Historical Books - Page 3

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dial Press Trade Paperback Amazon Marketplace: 138 new & used starting at $7.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( V ) -> Vonnegut Jr., Kurt
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 712 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

On Another Level 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Somewhere in the first chapter (or maybe the second, if you are convinced that the first chapter is a foreword), it dawns on you: this is not normal. The main character is not dynamic. There is no real, driving conflict. There is no escalation, nor any other conventional literary mechanism used to move the story. That would probably be the best word to describe Vonnegut: anticonventional.

What follows is a masterful tale the likes of which we may never see again. The sublime tones combine with a graceful, immersive imagery and characters that are bare and gaunt while also full of fervor. The themes are beautiful and horrible to watch, but Billy Pilgrim's journey is one you won't be able to avoid. It'll call to you whenever this book is not in your hands. At any given moment, you'll find yourself murmuring to no one in particular, "So it goes."

I am not sure how this novel is assigned to high school literature classes, because the book is so subtle and layered: I would think that teaching this book to teenagers would be like describing Newton's theories to a family of Dachshunds. I guess that's why they (high school English teachers, not the dogs) descend to the level of Ethan Frome, or other such toys, to pass the time. Purely put, Vonngeut doesn't deserve to be put on your bookcase; the proximity to so many inferior works might lead someone to believe that Slaughterhouse-Five is comparable. I'd suggest framing the book and mounting it on your dining room wall, but that might prevent you from reading it again. Which you should. Immediately.

Editorial Review:

Launched in November, Dell's Kurt Vonnegut reissue program continues with one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

Things Fall Apart (Norton Critical Editions)

Chinua Achebe

Amazon Price: $8.75 List Price: $8.75 Usually ships in 9 to 11 days By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $6.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> African -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> African -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 536 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Things Fall Apart 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

It's rare to find a book that can be at once so severe and so touching. This is a fantastic and emotionally charged book of a view of Africa that is not always revealed to the world in such a way in suh honest color. While Achebe clearly cares for the culture, he is not afraid to hide what is true about it. The result is a deeply moving look into the way of people and how they relate themselves to the rest of world as it changes.

Editorial Review:

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks

Amazon Price: $11.19 List Price: $13.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Grand Central Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 608 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( S ) -> Sparks, Nicholas
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1491 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Beautiful Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Bought this book for my daughter for Christmas. She will love it. Wonderful book.

The Notebook 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Wow, The Notebook is an inspiring story of love. It will make you laugh and cry. It will evoke so many different emotions as you continue to read. It is a love story that everyone wants for their own lives. It definitely gives you something to look for and dream about.

"like new"condition i dont think so 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

this book looked like everyone in the US had had it first it was old worn out and the pages were yellowing i would never order from them again

Great Service, Not So Great Book 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I recieved the book just fine, but I didn't enjoy reading it that much. However, the sequel to this book, The Wedding, is a really good book that I would give 4 stars.

WWII Spies and Lovers 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My wife had me read this after reading the WWII novel The Commodore about two American analysts, Madison Bell and Sam Harbour, in England during WWII. Know I know they existed. Thank you Kathy for having me read this book.

Editorial Review:

Back in North Carolina after the war, Noah Calhoun cannot stop thinking about the girl he had lost a decade ago, and even though she is on the verge of marriage, she cannot stop thinking about him. Reprint.

Suite Francaise

Irene Nemirovsky

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 349 new & used starting at $2.40

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> French
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 375 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Subtle, Powerful, Unfinished - An Astonishing Survival 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Perhaps the miracle of this manuscript is that it survived the internment and death of its author and all the mischances of World War II to achieve publication. Even in its unfinished condition (only two sections out of the author's intended three or four), this novel paints an unforgettable portrait of France in defeat.

The first section, Storm in June, follows a number of people who flee Paris ahead of the German Army. The author hopscotches from character to character, trying to show the reaction of many different classes and types of people. The most poignant story was that of a middle-class, middle-aged couple who both work at the same bank. They report to the bank as ordered, only at the last minute the bank director decides to take his mistress in his car so he tells the couple that they are to report to Tours tomorrow or face losing their jobs! They have to walk and their faith with one another and their worry about their son in the army makes for affecting reading.

