As the saying goes, good things come in small packages, and giving someone a book can be a good thing that lasts long after the wrapping paper has been put into the recycling bin. Below, our staff shares eight books they’ve received, and the lasting impact those thoughtful gifts have had on their lives. Make memories, give books.
This smart and thought-provoking story focuses on Madeleine Hanna, an English major obsessed with Austen and Eliot and their use of the “marriage plot” device in literature. As she studies the classics, her love life becomes complicated when her old friend Mitchell Grammaticus and the intense intellectual Leonard Bankhead compete for her affections.
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Some consider it “the great American novel.” The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his powerful love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale that has been essential reading since it was published.
Read the full review here.
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“Nothing I have ever read about the writing life has moved or inspired me more. Whether or not you are a King fan, whether you are a professional writer or have never written a word, this is essential reading on the art of writing and the art of life.”
Cormac McCarthy's masterwork, Blood Meridian, chronicles the brutal world of the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the mid-nineteenth century. Its wounded hero, the teenage Kid, must confront the extraordinary violence of the Glanton gang, a murderous cadre on an official mission to scalp Indians. Judge Holden, a supremely violent and perverted man who rides with the Glanton gang, is an avid naturalist and, of course, butterfly collector.
