In this, his debut book, Chuck Palahniuk distinguished himself as the most forward-thinking satirist of his generation. The estranged narrator of Fight Club quits his menial work after being enamored with Tyler Durden, a mysterious young guy who hosts covert boxing contests after-hours in the cellars of clubs. Two men there engage in combat for “as long as they have to.” This brilliantly creative work reveals the horror at the heart of our contemporary civilization.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
“I don’t want to die without any scars.”
“This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.”
“You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.”
“Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you.”
The controversial masterwork Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. has sparked more discussion than most books. This Penguin Modern Classics edition features an introduction by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh.
Last Exit to Brooklyn portrays the experiences of New Yorkers. They constantly deal with the darkest excesses of human nature and have been characterized by various reviewers as hellish and obscene. But even in these tumultuous lives, there are exquisitely lovely moments. These fascinating characters include Harry, the strike leader who hides his actual wants behind a sexist macho, Tralala, the cunning prostitute who explores the depths of sexual depravity, and Georgette, the transsexual who falls in love with a heartless hoodlum.
British courts outlawed Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1967, but that ruling was overturned the following year with the assistance of several authors and critics, including Anthony Burgess and Frank Kermode. It was the focus of an obscenity trial in the UK in 1966. The Room, The Demon, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree, and Waiting Period are some of his other books. Requiem for a Dream was turned into a movie in 2000 by Darren Aronofsky, starring Jared Leto and Ellen Burstyn.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“In the winter everyones hate was bare if you looked. She saw hate in the icicles that hung from her window; she saw it in the dirty slush on the streets; she heard it in the hail that scratched her window and bit her face; she could see it in the lowered heads hurrying to warm homes …”
“The bodies went back in the doors and bars and the heads in the windows. The cops drove away and Freddy and the guys went back into the Greeks and the street was quiet, just the sound of a tug and an occasional car; and even the blood couldn’t be seen from a few feet away.”
“high spirits and overflowing joy making the absence of love known.”
“But it was a bike and it moved. I think that sonofabitch woulda used it even if he had ta push it or pedal it like a kiddy car. So he kicks it over after 5 minutes and we listen to it cough and miss and Spook went puttin off with a shiteatin grin on his face and we went back up stairs and a few minutes later he comes back. Smilin all over the goddamn place and the strap of his hat under his chin. I tellya man, it was a pissa.”
“I read so many different writers at the same time I did not have to work off any influences. Also, never having gone to school I didnt have to unlearn all the lies a person can learn in school about how you should write. I was unaware of the ‘rules of writing’ as proclaimed by individuals who had never written an original line in their lives. Fortunately, I had no recourse but to find my own way.”
In Brooklyn, New York, Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928–2004) was born. He left school at the age of fifteen and joined the merchant marines. His lung condition was discovered while he was at sea. Since he had no other means of support, he decided to try his hand at writing: “I knew the alphabet. I might be able to write. His debut work, Last Exit to Brooklyn, which was published in 1964, has since gained cult status.
Animal Farm, a satirical allegorical novella by George Orwell about a farm, was first released in England on August 17, 1945. It depicts the tale of a band of farm animals who rise up to confront their man farmer in an effort to establish an animal-friendly society.
Animals that have been abused and overworked on a farm take over. They went out to construct a paradise of advancement, fairness, and equality with fiery idealism and passionate slogans. The setting is therefore set for one of the most incisive satiric tales ever written—a sharp-edged fairy tale for adults that charts the progression from the revolt against oppression to totalitarianism that is just as dreadful. As Animal Farm was initially published, it was thought to be directed toward Stalinist Russia. Today, it is glaringly obvious that George Orwell’s masterpiece has a meaning and a message that are still fiercely relevant wherever and whenever liberty is attacked, regardless of the cause.
Candace Chen is a routine-obsessed millennial drone who works alone in a Manhattan office building. So when a pestilence of biblical proportions sweeps New York, she hardly notices it. Shen Fever then spreads. Families run away. Businesses cease operations. The metro stops abruptly. As the fictitious blogger NY Ghost, she soon finds herself completely alone and unfevered as she captures the creepy, deserted metropolis.
But Candace won’t be able to survive by herself indefinitely. Here come the survivors, led by the ferocious IT specialist Bob. They are headed to a location known as the Facility, where Bob assures them that they will have everything they need to rebuild society. But Candace has a secret that she is certain Bob would use against her. Does she need to flee from her rescuers? Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-age story and satire that mocks and critiques the rituals, routines, and lost possibilities of modern life.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“A second chance doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. In many ways, it is the more difficult thing. Because a second chance means that you have to try harder. You must rise to the challenge without the blind optimism of ignorance.”
“The past is a black hole, cut into the present day like a wound, and if you come too close, you can get sucked in. You have to keep moving.”
“The first place you live alone, away from your family, he said, is the first place you become a person, the first place you become yourself.”
“I have always lived in the myth of New York more than in its reality.”
“It was the anonymity. He wanted to be unknown, unpossessed by others’ knowledge of him. That was freedom.”
Slaughterhouse-Five, a famous American novel and one of the greatest antiwar works ever written, was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time. Billy Pilgrim’s trip through time, which is centered on the horrific firebombing of Dresden, symbolizes the epic journey of our own fragmented lives as we look for meaning in the things we fear the most.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”
“And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”
“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.”
