SANDITON, THE WATSONS, AND LADY SUSAN

SANDITON, THE WATSONS, AND LADY SUSAN	AUSTEN, JANE	Jane Austen is known for six complete novels, each one a masterpiece. This Penguin Classics compilation features one novel unpublished in her lifetime and two unfinished fragments. This book is proof that even an incomplete Austen is better than no Austen at all. "Lady Susan" is an epistolary novel whose eponymous anti-heroine, unlike the women featured in Austen's other works, is bad to the bone. "The Watsons" is a delight from beginning to middle; I can't say "end" because, unfortunately, Austen never finished it. It's very much in the style of her six major works. Emma Watson is the youngest child of a large family and has been raised by her rich aunt since early childhood; she is thrown back on her impoverished family when her aunt makes an ill-advised second marriage. "Sanditon" is probably the best known of Austen's unpublished works; it's also a fragment of a novel, very different in content from her finished works. Austen excels in writing about manners and morals; "Sanditon" is more about social comm
MEZZANINE	BAKER, NICHOLAS	Readers follow the journey of our hero up the escalator and learn why straws don't sink in milk cartons; whether the hot air blowers in bathrooms are really more sanitary than towels; the physics of shoelaces; and how the most trivial of objects can lead to the deepest revelations of the human heart.
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN	BALDWIN, JAMES	Semiautobiographical novel by James Baldwin, published in 1953. Based on the author's experiences as a teenaged preacher in a small revivalist church, the novel describes two days and a long night in the life of the Grimes family, particularly the 14-year
COUSIN BETTE	BALZAC, HONORE DE	Novel by Honore de Balzac, published in 1846 as La Cousine Bette. The novel, part of Balzac's epic series La Comedie humaine (The Human Comedy), is considered one of his two final masterpieces. Thematically a testament to female vindictiveness, Cousin Bette recounts the story of Lisbeth Fischer, an embittered, unmarried peasant woman who hides her envy and hatred behind a mask of kindness as she attempts to ruin the Hulot family. She succeeds up to a point, but eventually the family regains its wealth through judicious and fortuitous marital and business connections. Bette herself, bitterly disappointed, sickens and dies
THE LOST HONOUR OF KATHARINA BLUM	BOELL, HEINRICH	I have to admit, I saw the film before reading the book, and I recommend them both. In today's climate in America, - when the police profession is considered one of the noblest by liberals and conservatives alike, and the so-called "liberal" press, which crossed the line into tabloid journalism awhile ago, and which still hides behind the myth/lie of "objectivity," - this book is as timely and relevant today as it ever was, and should be mandatory viewing/reading.
THE ALIENIST	CARR, CALEB	A serial killer mystery involving the earliest uses of psychology ('alienation science') and forensics set in New York City in the 1980s, has a great cameo appearance by Theodore Roosevelt.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE	COLLINS, WILKIE	Novel by Wilkie Collins, published serially in All the Year Round (November 1859-July 1860) and in book form in 1860. Noted for its suspenseful plot and unique characterization, the successful novel brought Collins great fame; he adapted it into a play in 1871. This dramatic tale, inspired by an actual criminal case, is told through multiple narrators. Frederick Fairlie, a wealthy hypochondriac, hires virtuous Walter Hartright to tutor his beautiful niece and heiress, Laura, and her homely, courageous half-sister, Marian Halcombe. Although Hartright and Laura fall in love, she honors her late father's wish that she marry Sir Percival Glyde, a villain who plans to steal her inheritance. Glyde is assisted by sinister Count Fosco, a cultured, corpulent Italian who became the archetype of subsequent villains in crime novels. Their plot is threatened by Anne Catherick, a mysterious fugitive from a mental asylum who dresses in white, resembles Laura, and knows the secret of Glyde's illegitimate birth. Through the p
A LIFTED VEIL	COSSE, LAURENCE	On Monday, May 24, 1999 at 8:32 p.m. precisely, Father Bertrand Beaulieu of the French Society of Casuists opens a thick, handwritten letter and makes a stunning discovery: "Six pages further, he was trembling. This time the proof was neither arithmetical, nor physical, nor esthetical, nor astronomical; it was irrefutable. The proof of God's existence had been achieved."
WIND, SAND AND STARS	DE SAINT-EXUPERY, ANTOINE	I loved The Little Prince, and thought that I would give Wind, Sand and Stars a try. Lucky for me that I did! A different kind of book than the children's-tale quality of The Little Prince, Wind, Sand and Stars is nevertheless magical in its own way. St-Exupery's ability to blend philosophy with his fairy-tale renditions of the life of a pilot are inspiring to more than one kind of person who seeks to reach the stars. Well worth reading, this book is a delight for anyone who seeks beauty in the written word.
