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Fiction, Modern Classics, Twilight books

Modern Classics are the must-read books of the 20th Century, including cult fiction, banned books, prize winners and timeless classics.Modern Classic books are seen by literary critics as important members of the Western canon, though many titles are translated or of non-western origin.The Western canon is a term used to denote a canon of books, and, more widely, music and art, that has been the most influential in shaping Western culture.

Modern book Classic Australian Cloudstreet Winton new

CLOUDSTREET by TIM WINTON See other Fiction and Modern Classics at The Bookshelf of Oz click here New softcover book 434 pages. Published 2007 Two rural families - the Pickles and the Lambs - flee to the city after separate catastrophes. They find themselves sharing a great breathing shuddering joint called Cloudstreet where they begin their lives again from scratch - and for twenty years they roister and rankle laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts. Cloudstreet chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street over a period of twenty years 1943 - 1963. Precipitated by separate personal traged more.....
World New softcover book Huxley Brave new

BRAVE NEW WORLD by ALDOUS HUXLEY See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 259 pages plus extras - interviews features About the Author About the Book Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley. Set in the London of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book) the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology biological engineering and sleep-learning that combine to change society. Brave New World is the story of a futuristic World State where all emotion love art and human individuality have been replaced by social stability. An ominous warning to the world's population this literary classic is a must-read. Far in the future the World Controller more information.....
Plath softcover Sylvia Jar

THE BELL JAR by SYLVIA PLATH See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 224 pages plus 22 pages of extras including interviews features and recommended reading. The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant beautiful enormously talented and successful but slowly going under - maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a extra info.....
Kerouac hardcover OnRoad book new

Untitled Document ON THE ROAD The Original Scroll by JACK KEROUAC To see other Modern Classics - click here New hardcover book with dustjacket published 2007 408 pages. Edited and introduced by Howard Cunnell On the Road: The Original Scroll is the first ever publication of Kerouac's original draft for the book - transcribed from the famous 'scroll': hundreds of typed pages which constitute the manuscript taped together by Kerouac himself. Kerouac's quintessential novel of America and the Beat Generation. On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" extra info.....
new

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by HARPER LEE See other Modern Classics click here New softcover book 281pages. Mass market paperback version published by Grand Central Publishing "Shoot all the bluejays you want if you can hit 'em but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice violence and hypocrisy is p more here.....
softcover Lee To

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by HARPER LEE See other Modern Classics click here New softcover book 323 pages. Published by HarperPerennial Modern Classics in 2002 "Shoot all the bluejays you want if you can hit 'em but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the find out more.....
new Four Eighty softcover book George Nineteen Orwell

1984 NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR by GEORGE ORWELL See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 333 pages with an afterword by Erich Fromm written 1961 Nineteen Eighty-Four - 1984 - by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) is a 1949 English novel about life under a futuristic authoritarian regime in the year 1984. It tells the story of Winston Smith a functionary at the Ministry of Truth whose work consists of editing historical accounts to fit the government's policies. Smith is degraded and psychologically tortured after he is arrested by the Thought Police under the instruction of the totalitarian government of Oceania. The book has major significance for its vi more details.....
new OnRoad

Untitled Document ON THE ROAD by JACK KEROUAC To see other Modern Classics - click here New softcover book 286 pages. Penguin Classic edition. Kerouac's quintessential novel of America and the Beat Generation. On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty " the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America his compassion for humanity and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Kerouac’s classic novel of freed more information.....
Clockwork book Orange

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by ANTHONY BURGESS See other Fiction and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 214 pages. Fifteen-year-old Alex doesn't just like ultra-violence - he also enjoys rape drugs and Beethoven's 9th. He and his gang rampage through a dystopian future hunting for terrible thrills. But when Alex finds himself at the mercy of the state and subject to the ministrations of Dr Brodsky the government psychologist he finds that fun is no longer the order of the day... The basis for one of the most notorious films ever made A Clockwork Orange is both a virtuoso performance from an electrifying prose stylist and a serious exploration of the morality of free will. A vicious fiftee more.....
IN COLD BLOOD by TRUMAN CAPOTE See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 343 pages. On November 15 1959 in the small town of Holcomb Kansas four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture trial and execution of the killers he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence. In Cold Blood details the 1959 slaying more here.....
Slaughterhouse new Kurt Vonnegut softcover

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by KURT VONNEGUT See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 216 pages. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death was written in 1969. One of Kurt Vonnegut's most popular works and widely regarded as a classic it combines science fiction elements with an analysis of the human condition from an uncommon perspective using time travel as a plot device. The bombing of Dresden in World War II the aftermath of which Vonnegut witnessed is the starting point. Slaughterhouse-Five spans the life of a man who has "come unstuck in time." It is the story of Billy Pilgrim experiencing different time periods of his life most find out more.....
new Tiffany's at Capote softcover Truman book stories short

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S A short novel and three stories by TRUMAN CAPOTE See other novels and modern classics click here New softcover book. 180 pages. This volume includes three of Capote's best-known stories House of Flowers A Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory in addition to his bestselling novel Breakfast at Tiffany's the popular story of Holly Golightly -- "a cross between Lolita and Auntie Mame". The heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly became one of Capote's best-known creations and the book's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation." Holly Golightly is generally up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She more here.....
softcover Salinger JD inRye Catcher

