Atheis

The End of the Affair

Graham Greene · 217 pages

"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, of which he is the narrator. And it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous love affair with Sarah Miles - a hate bred of a passion that ultimately lost out to God. Now, a year after Sarah's death, Bendrix seeks to exor

The Last Temptation of Christ

Nikos Kazantzakis, Nikos Kazantzakes · 506 pages

Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man

U.R. Ananthamurthy yu. aar. an0tmuurti · 168 pages

The Magician of Lublin

Isaac Bashevis Singer · 246 pages

Half Jewish, half gentile, a freethinker who slips easily between worlds, Yasha has an observant Jewish wife, a gentile assistant who travels with him, and a mistress in every town. For Yasha is an escape artist, not only onstage but in life, a man who lives under the spell of his own hypnotic effect on women.

The Spire

William Golding · 224 pages

Told in a stream-of-consciousness narrative, this is a story of obsession. Against the advice of his builder, the Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, slowly dying from tuberculosis, plans the construction of a towering spire atop the cathedral as the culmination of his life’s work but becomes increasingly deranged as the construction faces constant problems due to the sheer grandiosity of the work.

Wise Blood

Flannery O'Connor · 232 pages

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his inborn, desperate fate. He falls under the spell of a "blind" street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter, Sabbath Lily. In an ironic, malicious gesture o

The Damnation of Theron Ware: Or Illumination

Harold Frederic, Stanton Garner · 352 pages

Theron Ware is a promising young Methodist pastor recently assigned to a congregation is small town in the Adirondack Mountains. His education has been limited and his experiences limited to church society and his strict enforcement of its norms. Theron has a number of experiences that cause him to begin to question the Methodist religion, his role as a minister and the existence of God. His "i

Job: The Story of a Simple Man

Joseph Roth · 238 pages

Silence

Shusaku Endo · 294 pages

An historical novel by Japanese writer Shusaku Endo telling the story of a young Portuguese missionary in 17th Century Japan. After being smuggled into the country a Jesuit missionary fresh from the seminary finds the Christian population have been forced underground by a government eager to stamp out foreign interference and values. Consequently he quickly finds himself a fugitive in a strange an

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy · 440 pages

Hardy's last work of fiction, Jude the Obscure is also one of his most gloomily fatalistic, depicting the lives of individuals who are trapped by forces beyond their control. Jude Fawley, a poor villager, wants to enter the divinity school at Christminster. Sidetracked by Arabella Donn, an earthy country girl who pretends to be pregnant by him, Jude marries her and is then deserted. He earns a liv

At Play in the Fields of the Lord

Peter Matthiessen · 373 pages

A tale of two men's experiences with a native Indian tribe in the Brazilian rain forest. Despite their separate missions, both men converge in their respect for the native culture and their zeal to protect the Indians from imminent invasion.

Viper's Tangle

Francois Mauriac · 289 pages

Father Sergius

Leo Tolstoy · 88 pages

Vers l'annee 1840, St-Petersbourg fut bouleverse par un evenement dont tous resterent stupefaits: le beau prince Kassatski, chef de l'escadron d'elite du regiment des cuirassiers, futur aide de camp de l'empereur Nicolas 1er, etait alors fiance a une haute dame de la cour, non seulement celebre pour sa beaute, mais encore en grande faveur aupres de l'Imperatrice. Soudain, un mois avant le mariage,

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce · 228 pages

Stephen Dedalus grows up in Dublin, feeling different from the other boys. His childhood and adolescence are shaped by bullying, his father's weaknesses and the growing realization that in order to make his way in the world he must reject a conventional life and boecome an artist. Penguin Popular Classics are the perfect introduction to the world-famous Penguin Classics series — which encompass

Barabbas

Par Lagerkvist · 149 pages

Barabbas, the thief, was acquitted when Christ was crucified, but he cannot put the thought of that man out of his mind. He finds himself drawn to the Christians who remain.

As a Driven Leaf

Milton Steinberg, Chaim Potok · 755 pages

Earthly Powers

Anthony Burgess · 656 pages

Anthony Burgess has long been regarded as one of the most original and daring writers of our time. In Earthly Powers, Burgess has writtena book rich with astonishing powers and surprising events.

Bless Me, Ultima

Rudolfo Anaya · 252 pages

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.

The Recognitions

William Gaddis · 956 pages

Obsessed with seventeenth-century Flemish masterpieces, Wyatt Gwyon forges original artwork amazingly faithful to the spirit and techniques of the time.

Brand

Henrik Ibsen, Geoffrey Hill · 234 pages

Contains background information about Ibsen and his work.

Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr

Miguel de Unamuno · 116 pages

The Chosen

Chaim Potok · 284 pages

It's about two jewish boys from different jewish sects with very differing doctrine. The kids meet in the unlikely circumstance of a baseball game, and a terrible accident, that leads them to be lifelong friends

The Towers of Trebizond

Rose Macaulay · 277 pages

'Take my camel, dear,' said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." So begins The Towers of Trebizond, the greatest novel by Rose Macaulay, one of the eccentric geniuses of English literature. In this fine and funny adventure set in the backlands of modern Turkey, a group of highly unusual travel companions makes its way from Istanbul to legendary Trebizond

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving · 543 pages

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany." So begins John Irving's new novel. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys - best friends - are playing ina Li