AMERICAN NOTES	DICKENS, CHARLES	American Notes is the fascinating travel journal of one of 19th century America's most celebrated tourists--Charles Dickens. A lively chronicle of his five-month trip around the United States in 1842, the book records the author's adventures journeying by steamboat and stagecoach as well as his impressions of everything from schools and prisons to table manners and slavery.
PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA	DOYLE, RODDY	In Roddy Doyle's Booker Prize-winning novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, an Irish lad named Paddy rampages through the streets of Barrytown with a pack of like-minded hooligans, playing cowboys and Indians, etching their names in wet concrete, and setting fires. Roddy Doyle has captured the sensations and speech patterns of preadolescents with consummate skill, and managed to do so without resorting to sentimentality. Paddy Clarke and his friends are not bad boys; they're just a little bit restless. They're always taking sides, bullying each other, and secretly wishing they didn't have to. All they want is for something--anything--to happen.
TENDER IS THE NIGHT	FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT	In the wake of World War I, a community of expatriate American writers established itself in the salons and cafés of 1920s Paris. They congregated at Gertrude Stein's select soirées, drank too much, married none too wisely, and wrote volumes--about the war, about the Jazz Age, and often about each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were part of this gang of literary young Turks, and it was while living in France that Fitzgerald began writing Tender Is the Night. Begun in 1925, the novel was not actually published until 1934. By then, Fitzgerald was back in the States, and his marriage was on the rocks, destroyed by Zelda's mental illness and alcoholism. Despite the modernist mandate to keep authors and their creations strictly segregated, it's difficult not to look for parallels between Fitzgerald's private life and the lives of his characters, psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former-patient-turned-wife, Nicole. Certainly the hospital in Switzerland where Zelda was committed in 1929 provided the ins
HERLAND	GILMAN, CHARLOTTE PERKINS	One the eve of WWI, three American male explorers stumble onto an all-female society somewhere in the distant reaches of the earth. Unable to believe their eyes, they promptly set out to find some men, convinced that since this is a civilized country--there must be men. So begins this sparkling utopian novel, a romp through a whole world "masculine" and "feminine," as on target today as when it was written 65 years ago.
THE TIN DRUM	GRASS, GUNTER	Picaresque novel by Gunter Grass, a purported autobiography of a dwarf who lives through the birth and death of Nazi Germany, published in 1959 as Die Blechtrommel. The work's protagonist, Oskar Matzerath, narrates the novel from an asylum for the insane. He claims to have consciously stopped growing at the age of three in protest against adulthood; although intellectually normal, he has the stunted body of a dwarf. Oskar's voice is shrill enough to shatter glass, and his passion is banging on his tin drum, which has properties by which he draws forth memories from the past and complains about shortcomings in the present. Detached from people and events, he comments on the horrors, injustices, and eccentricities he observes. Found guilty of a murder he did not commit, Oskar is incarcerated. This exuberant novel, written in a variety of styles, imaginatively distorts and exaggerates Grass's personal experiences--the Polish-German dualism of Danzig, the creeping Nazification of average families, the attrition o
THE END OF THE AFFAIR	GREENE, GRAHAM	The novelist Maurice Bendrix's love affair with his friend's wife, Sarah, had begun in London during the Blitz. One day, inexplicably and without warning, Sarah had broken off the relationship. It seemed impossible that there could be a rival for her heart. Yet two years later, driven by obsessive jealousy and grief, Bendrix sends Pakris, a private detective, to follow Sarah and find out the truth. "One of the most true and moving novels of my time, in anybody's language."-- William Faulkner
HUNGER	HAMSON, KNUT	Contemptuous of contemporary novels and what he saw as stereotypical plots and empty characters, in 1890 Knut Hamsun wrote "Hunger", which is a searing excursion into the realm of the irrational. In a moment-by-moment internal monologue, Hamsun reveals the profound anguish of a struggling writer facing the possibility of death in a world indifferent to his existence .
POETRY	HOPKINS, GERALD MANLEY	No Summary.
HIGH FIDELITY	HORNBY, NICK	It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby's narrator is an early-thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way--on vinyl--and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music.
THE AMBASSADORS	JAMES, HENRY	I read this book in a way I never read: slowly and deliberately, concentrating and drawing the words through my teeth, because, I swear, the words have flavor and meat. Yes, the sentence structures are not easily sorted out, and the story contains no high
LAKE WOEBEGON	KEILLOR, GARRISON	Keillor's journey through Lake Wobegon is warm, nostalgic, funny, and poignant. The characters are well-crafted -- sometimes lovable, sometimes zany, sometimes despicable, always believable and real. Don't appraoch this book looking for a deep, moving plot. Approach it as a tour through a quaint town -- a look at its history, pride, culture, and even those bits that are swept under the rug. Read it, and it'll grow on you.
