Top Classics eBooks

Death of a Salesman eBook by Miller, Arthur

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Hailed as the first great play to lay bare the emptiness of America's relentless drive for material success, Death of a Salesman is Miller's classic portrait of an ordinary man's struggle to leave his mark on the world.

Cat's Cradle eBook by Vonnegut, Kurt

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Cat's Cradle

A Moveable Feast eBook by Hemingway, Ernest

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

"You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil." Begun in the autumn of 1957 and published posthumously in 1964, Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s. A correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe's cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist forms; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed Ulysses; Gertude Stein held court at 27 rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of rue gnration perdue; and T. S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. It was during these years that the as-of-yet unpublished young writer gathered the material for his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, and the subsequent masterpieces that followed. Among these small, reflective sketches are unforgettable encounters with the members of Hemingway's slightly rag-tag circle of artists and writers, some also fated to achieve fame and glory, others to fall into obscurity. Here, too, is an evocation of the Paris that Hemingway knew as a young man - a map drawn in his distinct prose of the streets and cafs and bookshops that comprised the city in which he, as a young writer, sometimes struggling against the cold and hunger of near poverty, honed the skills of his craft. A Moveable Feast is at once an elegy to the remarkable group of expatriates that gathered in Paris during the twenties and a testament to the risks and rewards of the writerly life.

A Passage to India eBook by Forster, E. M.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

A classic novel about the misperceptions and misunderstandings that illustrate the divide between East and West, E.M. Forster?

A Farewell to Arms eBook by Hemingway, Ernest

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially." The greatest American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms cemented Ernest Hemingway's reputation as one of the most important novelists of the twentieth century. Drawn largely from Hemingway's own experiences, it is the story of a volunteer ambulance driver wounded on the Italian front, the beautiful British nurse with whom he falls in love, and their journey to find some small sanctuary in a world gone mad with war. By turns beautiful and tragic, tender and harsh and realistic, A Farewell to Arms is one of the supreme literary achievements of our time.

Across the River and Into the Trees eBook by Hemingway, Ernest

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess. A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the worldweary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War. Hemingway's last full-length novel published in his lifetime, it moved John O'Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him "the most important author since Shakespeare."

Death in the Afternoon eBook by Hemingway, Ernest

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Still considered one of the best books ever written about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is an impassioned look at the sport by one of its true aficionados. It reflects Hemingway's conviction that bullfighting was more than mere sport and reveals a rich source of inspiration for his art. The unrivaled drama of bullfighting, with its rigorous combination of athleticism and artistry, and its requisite display of grace under pressure, ignited Hemingway's imagination. Here he describes and explains the technical aspects of this dangerous ritual and "the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped on a stick." Seen through his eyes, bullfighting becomes a richly choreographed ballet, with performers who range from awkward amateurs to masters of great elegance and cunning. A fascinating look at the history and grandeur of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is also a deeper contemplation of the nature of cowardice and bravery, sport and tragedy, and is enlivened throughout by Hemingway's sharp commentary on life and literature.

A Room with a View eBook by Forster, E. M.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Visiting Italy with her prim and proper cousin Charlotte as a chaperone, Lucy Honeychurch meets the unconventional lower-class Mr. Emerson and his son, George. Upon her return to England she becomes engaged to the supercilious Cecil Vyse, but finds herself increasingly torn between the expectations of the world in which she moves and the passionate yearnings of her heart. As Forster writes, "You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you." More than a love story, A Room With a View is a perceptive examination of class structure and a penetrating social comedy.

Decline and Fall eBook by Waugh, Evelyn

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Decline and Fall

Behavioral Modification, Lessons From Constancia Island eBook by Bellows, Chris

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Femdom Erotica from the Master of the Genre. What does a woman of dominance do with a husband whose strong need to submit leads to infidelity? Consult with the American Society for Behavior Modification, of course. After a trying business trip, Mrs. Dalton returns home to find that her submissive husband has strayed. Hiring a professional Dominatrix to satisfy his needs, he is caught in the most compromising of positions. It will be the last time. Mrs. Dalton learns there is an opening for training at a remote island facility now used as a last resort for protecting the public from incorrigible males. Whisked away on the next flight to the Caribbean, Mr. Dalton finds himself barraged by Dominant Females and immersed in a grueling training program. The physical modifications of the demented Dr. Helga Reinhold, and the mental programming of Dr. Stella Corrothers soon have Mr. Dalton existing for no other purpose than to please women. Graphic S&M.

A Man's Estate eBook by Humphreys, Emyr

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Hannah Ellis is thirty-five, unmarried and still living at Y Glyn, the family farm in Wales where she has been brought up by her mother and step-father, a forbidding man with a powerful hold on the neighbourhood. Loving her country, yet resenting the egotism of her family, she yearns for the return of her long-banished brother Philip, believing that he will rescue her from this bleak existence. But Hannah little realises that Philip's arrival is imminent, and is to herald enormous changes as he unwittingly ignites the passions and strengths of an unusually intertwined community.

Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve eBook by Abse, Dannie

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Widely acclaimed for its warm humour, lyricism and honesty, as well as its accurate evocation of the thirties, Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve has become a sung-after classic. In this delightful autobiographical novel, Dannie Abse skilfully interweaves public and private themes, setting the fortunes of a Jewish family in Wales against the troubled backcloth of the times- unemployment, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, and the Spanish Civil War.

Brave New World eBook by Huxley, Aldous

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

Huxley's novel of a grim, over technologized and dispirited future was published in 1932 and has never been out of print. Amazingly predictive in some ways, happily wrong in others, its vision of a world dominated by the spirit of Henry Ford and loveless

A Handful of Dust eBook by Waugh, Evelyn

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

A Handful of Dust

Captains Courageous eBook by Kipling, Rudyard

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 48:11:39 GMT

First published in 1897, Captains Courageous tells of the high-seas adventures of Harvey Cheyne, the son of an American millionaire, who, after falling from a luxury ocean liner, is rescued by the raucous crew of the fishing ship We're Here. Obstinate and spoiled at first, Harvey in due course learns diligence and responsibility and earns the camaraderie of the seamen, who treat him as one of their own. A true test of character, Harvey's months aboard the We're Here provide a delightful glimpse of life at sea and well-told morals of discipline, empathy, and self- reliance.

''My first genuine out and out American story ... It's a corker... I'm sinfully proud of it.' -Rudyard Kipling