Classics/Literary Award Winners

The Aeneid translated by Allen Mandelbaum (PLEASE NOTE TRANSLATION)

This national epic of the founding of Rome begins with the wanderings of Aeneas and his band of exiles after the fall of Troy. The second part tells of the wars and struggles in Italy to found a new nation. The poet Virgil explores the themes of destiny, leadership, and devotion to family, country, and gods.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Set among the first families and old order of New York, this is the story of Newland Archer, a young man who falls impossibly in love with the cousin of his fiancée. This sumptuous novel shows wealth and illicit passion, cultural rigidity and the advent of modern open-mindedness. It is a welcome window into the world of old New York.

Anna Karenina--Tolstoy

Although married to a powerful government official, the beautiful Anna falls in love with another man. In a shocking transgression of the code of nineteenth-century Russian society, Anna leaves her husband and son to live with her lover.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

This one is very long, but very thought provoking and may change your way of thinking about economics and the world. The novel focuses on a fictional company’s struggle to survive in a world with increasing governmental restrictions. It challenges the reader to question what is noble and right and to examine the successes and failures of current economic and political systems.

The Awakening and Selected Stories by Kate Chopin

Originally published in 1899, The Awakening is a stirring account of a woman’s growing awareness of her own needs and desires. A pivotal work in the emergence of a woman’s voice in American fiction, it is a classic a century later because it deals with issues that are still difficult for women today. Of the short stories, “A Story of an Hour” is a startling one that you’ll never forget.

Black Boy by Richard Wright

This autobiography, published in 1945, gives graphic and sometimes horrifying details of Richard Wright’s childhood and youth in the Jim Crow South.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

In a series of letters to God and her sister Nettie, Celie reveals why she is a survivor. A contemporary classic, this novel focuses on the tensions between men and women as well as blacks and whites.

Don Quixote--Cervantes Although written over four hundred years ago, this Spanish classic still has enormous appeal. It is the story of a charming gentleman who is so obsessed with tales of knightly chivalry that he sets out to find dragons to slay and lovely damsels to defend. Although his companion, the practical Sancho Panza, knows full well that Quixote’s quest is but a fantasy, he faithfully accompanies his lord on his grand adventure.

Emma by Jane Austen

A young woman of wealth and social status, Emma can be admired for her wit, generosity, and compassion. However, her propensity for playing matchmaker creates a series of sometimes serious, sometimes comic complications.

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe This is the classic tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand The protagonist is an unconventional architect whose ideology and architectural vision run contrary to the society in which he lives. The woman who loves him is one of his harshest critics. A fascinating statement on social standards, integrity, and rebellion, the novel has sparked much debate since its appearance in 1943.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (Nobel Prize Winner)

An American professor of Spanish, Robert Jordan leaves the safety and security of his teaching job for the Spanish Civil War. He volunteers his services and his expertise with explosives to a group of guerillas, who are holding out against the fascists in the mountains of Spain. The book has everything one could hope for in a novel--adventure, intrigue, insight into human nature, and one of the most famous love stories in American literature.

Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien (National Book Award Winner)

The junior-year English anthology contains an excerpt from Tim O’Brien’s Going after Cacciato called “Night March.” In this chapter, Paul Berlin, recently drafted into the Vietnam War, tries to escape the war through mind games. But the novel begins with a more ambitious escape as Cacciato, the moon-faced soldier, goes AWOL, planning on walking to Paris. His platoon follows in chase. Much of the novel, however, takes place in the Observation Post, where Paul tries to piece together the chronology of his first few months in Vietnam. Philip Calputo calls it “the best novel about the Vietnam War.”

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize Winner) In this collection of loosely related stories, Lahiri depicts Indian-Americans struggling with their connections to their Indian heritage. Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for her artful and poignant rendering of the struggles of walking in two cultural worlds. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (National Book Award Winner)

We rely, in this world, on the visual aspects of humanity as a means of learning who we are. This, Ralph Ellison argues convincingly, is a dangerous habit. Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists in a very peculiar state. "I am an invisible man," he says in his prologue.

