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Great short books : a year of reading--briefly / Kenneth C. Davis.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Scribner, 2022Copyright date: ©2022Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: xxiv, 416 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781982180034
  • 198218003X
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction : Notes of a common reader -- Agostino / Alberto Moravia -- Animal farm : a fairy story / George Orwell -- Another Brooklyn / Jacqueline Woodson -- The awakening / Kate Chopin -- The ballad of the sad café / Carson McCullers -- Big boy leaves home / Richard Wright -- Bonjour tristesse / Françoise Sagan -- Candide, or optimism / Voltaire -- Charlotte's web / E. B. White -- A clockwork orange / Anthony Burgess -- The country girls / Edna O'Brien -- Death in Venice / Thomas Mann -- Dept. of speculation / Jenny Offill -- The dry heart / Natalia Ginzburg -- Ethan Frome / Edith Wharton -- Evil under the sun / Agatha Christie -- The fifth child / Doris Lessing -- The ghost writer / Philip Roth -- The great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The hour of the star / Clarice Lispector -- The house on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros -- If Beale Street could talk / James Baldwin -- If this is a man [survival in Auschwitz] / Primo Levi -- July's people / Nadine Gordimer -- The lathe of heaven / Ursula K. Le Guin -- Lord of the flies / William Golding -- The lost daughter / Elena Ferrante -- The lover / Marguerite Duras -- Lucy / Jamaica Kincaid -- Maus I : a survivor's tale : my father bleeds history / Art Spiegelman -- Middle passage / Charles Johnson -- Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf -- The hours / Michael Cunningham -- The nickel boys / Colson Whitehead -- No one writes to the colonel / Gabriel García Marquez -- The old man and the sea / Ernest Hemingway -- On Chesil Beach / Ian McEwan -- One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich / Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -- Oranges are not the only fruit / Jeanette Winterson -- Pale horse, pale rider / Katherine Anne Porter -- A pale view of hills / Kazuo Ishiguro -- Passing / Nella Larsen -- The perfect nanny / Leïla Slimani -- A portrait of the artist as a young man / James Joyce -- The postman always rings twice / James M. Cain -- The prime of Miss Jean Brodie / Muriel Spark -- The red badge of courage / Stephen Crane -- Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption / Stephen King -- The sailor who fell from grace with the sea / Yukio Mishima -- The stranger / Albert Camus -- Sula / Toni Morrison -- Surfacing / Margaret Atwood -- Their eyes were watching God / Zora Neale Hurston -- Things fall apart / Chinua Achebe -- Tokyo Ueno station / Yu Miri -- Waiting for the barbarians / J. M. Coetzee -- We have always lived in the castle / Shirley Jackson -- Wilde Sargasso sea / Jean Rhys -- Afterword : What's not here -- My favorite fifteen great short books.
Summary: An entertaining guide to some of the best short novels of all time looks at works from the eighteenth century to the present day, spanning multiple genres, cultures, and countries.Summary: Davis provides a guide to some of the best short novels of all time. The works span from the eighteenth century to the present day, covering multiple genres, cultures, and countries, and are arranged alphabetically by title. Each short (4-to-6 pages) profile includes the first lines of the work, a brief plot summery, information about the author, and Davis's opinion on why you should read the book-- and what you should read next. -- adapted from perusal of book
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 011.73 D262 Available 33111010924336
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This entertaining guide to some of the best short novels of all time, from a bestselling historian, is the "perfect gift for busy bibliophiles" ( BookPage).

Experience the joys of literature with this this "exciting guide to all that the world of fiction has to offer" ( The New York Times Book Review ): a compulsively readable, deeply engaging discussion of great short novels. A journey into fiction designed with our contemporary attention spans in mind, Great Short Books suggests fifty-eight excellent short novels, all under 200 pages--easily readable in a week or less--a fresh approach to a fun, fascinating year of reading.

