The Best of Saki

1. The Best of Saki The short stories of Saki give brief but dazzling glimpses into the lives of the Edwardian rich - a class that virtually disappeared with the advent of the First World War.These 37 stories have been chosen from the complete omnibus volume of Saki's short stories published between 1904 and 1923. The stories are taken from: "Reginald" (1904), "Reginald in Russia" (1910), "The Chronicles of Clovis" (1911), "Beasts and Super Beasts" (1914) and "The Toys of Peace" (1923).

2. Plainsong – Kent Haruf "Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground."

3. Death of a salesman – Arthur Miller Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine, Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial. He has given us a figure whose name has become a symbol for a kind of majestic grandiosity—and a play that compresses epic extremsof humor and anguish, promise and loss, between the four walls of an American living room.

4. Silas Marner – George Eliot Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot's favourite of her novels, combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life.

5. A Modern Comedy - John Galsworthy Society scandals and conflicting loyaties – a new generation divides the Forsyte family… Soames Forsyte was a member of the board of the Providential Premium Reassurance Society. Against his better judgment, the society had invested much of its holdings in foreign securities. Because the European exchange was so unstable, Soames insisted that the report to the stockholders be detailed. Not long afterward, Butterfield, a clerk in the P.P.R.S. office, overheard a conversation between Elderson, the manager, and a German. The German insisted that Elderson, who had received commissions on the society’s investments in Germany, should see to it that the board...

6. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be… The haunting intensity of Catherine Earnshaw's attachment to Heatchcliff is the focus of this novel in which relations between men and women are described with an emotional and imaginative power unparalleled in English fiction.

7. The Complete Shorter Fiction - Anthony Trollope This first single-volume collection of Trollope's short fiction makes available many stories that have long been out of print. Stories are arranged in order of composition, and Thompson provides a brief introduction as well as publication histories. Trollope was a better novelist than short story writer. Still, readers will not be disappointed in the quality of the stories, which generally evidence the same wonderful style and eye for detail as the novels, only on a smaller scale. Essential for libraries that do not already have these 42 stories in other formats, although they should know that notes are not provided.

8. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë When the young Agnes Grey takes up her first post as governess she is full of hope; she believes she only has to remember 'myself at their age' to win her pupils' love and trust. Instead she finds the young children she has to deal with completely unmanageable. They are, as she observes to her mother, 'unimpressible, incomprehensible creatures'. In writing her first novel, Anne Brontë drew on her own experiences, and one can trace in the work many of the trials of the Victorian governess, often stranded far from home, and treated with little respect by her employers, yet expected to control and educate her young charges. Agnes Grey looks at childhood from nursery to adolescence, and it also charts the frustrations of romantic love, as Agnes starts to nurse warmer feelings towards the local curate, Mr Weston. The novel combines astute dissection of middle-class social behaviour and class attitudes with a wonderful study of Victorian responses to young children which has parallels with debates about education that continue to this day.

9. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

10. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë Ranked as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction, this title portrays the heroine, who although poor and of plain appearance, possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order.

11. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens David Copperfield is the story of a young man’s adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr. Murdstone; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature’s great comic creations. In David Copperfield—the novel he described as his “favorite child”—Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of his most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure.

12. Dictionary of Proverbs Compiled from G.L. Apperson's original and painstaking research of nearly three thousand works dating as far back as the twelfth century and earlier, and built upon the foundations of the great Oxford English Dictionary, the Dictionary of Proverbs traces the origins and history of English proverbs and proverbial phrases. The original author has avoided the purely aphoristic and moral, which have little claim to proverbial use, and has codified this notoriously verbal rather than literary form in a way which earned the gratitude of the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. The proverbs are grouped alphabetically and by subject, with copious cross-references throughout, rendering the dictionary as great a joy to consult as it is to browse through. This new edition includes over 500 new entries covering new examples, such as The customer is always right, There's no such thing as a free lunch, If it ain't broke, don't fix it, Life is too short to stuff a mushroom, and The family that prays together, stays together.

13. Príncipe – Ib Michael Con esta novela se da a conocer por primera vez en castellano la particular voz y maestría narrativa de uno de los autores más aclamados de Dinamarca. Poseedor de un estilo sugerente e hipnótico, Ib Michael transporta al lector, de la mano de «otro» príncipe danés, a las brumosas playas escandinavas con una historia que es tanto una deliciosa novela de iniciación como un relato de aristas fantasmagóricas, evocador de los ambientes creados por Isak Dinesen o Peter Hoeg. Aclamada por la crítica en los diez países en que ha sido publicada, Príncipe es la mejor introducción a un autor que no duda en utilizar todos los recursos narrativos de la novela para ahondar en los componentes míticos del alma humana.

14. Payasos de HospitalLía Jaluff – María Eugenia Panizza Este libro es una recopilación de experiencias, conceptos y reflexiones que están dando vueltas en torno al tema del Payaso de Hospital. Un payaso que sale del circo y del teatro, y se mete en las calles, en los corredores y en las salas. Camina entre los enfermos, sus familias, juega con el personal que allí se encuentra. Agarra una cortina, y sueña que son nubes; una silla de ruedas, un avión; un teléfono, una sofisticada herramienta de comunicación interplanetaria. Pero éste no es un libro sólo dedicado al Payaso de Hospital. Está dedicado a todo aquel que crea que puede enriquecer sus prácticas con el humor, la alegría, el juego y la imaginación. A todo aquel que quiera saber qué hay detrás de estas historias, y estas herramientas.

15. El Viaje del Beagle Espacial – A. E. van Vogt El Viaje del Beagle Espacial es uno de los grandes clásicos de la ciencia ficción, origen de la película Alien de Ridley Scott. En un futuro lejano, imitando la travesía del bergantín Beagle que en el siglo XIX permitió a Charles Darwin hacer sus famosos descubrimientos sobre la evolución, un navío espacial cargado de científicos terrestres recorre la galaxia estudiando extrañas y misteriosas formas de vida.

16. La Isla de Odín – Janne Teller Mientras conduce por una peligrosa carretera en invierno, la joven SigbritHolland no puede ni remotamente sospechar el vuelco que su vida va a dar. A punto de atropellar a un hombre, Sigbrit se baja del coche y descubre a un curioso personaje, de apenas un metro de altura, al borde de la muerte por congelación. Cuando lo lleva al hospital, la joven protagonista cree haber zanjado el problema. Pero aquel hombrecillo resulta ser ni más ni menos que Odín, el rey de los dioses de la mitología escandinava que pronto será aclamado como un nuevo mesías por distintos grupos religiosos, cuando lo único que pretende es volver a su casa.

17. La fiesta del chivo – Mario Vargas LLosa En La Fiesta del Chivo asistimos a un doble retorno. Mientras Urania Cabral visita a su padre en Santo Domingo, volvemos a 1961, cuando la capital dominicana aún se llamaba Ciudad Trujillo. Allí un hombres que no suda tiraniza a tres millones de personas sin saber que se gesta una maquiavélica transición a la democracia. Vargas Llosa, un clásico contemporáneo, relata el fin de una era dando voz, entre otros personajes históricos, al impecable e implacable general Trujillo, apodado el Chivo, y al sosegado y hábil doctor Balaguer (sempiterno presidente de la República Dominicana).

18. LOS ESPERAMOS !!!