The second section, Dolce, is set in a farming community under occupation. The tensions between the occupiers and the occupied are deftly delineated. The subtle choices faced by those who willingly collaborate and those who do so reluctantly are played upon. The author does this in such human terms, showing the relationship that grows step by step between Lucille, a woman trapped in a loveless marriage to a man now held captive, and the German officer quartered with her and her mother-in-law.

These two sections, plus some of the author's notes, are all we have--this in itself is a tragedy and waste of war. Had this novel been finished we would be hailing it as one of the supreme works of literature. As it stands, it is like a great cathedral gutted by a bomb. The ruined shell still soars to heaven, a reminder of the human spirit triumphing despite human destructiveness.

Editorial Review:

Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy—in their town, their homes, even in their hearts.

When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Amazon Price: $7.90 List Price: $7.90 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Plaza & Janes Editores, S.A. Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $4.26

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Foreign Language Fiction -> Spanish
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1272 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Science Fiction Masked In A Glaze Of Poetic Impulse 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If ever there is a formula for the perfect novel, 451 has the ingredients. It would be one part science fiction masked in a glaze of poetic impulse, settled on a bed of classic literature soaking up the juices of vast philosophical thought. The burning of books is a horror to any who love the written word and our freedom to dream. It would be our worst nightmare for society to regress to a state of anti-intellectualism so staunch that ideas themselves have become the enemy. Ray Bradbury not only captures our fears in this post nuclear world but also touches upon our often forgotten love for the stories that have captured our hearts. This is a must read for anyone who has ever loved a book.

Editorial Review:

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. The classic novel of a post-literate future, 'Fahrenheit 451' stands alongside Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' as a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

War and Peace (Vintage Classics)

Leo Tolstoy

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $10.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> Russian
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 67 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov comes this magnificent new translation of Tolstoy's masterwork.

War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

A s Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.

Pride and Prejudice (Oxford World's Classics Hardcovers)

Jane Austen

List Price: $12.50 By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $4.93

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Austen, Jane -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Austen, Jane -> Hardcover
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Austen, Jane -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 906 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Worth paying for on the Kindle 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Kindle owners hopefully are aware of the wealth of free editions of the classics which are available through Feedbooks and other sources.

I obtained a copy of P&P from feedbooks originally and while it was easy to get and the price was right, the overall quality of the text is not great. I've found several typos, presumably the result of OCR errors and it's somewhat distracting.

Since P&P is one of my wife's favorite books, I was delighted to see
Penguin had released an electronic edition for $0.50 complete with the usual footnotes, essays and maps that one's used to
finding in textbook editions of the classics.

The table of contents is pretty minimal. The headings include the editor's material, and the three volume headings.

Beautiful Classic 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a timeless and beloved classic. It's a beautiful story of class in Jane Austen's time that appeals to us today because it is so well-wrtitten. It's scrupulously clean morally, and I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates the time when love stories were wholesome and pure and touching. All the characters have an appeal that's makes you appreciate the way they fit into the story.

Editorial Review:

William Trevor provides an introduction to one of the best-loved novels in English literature, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Christopher Moore

List Price: $25.95 By: William Morrow Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $14.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Horror -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Horror -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 510 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years -- except Biff.

Ever since the day when he came upon six-year-old Joshua of Nazareth resurrecting lizards in the village square, Levi bar Alphaeus, called "Biff,"had the distinction of being the Messiah's best bud. That's why the angel Raziel has resurrected Biff from the dust of Jerusalem and brought him to America to write a new gospel, one that tells the real, untold story. Meanwhile, Raziel will order pizza, watch the WWF on TV, and aspire to become Spider-Man.

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung-fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes -- whose considerable charms fall to Biff to sample, since Josh is forbidden the pleasures of the flesh. (There are worse things than having a best friend who is chaste and a chick magnet!) And, of course, there is danger at every turn, since a young man struggling to understand his godhood, who is incapable of violence or telling anything less than the truth, is certain to piss some people off. Luckily Biff is a whiz at lying and cheating -- which helps get his divine pal and him out of more than one jam. And while Josh's great deeds and mission of peace will ultimately change the world, Biff is no slouch himself, blessing humanity with enduring contributions of his own, like sarcasm and café latte. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more -- except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala -- and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

Lamb is the crowning achievement of Christopher Moore's storied career: fresh, wild, audacious, divinely hilarious, yet heartfelt, poignant, and alive, with a surprising reverence. Let there be rejoicing unto the world! Christopher Moore is come -- to bring truth, light, and big yuks to fans old and new with the Greatest Story Never Told!