From hard-boiled fiction to magical realism, the 18th century to the present day, Great Short Books spans genres, cultures, countries, and time to present an enchanting and diverse selection of acclaimed and canonical novels. From works in translation like Yu Miri's Tokyo Ueno Station and Marguerite Duras's The Lover to popular, acclaimed authors like Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, this compilation is a celebration of classics from the historic to contemporary--plus a few bestsellers, including Stephen King and Colson Whitehead. Each entry includes the novel's opening lines, a spoiler-free plot summary, a "why you should read it" section, and suggestions for what to read next.

"An entertaining journey with a fun, knowledgeable guide" ( Booklist ), this eclectic collection is a fun and practical book for any passionate reader hoping to broaden their literary IQ--or anyone who wants to find an effortless reentry into reading.

Introduction : Notes of a common reader -- Agostino / Alberto Moravia -- Animal farm : a fairy story / George Orwell -- Another Brooklyn / Jacqueline Woodson -- The awakening / Kate Chopin -- The ballad of the sad café / Carson McCullers -- Big boy leaves home / Richard Wright -- Bonjour tristesse / Françoise Sagan -- Candide, or optimism / Voltaire -- Charlotte's web / E. B. White -- A clockwork orange / Anthony Burgess -- The country girls / Edna O'Brien -- Death in Venice / Thomas Mann -- Dept. of speculation / Jenny Offill -- The dry heart / Natalia Ginzburg -- Ethan Frome / Edith Wharton -- Evil under the sun / Agatha Christie -- The fifth child / Doris Lessing -- The ghost writer / Philip Roth -- The great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The hour of the star / Clarice Lispector -- The house on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros -- If Beale Street could talk / James Baldwin -- If this is a man [survival in Auschwitz] / Primo Levi -- July's people / Nadine Gordimer -- The lathe of heaven / Ursula K. Le Guin -- Lord of the flies / William Golding -- The lost daughter / Elena Ferrante -- The lover / Marguerite Duras -- Lucy / Jamaica Kincaid -- Maus I : a survivor's tale : my father bleeds history / Art Spiegelman -- Middle passage / Charles Johnson -- Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf -- The hours / Michael Cunningham -- The nickel boys / Colson Whitehead -- No one writes to the colonel / Gabriel García Marquez -- The old man and the sea / Ernest Hemingway -- On Chesil Beach / Ian McEwan -- One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich / Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -- Oranges are not the only fruit / Jeanette Winterson -- Pale horse, pale rider / Katherine Anne Porter -- A pale view of hills / Kazuo Ishiguro -- Passing / Nella Larsen -- The perfect nanny / Leïla Slimani -- A portrait of the artist as a young man / James Joyce -- The postman always rings twice / James M. Cain -- The prime of Miss Jean Brodie / Muriel Spark -- The red badge of courage / Stephen Crane -- Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption / Stephen King -- The sailor who fell from grace with the sea / Yukio Mishima -- The stranger / Albert Camus -- Sula / Toni Morrison -- Surfacing / Margaret Atwood -- Their eyes were watching God / Zora Neale Hurston -- Things fall apart / Chinua Achebe -- Tokyo Ueno station / Yu Miri -- Waiting for the barbarians / J. M. Coetzee -- We have always lived in the castle / Shirley Jackson -- Wilde Sargasso sea / Jean Rhys -- Afterword : What's not here -- My favorite fifteen great short books.

An entertaining guide to some of the best short novels of all time looks at works from the eighteenth century to the present day, spanning multiple genres, cultures, and countries.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-416) and indexes.

Davis provides a guide to some of the best short novels of all time. The works span from the eighteenth century to the present day, covering multiple genres, cultures, and countries, and are arranged alphabetically by title. Each short (4-to-6 pages) profile includes the first lines of the work, a brief plot summery, information about the author, and Davis's opinion on why you should read the book-- and what you should read next. -- adapted from perusal of book

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