THE DIVINERS	LAURENCE, MARGARET	In The Diviners, Morag Gunn, a middle aged writer who lives in a farmhouse on the Canadian prairie, struggles to understand the loneliness of her eighteen-year-old daughter. With unusual wit and depth, Morag recognizes that she needs solitude and work as
THE EGOIST	MEREDITH, GEORGE	No Summary.
AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?	MORRISON, BLAKE	British writer Morrison pens a reflective and humorous tribute to his late father, a genial general practitioner with a kind heart, a roving eye, a quick wit, and a penchant for minor duplicities. Morrison deftly juxtaposes robust childhood memories with poignant scenes of his elderly father's rapid decline in health, producing a vivid dual portrait of a man as viewed through the eyes, the mind, and the heart of both a child and an adult. Dr. Morrison's multiple faults and failings are examined as candidly as his virtues, allowing the author to fully explore and analyze the complex nature of the ties that inextricably bind a son to his father throughout the entire course of his life. A tender and therapeutic memoir designed to appeal to anyone who has ever been both enthralled and exasperated by a parent.
BELOVED	MORRISON, TONI	In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family; nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved.
THE HOLDER OF THE WORLD	MUKHERJEE, BHARATI	Beigh Masters stumbles upon the records of a remote ancestor and discovers a remarkable woman related only by blood before a persistent investigation lends Beigh an unexpectedly intimate understanding.
ADA, OR ARDOR	NABOKOV, VLADIMIR	Published two weeks after his seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest. But more: it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, ph
LIFE, A USER'S MANUAL	PEREC, GEORGE	Believers in synchronicity train themselves to recognize moments when a certain turn of phrase, a particular quote, or a brief paragraph can trigger a life-altering insight. Life: A User's Manual is a collection of these kinds of inspirational quotes, poems, and short essays by the world's most respected thinkers and spiritual leaders. Anthologist John Miller (Legends: Women Who Have Changed the World Through the Eyes of Great Women Writers) has organized Life, A User's Manual into five parts: "Search," "Love," "Faith," "Meditation," and "Death." Some excerpts and quotes ring familiar, such as that passage from Isabel Allende's book about the death of her daughter Paula or the excerpt from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. Nonetheless, packaged within this clean, tight anthology, each quote and essay sounds fresh and resonates with life-altering potential.
FAIR EXCHANGE	ROBERTS, MICHELE
THE ABYSSINIAN	RUFIN, JEAN-CHRISTOPHE	At the heart of Jean-Christophe Rufin's marvelous first novel is a nugget of truth: in the year 1699, Louis XIV of France sent an embassy to the King of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia). From this small fact Rufin has spun a mesmerizing tale of adventure, romance, and political intrigue that is one part Alexandre Dumas and two parts Rafael Sabatini, with just a dash of Brian Moore thrown in for good measure.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA	SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM	Drama in five acts by William Shakespeare, performed about 1601-02 and printed in a quarto edition in 1609. Although this play is included among the tragedies in the First Folio, many critics prefer to classify it with the "problem plays" or the "darker comedies." Based on George Chapman's translation of the Iliad and on 15th-century accounts of the Trojan War by John Lydgate and William Caxton, Troilus and Cressida is an often cynical exploration of the betrayal of love, the absence of heroism, and the emptiness of honor. The play was also influenced by Geoffrey Chaucer's love poem Troilus and Criseyde, although Shakespeare's treatment of the lovers and his attitude toward their dilemma is in sharp contrast with Chaucer's. Cressida, a Trojan woman whose father has defected to the Greeks, pledges her love to Troilus, one of King Priam's sons. However, when her father demands her presence in the Greek camp, she quickly switches her affections to Diomedes, the Greek soldier who is sent to escort her. The legend
A THOUSAND ACRES	SMILEY, JANE	Aging Larry Cook announces his intention to turn over his 1,000-acre farm--one of the largest in Zebulon County, Iowa--to his three daughters, Caroline, Ginny and Rose. A man of harsh sensibilities, he carves Caroline out of the deal because she has the nerve to be less than enthusiastic about her father's generosity. While Larry Cook deteriorates into a pathetic drunk, his daughters are left to cope with the often grim realities of life on a family farm--from battering husbands to cutthroat lenders. In this winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Smiley captures the essence of such a life with stark, painful detail.
