Timeless classics and modern masterpieces that challenge, inspire, and leave a lasting impact. Ideal for thought-provoking discussions.
A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell, 1951-1975
214, 724, 736, 804 pp. (vols. I-IV)
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February 2007
This is an overlooked treasure. In fact, it's hard to understand why Anthony Powell's magnificent opus isn't on the tip of everyone's tongue.
Critics and readers agree that Powell, who died in 2000, was one of the finest—and most readable—writers of the English novel. Actually, the work is 12 novels (called a "duodecalogy"... sounds like an ulcer) divided into 4 volumes or "movements."
Emma
Jane Austen, 1815
560 pp.
January 2007
Start the new year off with a dance! A brilliant, complex dance—with skip-steps, turns, and sashays. Emma is Austen’s masterpiece, a story in which triple strands of plot bob and weave in and around one another, and Austen never misses a step.
As Austen herself admitted, Emma Woodhouse is a difficult heroine because she’s not particularly likeable.
The Good Soldier
Ford Madox Ford, 1915
288 pp.
December 2006
This is a tale to make your head spin—and to keep you turning pages while wondering how the narrator could be such a dupe.
Yet that's the pleasure. The Good Soldier is a story of two couples: the wife of one having an affair with the husband of the other, and a narrator—the cuckholded husband—completely in the dark.
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens, 1860
560 pp.
November 2006
Poor boy. With a name like Pip, no wonder this novel's hero dreams of grandiosity.
The title refers to the large inheritance a wealthy young man expects to receive one day, ensuring a life of gentlemanly leisure. But Pip hails from the lower classes so has no such "expectations"— until one day, one mysteriously drops into his lap.
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf, 1925
~100-150 pp. (varies by publisher)
October 2006
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? A lot of us. Despite her fragile elegance, Woolf is no quaint Edwardian. She's very much of the 20th-century: a writer who can be ferociously intellectual and sometimes downright intimidating.
Fortunately, we don't have to be all that intimidated by Mrs. Dalloway. On one level, it is accessible as a novel about class, unrequited love, and madness.