Ironweed by William Kennedy (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, William Kennedy presents somewhat unsavory characters--street people--in a compassionate, even edifying fashion. Although the setting is 1938 Albany, New York, these characters could be the homeless of Dallas. While Francis, an ex-ballplayer, and Helen, a once-promising singer, at times raise themselves above their mean environment, one cannot readily view them in heroic terms. Perhaps our empathy and awe are over their survival--their ironweed toughness--rather than their losses and gains.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Set in Manchester County, Virginia, twenty years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. The drive represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even foolhardy adventure, but part of the American Dream -- the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. A love story, an adventure, an American epic, the book embraces the entire West--legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, prostitutes and ladies, Indians and settlers.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Nobel Prize Winner) Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, this is a remarkable story of the different kinds of love that we experience at different ages and in different kinds of relationships. While the many subplots and Marquez’s fantastical style may provide a challenge for some readers, the journey is well worth the effort.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

In 1957 with the publication of On the Road, Jack Kerouac became a celebrity and a spokesman for the “Beat Generation,” youth who were dissatisfied with the middle-class values and conformity of the 1950s. Looking for extraordinary experiences, the narrator of this picaresque novel sets out to hitchhike across the country. Kerouac parallels romantic aspirations -- his American dream -- to the realism of the road.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

This is a sometimes humorous but basically grim story about the beating down of a nonconformist. Set in a state mental hospital, it focuses on the power struggle between a rigid, authoritarian head nurse (the Big Nurse) and a loud, hard-living con-man named Randall Patrick McMurphy, who contrives to get himself committed to the hospital in order to escape the drudgery of a work farm. Told through the eyes of Bromden, a giant American-Indian inmate, Cuckoo’s Nest will especially appeal to the more mature students.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Nobel Prize Winner)

It is rare that a novel emerges and is instantly given the status of myth. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the Buenida family, but the novel is more than a family chronicle. There is an element of mystical timelessness and the beauty of the land that belongs to its setting in Colombia. The New York Times said of this work, “You emerge from this marvelous novel as if from a dream, the mind on fire. . . .”

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx Ex Libris selection (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Written by the 1994 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1983 National Book Award for Fiction, The Shipping News is set in Newfoundland, where Mrs. Proulx lives. It is the story of a newspaperman, age 36, who has to take over the raising of his two daughters when their mother meets a violent end. He takes a job writing the shipping news for a local newspaper, and his job and his life grow as he confronts the forces of nature and society. This book has elements of tragedy, comedy, and magic that will captivate the reader.

Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr (National Book Award Winner)

Two Americans, the only foreigners in Ibarra, Mexico, live among people who both respect and misunderstand them. Gradually, the villagers--at first enigmas to the Evertons--come to teach them much about life and the relentless tide of fate.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Streetcar, for which Williams won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, was one of the most admired plays of its time and continues as a masterpiece of modern American theater. This harsh story of neurosis, love, and abuse is appropriately set in the heat of New Orleans.

A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Peter Taylor’s title accurately describes its straightforward plot: spinster sisters summon their middle-aged brother home in order to save the family pride and fortune. As Taylor explores the dynamics of this rather ordinary family, the son (and the reader) gradually obtain understanding about why families evolve as they do.

Waiting by Ha Jin (National Book Award Winner) This is the story of Lin Kong, an officer and doctor living in China during the mid-1960s. The young Kong had followed the wishes of his parents, dutifully entering into an arranged marriage and having a daughter. When circumstances dictated by the Communist party require him to live apart from his family for long periods of time, Kong falls in love with a nursing student in the hospital where he works. After waiting eighteen years to obtain a divorce from his wife, Kong finds the love of his life within reach. Will the reality of his beloved match the dream of waiting?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee

George and Martha, a middle-age couple, drink and quarrel one evening in the company of a younger couple. This play, published and produced in 1962, focuses on a long, painful night of games and confrontations from which the secrets of all four characters surface.