Timeless classics and modern masterpieces that challenge, inspire, and leave a lasting impact. Ideal for thought-provoking discussions.
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James, 1898
~100 pp. (varies by publisher
May 2011
Like the best of ghost stories, Turn of the Screw is as much a pshychological as it is paranormal thriller. Henry James himself never indicated it was anything other than a ghost story, but critics have debated that point for the past 100 years.
And that is precisely what makes the novella such a delicious read: were there ever ghosts...or not?
The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of
the Building the Brooklyn Bridge
David McCullough, 1972
562 pp.
February 2011
After having read his book years ago, David McCullough made a believer of me. To this day I believe richly told narrative histories are some of the best reads ever—even one about engineering and construction. And I'm a girl.
Of course, we're talking about building the Brooklyn Bridge—one of the earliest, and still one of the most beautiful, span bridges in the world. As the book's title says, it's a "great" bridge. It is, and this is a great story.
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austin, 1811
~350 pp. (varies by publisher)
January 2011
Jane Austen liked nothing so much as to poke fun at convention, and in her novels she does just that. In Sense and Sensibility, she takes aim at the then-current craze for all things sentimental.
Novels in the late 18th- and early 19th-century featured characters of delicate emotions, or sensibility. They wept, sighed, and fainted—proof of their heightened sensitivity to intellectual and emotional stimuli. (Think Heathcliff wandering the moors or, better yet, the Heathcliff of Bridget Jones who bangs his head against a tree, shouting "Cathy, Cathy, Caaaaathy....!")
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde, 1890-91
150-175 pp. (varies by publisher)
December 2010
Wilde's novel has intrigued, enraged, and delighted readers for 100 years. It is many things: a novel of manners, a gothic fantasy, a morality tale (or, as Victorians believed, an immorality tale), and a philosophical treatise on the aesthetic movement sometimes referred to as "art for art's sake." Finally, the very name "Dorian Gray" is a cultural byword for lasting youth.
Dorian is ageless, he never suffers the destruction of time—only his picture does. We first meet him as a young man, sitting for his portrait in Basil Hallward's studio. Also in the studio is Lord Henry Wotton, whose corrupting influence (on Dorian) Basil greatly fears, a fear well placed.
Arrowsmith
Sinclair Lewis, 1925
pp. 480
November 2010
Sinclair Lewis is best known for Babbitt, a novel that earned him a fortune and inspired a new word in the English language: "babbitt"—someone entirely conventional, self-satisfied, and materialistic.
But it was Arrowsmith that earned Lewis the Pulitizer Prize. Though written in plain, unadorned prose (Lewis is no great sytlist), it's an ambitious story—a near-epic that traces the development of a young doctor bursting with idealism. And like all epic heroes, ours falls prey to despair and temptation, occasionally veering off into the wilderness.