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. SALINGER New softcover book. 214 pages. Ever since it was first published in 1951 this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by generations the story of Holden Caulfield is truly one of America's literary treasures. The Catcher in the Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth but it's relevant to all ages. The story is told by Holden Caulfield a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Throughout Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents his roommate who score more.....
Bradbury book

FAHRENHEIT 451 by RAY BRADBURY See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 196 pages 50th Anniversary Edition includes a conversation with the author. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian soft science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury. It was first published in 1953. It is a critique of what Bradbury saw as an increasingly dysfunctional American society written in the early years of the Cold War. Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an unspecified future time in a hedonistic and rabidly anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control filled with lawlessness in the streets from teenagers crashing cars into people to firemen at Montag's station who set their mechanic more.....
Farm Animal book George

ANIMAL FARM by GEORGE ORWELL See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 141 pages with a preface by Russell Baker and an introduction by C.M. Woodhouse A farm is taken over by its overworked mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans they set out to create a paradise of progress justice and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned - a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first published in 1945 Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and w more.....
Pirsig softcover Motorcycle new Zen

ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE An inquiry into values by ROBERT M PIRSIG See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 540 pages published 2006. This lyrical evocative thought-provoking journal of a man's quest for truth - and for himself - has touched and changed an entire generation. At its heart the story is all too simple: a man and his son take a lengthy motorcycle trip through America. But this is not a simple trip at all for around every corner through mountain and desert wind and rain and searing heat and biting cold their pilgrimage leads them to new vistas of self-discovery and renewal. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an elemental work extra info.....
book Ask Go on horrors book anonymous Definitive drug

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous New softcover book 216 pages published 2006 It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months she was hooked trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence her youth - and ultimately her life. Read her diary .... Enter her world ... You will never forget her. For thirty-five years the acclaimed bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl's harrowing descent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful - and as time click here.....
ThroughLooking book Lewis Adventures Carroll Glass new Wonderland

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS by LEWIS CARROLL See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 204 pages with a new introduction by Martin Gardner and the original illustrations by John Tenniel Weary of her storybook one 'without pictres or conversations' the young and imaginative Alice follows a hasty hare underground - to come face-to-face with the strangest adventures and most fantastic creatures in all of literature. The Ugly Duchess the Mad Hatter the weeping Mock Turtle the diabolical Queen of Hearts the Cheshire Cat - each more eccentric than the last - could only have come from that master of sublime nonsense Lewis Carroll. In penning more details.....
new Lee Mockingbird hardcover

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by HARPER LEE The 40th Anniversary Hardcover edition of the Pulitzer Prize-Winning novel See other Modern Classics click here New hardcover book with dustjacket 323 pages. Published by HarperCollins in 1999 "Shoot all the bluejays you want if you can hit 'em but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience find out more.....
Dracula Mr tales

Frankenstein Dracula and Dr Jekyll Mr Hyde by Mary Shelley Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson with an introduction by Stephen King See other Novels and Modern Classics click here New softcover book. 736 pages. Three of the finest horror novels of all time come together in an omnibus edition that explores the dark sides of human nature in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Bram Stoker's vampire classic Dracula and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde accompanied by an introduction by horror master Stephen King. A scientist oversteps the bounds of conscience and brings to life a tortured creation. A young adventurer succumbs to the night world of a diabolic count. A man of medicine e more.....

Â Fiction is the telling of stories which aren't real. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events. Fiction may be written or oral. Although not all fiction is necessarily artistic, fiction is largely perceived as a form of art or entertainment. The ability to create fiction and other artistic works is considered to be a fundamental aspect of human culture, one of the defining characteristics of humanity. Some famous works of fiction include Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and Great Expectations.

Traditionally, fiction includes novels, short stories, fables, fairy tales, plays, and poems, but it now also encompasses films, comic books, and video games.

Types of prose fiction:

Â Â Â * Flash fiction: A work of fewer than 2,000 words. (1,000 by some definitions) (around 5 pages)
Â Â Â * Short story: A work of at least 2,000 words but under 7,500 words. (5-25 pages)
Â Â Â * Novelette: A work of at least 7,500 words but under 17,500 words. (25-60 pages)
Â Â Â * Novella: A work of at least 17,500 words but under 50,000 words. (60-170 pages)
Â Â Â * Novel: A work of 50,000 words or more. (about 170+ pages)
Â Â Â * Epic: A work of 200,000 words or more. (about 680+ pages)

Although fiction may be viewed as a form of entertainment, it has other uses. Fiction has been used for instructional purposes, such as fictional examples used in school textbooks. It may be used in propaganda and advertising. Although they are not necessarily targeted at children, fables offer an explicit moral goal.

A whole branch of literature crossing entertainment and science speculation is Science fiction. A less common similar cross is the philosophical fiction hybridizing fiction and philosophy, thereby often crossing the border towards propaganda fiction. These kinds of fictions constitute thought experiments exploring consequences of certain technologies or philosophies.