I Like Big Books (and I cannot lie)

Middlemarch is a recognized masterpiece that explores the complex social world of nineteenth-century England. It is concerned with the lives of several ordinary people, albeit ones with high social standing. The novel is set in the small town of Middlemarch and follows the interrelated lives of several characters. At the heart of the book is Dorothea, a kind-hearted and honest woman who longs to find some way to improve the world. She marries an older...

"Les Miserables is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. First published in France in 1862, it is Victor Hugo's greatest achievement--the ultimate tale of redemption. Former prisoner Jean Valjean struggles to live virtuously after an unexpected act of forgiveness by a kindly bishop changes his life. His righteous actions change people's lives in surprising ways and culminate in romance between two young people. Now available...

"Peeling apples for tartes tatin, an Ohio mother wonders how to exist in a world of distraction and fake facts, besieged by a tweet-happy president and trigger-happy neighbors, all of them oblivious to what Dupont has dumped into the rivers and what's happening at the factory farm down the interstate--not to mention what was done to the land's first inhabitants. A torrent of consciousness, narrated in a single sentence by a woman whose wandering thoughts...

Fyodor Dostoevsky's last and greatest work, tells the tales the three brothers and their father Fyodor. It is, among many other things, a tale of patricide--a love-hate struggle with profound psychological and spiritual implications. It is a search for faith, for God--driven by intense, uncontrollable emotions of rage and revenge.

Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages.

A spoof on our culture featuring a drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation house near Boston. The center becomes a hotbed of revolutionary activity by Quebec separatists in revolt against the Organization of North American Nations which now rules the continent. "Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring one of the most endearingly screwed-up families in contemporary fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what...

An American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student interact in an urban community on the U.S.-Mexico border where hundreds of young factory workers have disappeared.

Receiving an anonymous tip that could lead to the capture of a powerful criminal overlord, Bombay police officer Sartaj Singh is nearing his goal when he realizes that his imminent confrontation with the crime lord is part of a more sinister agenda.

Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to 1743 Scotland, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for a young soldier, James Fraser.

Overview: Alexandre Dumas's novel of justice, retribution, and self-discovery - one of the most enduringly popular adventure tales ever written - appears here in a newly revised translation. "This novel tells the story of Edmond Dantes, wrongfully imprisoned for life in the supposedly impregnable sea fortress the Chateau d'If. After a daring escape, and after unearthing a hidden treasure revealed to him by a fellow prisoner, he devotes the rest...