Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake), it's not exactly a surprise. Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole each, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. Why? The evil warden claims that it builds character,…
“Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,” said Mrs. Ramsay. “But you’ll have to be up with the lark,” she added. To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night’s darkness and a day’s sail, within touch. Since he…
Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interes…
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous …
Easter Deetz struggles with The Lonelya debilitating condition that affects all the women in her family. The Lonely makes people sad and it makes them lie. One day, Easter's sister drops a boulder on her in The Woods. As she bleeds to death, she's forced to face those lies with a bunch of judgmental squirrels watching. Which sucks. Praise: ""Dark and daring, this memorable debut should appeal t…
From the author who's inspired millions worldwide with books like Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most imaginative novel yet, The Time Keeper—a compelling fable about the first man on earth to count the hours. The man who became Father Time. In Mitch Albom's newest work of fiction, the inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measu…
Tale of two sisters, one of whom dies under ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages.
Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for. She is young and pretty, has plenty of attractive boyfriends, goes dancing, has a steady job, a loving family, Yet Veronika is not happy; something is lacking in her life. On the morning on November 11th, 1997, she decides to die. She takes an overdose of sleeping pills, only to wake up some time later in Villette, the local hospital. There …