Featured Ebooks
Welcome
Our eBook display this month features our student worker's picks. This wide variety of books ranges from classic tales to horror stories. There's something for everyone's taste, so if you are looking for a new read, we highly recommend checking out our student workers' top picks.
Student Picks
The Great Gatsby Original Classic Edition
Long regarded as one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century, The Great Gatsby expresses many of the central themes of the American myth: romance, love, the quest for wealth and status, loneliness, and corruption. The novel follows Jay Gatsby, a mysterious self-made man, in his desperate quest for the love of the beguiling Daisy Buchanan--and for a place in the highest ranks of society. Gatsby's fate reflects the emptiness and disappointment that come from his search.
Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein, a visionary young student of natural philosophy, discovers the secret of life. In the grip of his obsession, he constructs a being from dead body parts and animates this creature. The results, for Victor and his family, are catastrophic. Written when Mary Shelley was just eighteen, Frankenstein was inspired by the ghost stories and vogue for Gothic literature that fascinated the Romantic writers of her time. She transformed these supernatural elements into an epic parable that warned against the threats to humanity posed by accelerating technological progress. Her novel is an iconic study of power, creativity, and, ultimately, what it is to be human.
Gothicka
The Gothic, Romanticism's gritty older sibling, has flourished in myriad permutations since the eighteenth century. In "Gothicka, " Victoria Nelson identifies the revolutionary turn it has taken in the twenty-first. Today's Gothic has fashioned its monsters into heroes and its devils into angels. It is actively reviving supernaturalism in popular culture, not as an evil dimension divorced from ordinary human existence but as part of our daily lives. To explain this millennial shift away from the traditionally dark Protestant post-Enlightenment Gothic, Nelson studies the complex arena of contemporary Gothic subgenres that take the form of novels, films, and graphic novels.
Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters need husbands, according to their mother. When Mr. Bingley, a handsome, wealthy bachelor, moves in nearby and his equally suitable friends come for visits, Mrs. Bennet's hope soars. Yet Elizabeth finds one of his friends, Mr. Darcy, arrogant and conceited. Her opinion of him worsens when she discovers he has thwarted the relationship between Mr. Bingley and her sister Jane. Romance, heartbreak, and satire weave throughout the story to show the dangers of judging by first impressions and being too prideful to follow one's heart. This is an unabridged version of Jane Austen's delightful comedy, first published in 1813 and has remained a famous English novel for more than 200 years.
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is the fictional autobiography of the title character. As a young man, Crusoe sets out from England on a disastrous sea voyage. His passion for seafaring remains undiminished and so he sets out again, only to be shipwrecked a third time. His journey takes him to Brazil where he becomes a plantation owner. A third and final shipwrecking, however, leaves him stranded for 28 years on a remote island. There he becomes a devout Christian and believes his life lacks nothing but society. The work is sometimes credited with being the first English novel.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn has just been adopted by the Widow Douglass and her sister, and both are committed to changing Huck. But when he is kidnapped by his father, Huck's return to life without rules doesn't seem much better. He meets Jim, a Freedom seeker, and together the two travel the Mississippi River on a raft, heading toward Jim's freedom. This unabridged version of Mark Twain's work.
The Scarlet Letter
In the puritanical Boston of the 17th Century, a woman gives birth after committing adultery. That woman, Hester Prynne, choses to create a new life for herself in the face of adversity rather than succumb to what is expected of her. She will not name the father. Her decision opens up the tension between religious life and the true grace of God, and between personal guilt, religious sin and legal guilt. The novel is prefaced by a "real" account of the author finding notes on a case similar to Hestor's in a Custom House, from which he fashioned the story. The preface is to be read as fictional.
The Phantom of the Opera
Christine is brought up by her itinerant musician father, whose death she mourns endlessly. She achieves a singing position in the Paris Opera line, where a mysterious voice teaches her to unleash her musical potential. The voice belongs to Erik, a deformed musical genius who lives in the opera house. As Christine's singing career takes off, her childhood friend Raoul begins to court her, and he and Erik fight jealously for Christine's hand.
Mexican Gothic
After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find--her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Through the Looking-Glass; What Alice Found There
Bored with reading a book with no pictures, Alice looks up and sees a white rabbit in a waistcoat. Curious, she follows. Tumbling down a rabbit hole after him, Alice leaves the rational world behind and enters a world of nonsense. A drink that makes you shrink and a cake that makes you grow, a floating cat that can turn invisible, a tea party stuck in a perpetual time loop, and an angry queen of playing cards all make Alice's head spin as she works her way through her confusing surroundings. The Mad Hatter, the Ugly Duchess, the Mock Turtle, the Queen of Hearts, and the Cheshire Cat are characters each more eccentric than the last, and that could only have come from Lewis Carroll, the master of sublime nonsense.
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women in two parts, each resoundingly popular and receiving critical acclaim. The novel follows the lives of the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, from childhood into maturity. The journey is not an easy one, and each is humbled and ultimately uplifted by her encounters with love, society, and death. The work is based loosely on Alcott's experiences growing up with three sisters.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a crime novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle starring the great detective of Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes. Wealthy landowner Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead in the parkland surrounding his manor. It seems he died of a heart attack, but the footprints of a huge dog are found near his body, and Holmes must unravel the mystery and ensure the safety of Baskerville's heir amid rumors of an other-worldly creature haunting the moor - an enormous hound with glowing eyes and jaw.