Other books that might interest you

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  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor

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  First published in 1884, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece of world literature. Garrison Keillor's adaptation approaches this classic with the respect and affection it deserves. 
  A Grammy Nominee. 
   Narrated by Huck himself in his artless vernacular, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tells of Huck's voyage down the Mississippi with a runaway slave named Jim. As the two journey downstream on a raft, Huck's vivid descriptions capture the sights, smells, sounds, and rhythms of life on the great river. As they encounter traveling actors, con men, lynch mobs, thieves, and Southern gentility, his shrewd comments reveal the dark side of human nature. By the end of the story, Huck has learned about the dignity and worth of human life—and Twain has exposed the moral blindness of the "respectable" slave-holding society in which he lives. Huckleberry Finn was Twain's greatest creation.  
   "This is an abridgement of Mark Twain's book, keeping the parts I loved as a boy—Huck's story, the big river at night, the boasting of the raftsmen, the Duke and the Dauphin, the lynching, the feud—and lopping off the last third of the book, where Tom Sawyer comes in and makes a big production of freeing Jim. I had Huck free him instead. If you enjoy the reading, I am sure Mr. Twain will forgive me." —Garrison Keillor

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  God's Little Acre - A Novel

  Erskine Caldwell

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  In the Depression-era Deep South, a destitute farmer struggles to raise a family on his own: The bestselling classic by the author of Tobacco Road.   Single father and poor Southern farmer Ty Ty Walden has a plan to save his farm and his family: He will tear his fields apart until he finds gold. While Ty Ty obsesses over his fool’s quest, his sons and daughters search in vain for their own dreams of instant happiness—whether from money, violence, or sex. God’s Little Acre is a classic dark comedy, a satire that lampoons a broken South while holding a light to the toll that poverty takes on the hopes and dreams of the poor themselves. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library.

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  Father Goriot

  Honoré de Balzac

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  'Pere Goriot' is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat, Rastignac, come to Paris from the provinces to make his fortune, who befriends Goriot and becomes involved with the daughters. The story is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for money.

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  The Call of the Wild

  Jack London

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  "The Call of the Wild" is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush - a period in which strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara Valley of California as the story opens.
   
  Stolen from his home and sold into service as sled dog in Alaska, he reverts to a wild state. Buck is forced to fight in order to dominate other dogs in a harsh climate. Eventually he sheds the veneer of civilization, relying on primordial instincts and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.
   
  The terrible, never relenting work of pulling sleds in sub-freezing temperatures combined with little food and rest quickly killed any dog not extremely tough. It almost kills Buck but his fierce determination to survive finally brings him through. London lived for most of a year in the Yukon collecting material for the book.

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  The Adventure of the Italian...

  Agatha Christie

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  In Agatha Christie’s short story, “The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman,” Poirot and Hastings investigate the suspicious death of Count Foscatini in his apartment in Regent’s Court. Found dead at the dinner table, with three empty dinner plates, suspicion is immediately placed on his two dinner guests. But is there more to the story? This short story originally appeared in the October 24, 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.

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  Whose Names Are Unknown

  Sanora Babb

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  Sanora Babb' s long-hidden novel  Whose Names Are Unknown  tells an intimate story of the High Plains farmers who fled drought dust storms during the Great Depression. Written with empathy for the farmers'  plight, this powerful narrative is based upon the author' s firsthand experience. This clear-eyed and unsentimental story centers on the fictional Dunne family as they struggle to survive and endure while never losing faith in themselves. In the Oklahoma Panhandle, Milt, Julia, their two little girls, and Milt' s father, Konkie, share a life of cramped circumstances in a one-room dugout with never enough to eat. Yet buried in the drudgery of their everyday life are aspirations, failed dreams, and fleeting moments of hope. The land is their dream. The Duanne family and the farmers around them fight desperately for the land they love, but the droughts of the thirties force them to abandon their fields. When they join the exodus to the irrigated valleys of California, they discover not the promised land, but an abusive labor system arrayed against destitute immigrants. The system labels all farmers like them as worthless " Okies"  and earmarks them for beatings and worse when hardworking men and women, such as Milt and Julia, object to wages so low they can' t possibly feed their children. The informal communal relations these dryland farmers knew on the High Plains gradually coalesce into a shared determination to resist. Realizing that a unified community is their best hope for survival, the Dunnes join with their fellow workers and begin the struggle to improve migrant working conditions through democratic organization and collective protest.

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