In spite of being published 50 years ago, Catch-22 is still regarded as a classic of American literature and one of the funniest books of all time. In recent years, Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer have all included it on their lists of “great novels.”
This is the tale of the legendary, whiny bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is enraged because thousands of people he has never seen are trying to murder him. It takes place in Italy during World War II. However, his army, which continually raises the number of sorties the troops must fly to finish their duty, is his actual issue, not the adversary.
Yossarian will be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule if he makes any attempt to excuse himself from the dangerous missions he has been assigned. A man is considered insane if he continues to fly risky combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be relieved of duty, he is proven sane and is therefore ineligible to be relieved.
A new introduction by Christopher Buckley, several critical essays and reviews by authors including Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others, as well as unique documents and images from Joseph Heller’s personal archive are all included in this edition’s commemorative 50th anniversary. The ultimate edition of a piece of world literature is finally available.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.”
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
“It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.”
“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”
“He knew everything there was to know about literature, except how to enjoy it”
The focus of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is on the juvenile exploits of the book’s schoolboy protagonist, Thomas Sawyer, who is known for causing trouble and strife. Tom resides in the charming Mississippi River port town of St. Petersburg with his aunt Polly, half-brother Sid, and cousin Mary. St. Petersburg is regarded as having a typical small-town feel, with a strong Christian presence, a tight-knit social network, and a sense of familiarity.
In contrast to his brother Sid, Tom gets “lickings” from his Aunt Polly. Always up to mischief, Tom prefers to skip school and frequently climbs out of his bedroom window at night to go on adventures with his friend Huckleberry Finn, the town’s social pariah. Sid is such a “tattle-tale,” while Tom, despite his dislike of school, is incredibly intelligent and would typically get away with his tricks.
Aunt Polly gives Tom the task of painting the fence around the home as retribution for skipping school to go swimming. Tom has a cunning plan to trick the local lads into doing the work for him, persuading them of the benefits of whitewashing. Tom is just as flamboyant at school, where he draws attention by yelling, running around, and chasing other boys. Tom uses his customary antics to try to pique the interest of Becky Thatcher, a newcomer to the area, and convince her to get “engaged” by kissing him.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it”
“Ah, if he could only die temporarily!”
“Huck was always willing to take a hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no capital, for he had a troublesome super-abundance of that sort of time which is not money.”
“Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene”
“They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.”
Unimaginably near to wiping humanity was the Zombie War. Max Brooks traveled across the United States of America and around the world, from completely destroyed cities that once mingled with upwards of thirty million souls to the most distant and uninhabitable parts of the planet, pushed by the urgency of conserving the acid-etched first-hand life experience of the survivors from those apocalyptic years. He preserved the testimonies of men, women, and occasionally children who had direct encounters with the living hell of that terrible era, or at the very least, the undead. World War Z is what happens. We have never before had access to a text that so effectively captures the magnitude of terror and fear, as well as the unbreakable spirit of resistance, that engulfed human society during the plague years.
Most importantly, the book vividly conveys the human aspect of this historic event. The reader must have some bravery to confront the frequently shocking and vibrant nature of these personal accounts, but the effort is priceless because, as Mr. Brooks states in his introduction, “We run the risk of developing a personal separation from history that, God forbid, could cause us to repeat it in the future if we ignore the human element. And ultimately, isn’t the only real distinction between ourselves and the foe we now refer to as “the living dead” the human element?”
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.”
“Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they’re used.”
“The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts”
“There’s a word for that kind of lie. Hope.”
“I don’t know if great times make great men, but I know they can kill them.”
The medical school dropout Victor Mancini is an anti-hero for our crazy times. Victor has come up with a clever scam to raise money for his mother’s elder care in posh restaurants by pretending to choke on food. Then he lets himself be “rescue” by other customers who, feeling responsible for Victor’s survival, write checks to help him out.
When he’s not conducting this prank, Victor sees his insane mother, cruises to sexual addiction treatment programs seeking action, and spends his days at a colonial theme park. Chuck Palahniuk, the celebrated author of timeless works like Fight Club, is the visionary and satirist we need today.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”
“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better.”
“More and more, it feels like I’m doing a really bad impersonation of myself.”
“I feel my heart ache, but I’ve forgotten what that feeling means.”
“Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.”
A massive, mind-bending tragi-comedy about the American pursuit of happiness. Infinite Jest explores fundamental questions about what amusement is and why it has come to dominate our lives, about how our urge for entertainment affects our need to connect with others, and about what the delights we choose say about who we are. It is set in an addicts’ halfway house and a tennis academy and features the most endearingly screwed-up family to appear in recent fiction.
Infinite Jest breaks every rule of fiction without ever compromising its inherent entertainment value. It is equal measures of philosophical quest and screwball humor. It is one of those old books that renews the notion of what a novel may do. It is an enthusiastic, distinctly American study of the feelings that make us human.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
“I do things like get in a taxi and say, “The library, and step on it.”
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”
“It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know.”
Bret Easton Ellis wrote a book titled American Psycho, which was released in 1991. Patrick Bateman, a serial killer and Manhattan investment banker, tells the tale in the first person.
The 26-year-old Wall Street employee Patrick Bateman is attractive, sartorial, endearing, and smart. He is a psychopath as well. American Psycho is a grim, nasty, black comedy about a reality we all identify with but do not want to face, bringing us face-to-face with the American great dream—and its worst nightmare.