Mar 082013
 

The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Fall of Arthur
By J.R.R. Tolkien
Release Date: May 23, 2013

J.R.R. Tolkien’s previously unpublished epic poem tells the story of Arthur King of Britain’s expedition overseas to distant lands, Guinevere’s flight from Camelot, the sea-battle on Arthur’s return to Britain, the traitor Mordred, and the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle. Manuscript pages show Tolkien’s plans to complete the poem and suggest connections to his other work.

Book Description:

The Fall of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skillful achievement in the use of the Old English alliterative metre, in which he brought to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful nature of all that is told: of Arthur’s expedition overseas into distant heathen lands, of Guinevere’s flight from Camelot, of the great sea-battle on Arthur’s return to Britain, in the portrait of the traitor Mordred, in the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle. Continue reading »

Jun 132012
 

Wild (Oprah's Book Club 2.0 Digital Edition): From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail [Kindle Edition]

Wild : From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
By Cheryl Strayed
Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 Digital Edition Selection #1, May 2012
Kindle Edition

Book Description:

Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: This special eBook edition of Cheryl Strayed’s national best seller,Wild,features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. (If you’ve purchased the earlier eBook or hardcover edition and want to access the extras, visit oprah.com/wildextras.) Continue reading »

Jun 122012
 

Image of A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels

A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: Two Novels
By Charles Dickens
Oprah Book Club® Selection, December 2010

Editorial Review:

About the Author
One of the grand masters of Victorian literature, Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors’ prison and the evils of child labor. Continue reading »

Jun 112012
 

Image of Freedom: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

Freedom: A Novel
By Jonathan Franzen
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 2010

Editorial Review:

Amazon Best of the Month, August 2010: “The awful thing about life is this:” says Octave to the Marquis in Renoir’s Rules of the Game. “Everyone has his reasons.” That could be a motto for novelists as well, few more so than Jonathan Franzen, who seems less concerned with creating merely likeable characters than ones who are fully alive, in all their self-justifying complexity. Freedom is his fourth novel, and, yes, his first in nine years since The Corrections. Happy to say, it’s very much a match for that great book, a wrenching, funny, and forgiving portrait of a Midwestern family (from St. Paul this time, rather than the fictional St. Jude). Continue reading »

Jun 102012
 

Image of Say You're One of Them (Oprah's Book Club)

Say You’re One of Them
By Uwem Akpan
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 2009

Book Description:

Each story in this jubilantly acclaimed collection pays testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances. Continue reading »

Jun 092012
 

Image of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (P.S.)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (P.S.)
By David Wroblewski
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 2008

Editorial Review:

Amazon Best of the Month, June 2008: It’s gutsy for a debut novelist to offer a modern take on Hamlet set in rural Wisconsin–particularly one in which the young hero, born mute, communicates with people, dogs, and the occasional ghost through his own mix of sign and body language. But David Wroblewski’s extraordinary way with language in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle immerses readers in a living, breathing world that is both fantastic and utterly believable. In selecting for temperament and a special intelligence, Edgar’s grandfather started a line of unusual dogs–the Sawtelles–and his sons carried on his work. Continue reading »

Jun 082012
 

Image of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
By Eckhart Tolle
Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2008

Book Description:

With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.” In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence. Continue reading »

Jun 072012
 

Image of The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth
By Ken Follett
Oprah Book Club® Selection, November 2007

Editorial Review:

Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through 40 years of social and political upheaval as internal church politics affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists. “Follett has written a novel that entertains, instructs and satisfies on a grand scale,” judged PW.
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May 312012
 

Image of Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

Middlesex: A Novel
By Jeffrey Eugenides
Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2007

Editorial Review:

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the “roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time.” The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory. Continue reading »

May 272012
 

Image of The Road (Oprah's Book Club)

The Road
By Cormac McCarthy
Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2007

Editorial Review:

Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as “an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century,” Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we’ve read this year, but in case you need a second (and expert) opinion, we asked Dennis Lehane, author of equally rich, occasionally bleak and brutal novels, to read it and give us his take. Read his glowing review – Click Here. –Daphne Durham Continue reading »