Classics

''I saw a monster rising from the waves."**A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ PICK****Winner of the Man Booker Prize 1978**Charles Arrowby has determined to spend the rest of his days in hermit-like contemplation. He buys a mysteriously damp house...

'A beautiful book' -- Ursula K. Le GuinThis mordantly funny and provocative tale from Soviet Russia's leading science fiction writers is the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov. As he reaches a major breakthrough, he finds himself plagued by...

Impeccably crafted in flawless prose, the delightfully witty courtship of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy is brimming with Austen's characteristic playfulness and comic irony.  "He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention...

Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history—these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as the Mabinogion. They...

(Available after 3-20 days)Previously adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola starring Kirsten Dunst, this is the story of the five Lisbon sisters - beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the entire neighbourhood. The boys...

"Salty, frank, and realistic." — San Francisco Chronicle   In her most famous novel, The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those...

(Available after 3-20 days)My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends — It gives a lovely light!   “First Fig” from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) The 1956 Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay...

The only work of its kind to survive from classical antiquity, the Library of Apollodorus is a unique guide to Greek mythology, from the origins of the universe to the Trojan War.Apollodorus' Library has been used as a source book by classicists from the...

Widely considered John Fowles's masterpiece, The Magus is "a dynamo of suspense and horror...a dizzying, electrifying chase through the labyrinth of the soul....Read it in one sitting if possible-but read it" (New York Times).A young Englishman, Nicholas...

Compiled by an unknown scribe in Iceland around 1270, and based on sources dating back centuries earlier, these mythological and heroic poems tell of gods and mortals from an ancient era: the giant-slaying Thor, the doomed Völsung family, the Hel-ride of...

"Should appeal to all rugged individualists who dream of escape to the forest."—The New York Times Book ReviewSam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods—all by...

**Named by Men's Health: "50 Books Every Man Should Read Before Turning 50"**Based upon the historical bandit Song Jiang and his companions, The Water Margin is an epic tale of rebellion against tyranny that will remind Western readers of the English...

This giftable hardcover box set contains Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal-winning The Giver plus the acclaimed three companion books in the series.   This set includes the complete Giver Quartet series: The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son. In...

The ninth book in Harper Design’s deluxe classic illustrated series—a beautiful and inventive fresh take on the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, including “Snow White,” with stunning full-color artwork and interactive features created by MinaLima, the...

'Can't you see that I don't care what anybody says?' Charity Royall lives in the small New England village of North Dormer. Born among outcasts from the Mountain beyond, she is rescued by lawyer Royall and lives with him as his ward. Never allowed to...

In this excellent English translation of The Analects, or Sayings, of Confucius, readers will find a rich distillation of the timeless precepts of one of history's most influential teachers and social theorists. A Chinese philosopher who lived c. 551 to...

Duc Jean des Esseintes, the wealthy last survivor of a once-powerful family, has retreated from his bourgeois life in Paris. Overwhelmed by the absurdities and grotesqueries of human affairs, he dwells in an isolated villa, spending his days in...

The Bhagavad Gita is an early epic poem that recounts the conversation between Arjuna the warrior and his charioteer Krishna, the manifestation of God. In the moments before a great battle, the dialogue sets out the important lessons Arjuna must learn to...

Bursting with energy and playful wit, Northanger Abbey tells the story of Catherine Morland and the gothic romances that fill her head and cloud her judgement. A shimmering example of Jane Austen’s supreme craft, this is an enduring English classic...

"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this "optimism" concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the "all for the best" approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to...