A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking
Hawking takes readers on a journey through the history of cosmology, from ancient Greek philosophers to modern scientific theories.
Reading
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Thomas Piketty
Piketty argues that the rate of return on capital tends to be higher than the rate of economic growth.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin
Genly Ai visits the planet of Gethen as an envoy of the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets. Ai's mission is to persuade the nations of Gethen to join the Ekumen…
Indignation
Philip Roth
Set in America in 1951, during the Korean War, _Indignation_ is narrated by Marcus Messner, a Jewish college student from Newark, NJ.
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction…
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Gabriel Garcia Márquez
The protagonist, who remains unnamed throughout the novel, is a solitary and introspective man who has never been in love.
Homage to Catalonia
George Orwell
Homage to Catalonia begins with Orwell's arrival in Barcelona in 1936, shortly after the outbreak of the civil war.
Invisible Cities
Italo Calvino
In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo—Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan sensed the end of his empire…
Cannery Row
John Steinbeck
The story revolves around the people living there, including Lee Chong, the local grocer. Doc, a marine biologist. And Mack, the leader of a group of derelicts.
Rhinoceros
Eugene Ionesco
Theater of the absurd. Throughout three acts, the inhabitants of a provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses.
The Rings of Saturn
W.G. Sebald
Sebald weaves together topics and historical events, ranging from the decline of the herring industry to the hell of World War II and the Holocaust.
Voyage Around My Room
Xavier de Maistre
A somewhat privileged man confined to a room in a house as punishment for taking part in a duel. How to pass the hours? He takes a journey around his room, of course. As one does. And writes about it creatively, of course.
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
James Boswell
A comprehensive and influential account of the life of one of the most prominent figures in 18th-century English literature…
Night of Wenceslas
Lionel Davidson
The Night of Wenceslas is the debut novel of British thriller and crime writer Lionel Davidson.
The Complete Short Prose of Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Beckett expressed the anguish and isolation of the individual consciousness with a purity and minimalism that have altered the shape of world literature.
The Dharma Bums
Jack Kerouac
The narrative is set against the backdrop of the Beat Generation's counter-cultural lifestyle and the exploration of Eastern philosophy.
The Quiet American
Graham Greene
In Graham Greene's _The Quiet American_ it's 1955 and British journalist Thomas Fowler has been in Vietnam for two years covering the insurgency against French colonial rule.
Miss Lonelyhearts
Nathanael West
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West is set in New York during the Great Depression, a time of economic hardship and social upheaval."
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway
Jake Barnes, a journalist and World War I veteran narrates _The Sun Also Rises_.