"A novel of rare genius, The Man with the Golden Arm describes the dissolution of a card-dealing WWII veteran named Frankie Machine, caught in the act of slowly cutting his own heart into wafer-thin slices. For Frankie, a murder committed may be the least of his problems. The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm "Algren's defense of the individual," while Carl Sandburg wrote of its "strange midnight dignity." A literary...
James Jones's epic story of army life in the calm before Pearl Harbor-now with previously censored scenes and dialogue restored At the Pearl Harbor army base in 1941, Robert E. Lee Prewitt is Uncle Sam's finest bugler. A career soldier with no patience for army politics, Prewitt becomes incensed when a commander's favorite wins the title of First Bugler. His indignation results in a transfer to an infantry unit whose commander is less interested in...
Originally published in 1951, The Sea Around Us remains one of the most enduringly influential and beloved books ever written about the natural world. It has inspired generations of readers - future scientists among them - with its combination of insight and poetry. One of them was Sylvia Earle, a pioneer of deep-sea exploration and research, who introduces this new edition. For Earle and countless other readers, Carson's power lies in giving her...
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this deeply compelling novel and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator tells his story from the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years He describes growing up in a Black community in the South, attending a Negro college from...
Augie March is a Jewish-American boy growing up fatherless and poor in Depression-era Chicago. He seeks a "special destiny, " although his circumstances seem to position him for a uniquely disappointing life: his family consists of a simple-minded mother, a brother and "grandmother" who prove to be Machiavellian in their intentions, and an "idiot" youngest brother, Georgie.
"The National Book Award-winning novel by the writer whom Fran Lebowitz called "the real F. Scott Fitzgerald". Joe Chapin led a storybook life. A successful small-town lawyer with a beautiful wife, two over-achieving children, and aspirations to be president, he seemed to have it all. But as his daughter looks back on his life, a different man emerges: one in conflict with his ambitious and shrewish wife, terrified that the misdeeds of his children...