Alex, the protagonist, has a passion for classical music and is a member of a vicious teenage gang that commits random acts of brutality. Captured and imprisoned, he is transformed through behavioral conditioning into a model citizen, but his taming also leaves him defenseless. He ultimately reverts to his former behavior. The final chapter of the original British edition, in which Alex renounces his amoral past, was removed when the novel was first published in the United States.

Cat's Cradle, in which Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness, is one of the author's most highly praised novels. Filled with humor and unforgettable characters, this is the apocalyptic story of the end of the Earth, coupled with a vision of the future that is both darkly fantastic and funny.

Tolkien's masterpiece, and arguably the greatest fantasy work in Western literature, is a massive and complex epic simultaneously about the history of the imaginary kingdom of Middle Earth and the difficult quest of a group of adventurers as they strike out against the dark forces of Sauron, the Dark Lord.

Read by Rob Inglis.

“[Maugham’s] excessively rare gift of story-telling . . . is almost the equal of imagination itself.” –The Sunday Times (London)
“Maugham remains the consummate craftsman. . . . [His writing is] so compact, so economical, so closely motivated, so skillfully written, that it rivets attention from the first page to last.” –Saturday Review of Literature.

A Man Without a Country is Kurt Vonnegut's hilarious and razor-sharp look at life ("If I die-God forbid-I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, 'Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?'"), art ("To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."), politics ("I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq and he said, 'Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.'"), and the condition of the soul of America today ("What has happened to us?"). Gleaned from short essays and speeches composed over the last five years and plentifully illustrated with artwork by the author throughout, A Man Without a Country gives us Vonnegut both speaking out with indignation and writing tenderly to his fellow Americans, sometimes joking, at other times hopeless, always searching.

Product Details

* Hardcover: 176 pages
* Publisher: Kodansha International (August 13, 2004)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 4770029454
* ISBN-13: 978-4770029454
8.7Mb

The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos
Michael Freeman | 2007 | 192 pages | English | PDF | 25 MB