War II.   American Classic.  First published in 1951.

This book is the account of a well-to-do man who serves on a minesweeper during World War II, describing the events on the Navy ship Caine and what ultimately led the first mate, Lieutenant Maryk, a man with little schooling or experience, to take command of the vessel from Captain Queeg and the subsequent court-martial of Maryk.

 

F Wou             Wouk, Herman.  Marjorie Morningstar.   American Classic.  First published in 1955.

A novel about a beautiful, popular, New York Jewish girl in the 1930’s who longs to become an actress.  She invents the stage name of “Marjorie Morningstar” and beings her quest to become a star.

 

F Wou             Wouk, Herman.  War and Remembrance.   American Classic.  First published in 1978.

Sequel to "The Winds of War.  Follows the lives of members of the American Henry family as they deal with the triumphs and tragedies of life during the World War II years.

 

F Wou             Wouk, Herman.  Winds of War.   American Classic.  First published in 1971.

The lives of the members of the Henry family, headed by Naval Commander 'Pug' Henry, are irrevocably changed in the days heading up to the outbreak of World War II.

 

B Wri             Wright, Richard.  Black Boy:  (American Hunger) : A Record of Childhood and Youth.   American Classic.   First published in 1945.

The autobiography of an African-American writer, recounting his early years and the harrowing experiences he encountered drifting from Natchez to Chicago to Brooklyn.

 

F Wri              Wright, Richard.  Native Son.   American Classic.   First published in 1940.

    Trapped in the poverty-stricken ghetto of Chicago's South Side, a young African-American man finds release only in acts of violence.