DescriptionAngela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the late '30s and in Ireland in the '40s. It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums; too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy's drinking bouts constantly brought the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently overwhelming odds. Written with the vitality and resonance of a work of fiction, and a remarkable absence of sentimentality, Angela's Ashes is imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's distinctive humour and compassion. Out of terrible circumstances, he has created a glorious book in the tradition of Ireland's literary masters, which bears all the marks of a great classic.
DescriptionBased on O. Henry's endearing tale. Once three wise men came bearing gifts. Now a light dust of snow quiets the city streets. Christmas was upon a young couple whose sharing of lives together had just begun. A gift was needed and only a dollar and eighty-seven cents had been saved. Can the joy, the dreams, the hope for the future, the burning flame of love, be adequately expressed with only a dollar and eighty-seven cents?
DescriptionRichly complex, darkly comical, and irresistibly charming. Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist is one of the greatest novels of the 19th century, from one of literature's most esteemed craftsmen. Published serially between 1837 and 1839, it secured Dickens' reputation as a writer of exceptional skill and talent. Orphaned at birth, Oliver Twist is brought up in a workhouse, sold to an undertaker, and generally ill-treated. Hoping to escape his melancholy existence, Oliver flees to London. With each step of his journey, he travels deeper into a world populated by depraved villains, wicked pickpockets, and sinister opportunists. But there is a secret to Oliver's birth that promises to change everything. A grim but vivid portrait of the Victorian era, Oliver Twist is the novel that gave voice to the world's forgotten and defenseless people.
DescriptionFrank Alpine was a penniless drifter. Whatever he tried, even robbing a little store, he bungled. Then he went to work for Morris Bober, a poor Jewish grocer, and fell in love with Helen, the grocer's beautiful, moody daughter. And Frank's life, his very soul, began to change. The powerful story of one man's path to self-renewal and conversion, The Assistant has been hailed as one of the greatest works by one of America's finest writers, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