ANGEL OF REPOSE	STEGNER, WALLACE	In Wallace Stegner's American classic, first published in 1971, wheelchair-bound historian Lyman Ward decides to write about the frontier lives of his grandparents at a time when he has lost con-nection with his living family. Of his relationship with his
ANNA KARENINA	TOLSTOY, LEO	Some people say Anna Karenina is the single greatest novel ever written, which makes about as much sense to me as trying to determine the world's greatest color. But there is no doubt that Anna Karenina, generally considered Tolstoy's best book, is definitely one ripping great read. Anna, miserable in her loveless marriage, does the barely thinkable and succumbs to her desires for the dashing Vronsky. I don't want to give away the ending, but I will say that 19th-century Russia doesn't take well to that sort of thing. --
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES	TOOLE, JOHN KENNEDY	A hopelessly unqualified medievalist eccentric trying to cope with the 20th century in 1960s New Orleans.
THE WAY I FOUND HER	TREMAIN, ROSE	Lewis Little is less than thrilled when his summer plans change. Instead of staying in England as usual, he and his translator mum are off to Paris, where she has to do a rush job for an author of trashy medieval romances. At 13, the young hero of The Way I Found Her is already full of promise and notions, including the Exploding Peanut Theory of Beauty: "Beauty causes alteration. I'm talking about the beauty of women. Alteration may frequently result in some accident or other." His theory is to prove surprisingly prophetic. But though he thinks his mother's looks may well cause a life-or-death situation, her employer, Valentina Gavrilovich, is equally glam.
CAN Y OU FORGIVE HER?	TROLLOPE, ANTHONY	Can You Forgive Her introduces us to Alice Vavasar, her father, cousins, and fiance. Alice struggles with the question of whom she should marry. George is brandy; John is milk and honey. I love that! What a choice! Trollope has a wonderfully amusing style, evoking with great clarity 19th Century life in Victorian England. It's a time so very different from ours in the U.S., and yet, one can learn a great deal about the roots of some American cultural obsessions with love and politics. A hint: if you don't know British parliamentary history, you may want to review a little. However, don't let this deter you from trying out this splendid, enjoyable novel.
HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT	TROLLOPE, ANTHONY	One of Trollope's most successful later novels, this is a study of marriage and sexual relationships cast against a background of agitation for women's rights. Basically a novel of obsessive jealousy and the disintegration of a marriage. Trite, but with t
SAINT MAYBE	TYLER, ANNE
IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES	UPDIKE, JOHN	As prolific as he is, there has never even been a sense of redundancy in Updike's magnificent flow of novels and short-story collections, each book continuing in its own fashion to cover new ground. His latest novel is a staggeringly involving and intelli
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE	VONNEGUT, KURT	Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
ETHAN FROME	WHARTON, EDITH	Tragic novel by Edith Wharton, published in 1911. Wharton's original style and her use of hard-edged irony and the flashback technique set Ethan Frome apart from the work of her contemporaries. The main characters are Ethan Frome, his wife Zenobia, called Zeena, and her young cousin Mattie Silver. Frome and Zeena marry after she nurses his mother in her last illness. Although Frome seems ambitious and intelligent, Zeena holds him back. When her young cousin Mattie comes to stay on their New England farm, Frome falls in love with her. But the social conventions of the day doom their love and their hopes. The story forcefully conveys Wharton's abhorrence of society's unbending standards of loyalty. Written while Wharton lived in France but before her divorce (1913), Ethan Frome became one of the best known and most popular of her works.
LEAVES OF GRASS	WHITMAN, WALT	One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves Of Grass is his one book. First published in 1855 with only twelve poems, it was greeted by R
LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL	WOLFE, THOMAS	Thomas Wolfe's classic coming-of-age novel, first published in 1929, is a work of epic grandeur, evoking a time and place with extraordinary lyricism and precision. Set in Altamont, North Carolina, this semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a res
FLUSH	WOOLF, VIRGINIA	I bought and read Flush with some scepticism. While I can't praise Virginia Woolf enough, I tend to shy away from animal stories. Flush, however, is the exception to the rule. My scepticism soon dissipated and I was thrown into a world more human than most written worlds. Flush is among the most sympathetic and beautiful character sketches I have ever come across. This is a very different book for Woolf and I couldn't be more glad that she took the chance to write something that seems so trivial. There is feeling of release in the way it is written, but it is not flippant. Rather, it makes the character of Flush that much more accessible to the reader.
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE	WOOLF, VIRGINIA	Novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1927. The work is one of her most successful and accessible experiments in the stream-of-consciousness style. The three sections of the book take place between 1910 and 1920 and revolve around various members of the R
NANA	ZOLA, EMILE	Part of Zola's famed Rougon-Macquart series of novels, this is the portrait of the scandal of Parisian society--Nana, a goddess of love who ruthlessly uses her sexuality to obtain wealth and to send her ruined lovers to the gutter from which she ascended.