| (Bess Streeter Aldrich)
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| The story begins in 1854 when Abbie Mackenzie is a small girl. She and her family move to a homestead in Iowa, in the United States. Hostile Indians, prairie fires, blizzards, and the ever-present threat of accidents and illness are part of the daily life. As the story unfold, Abbie grows to adulthood, finds romance and raises a family of her own.
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| (Willa Cather)
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| The novel is written in the third person, but is mostly written from the perspective of Niel Herbert, a young man who grows up in Sweet Water and witnesses the decline of Mrs. Forrester, for whom he feels very deeply, and also of the West itself from the idealized age of noble pioneers to the age of capitalist exploitation. [Wikipedia]
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| (Bess Streeter Aldrich)
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| A coming of age story in the early decades of the 20th century. The matriarch of a pioneer Nebraska family, dies leaving to her grand-daughter, Laura, her dream of finer things. The grandmother's literary aspirations had been thwarted by the hard circumstances of her life, but Laura, vows that nothing will deter her from a successful writing career.
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| (Theodore Dreiser)
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| In this modern classic, Clyde, child of religious parents, is led into a dissolute lifestyle by acquaintances. When a stolen car in which he is travelling kills a young child, his life is changed and he begins working for a wealthy uncle and becomes a person of relative importance in the business. However, his attraction to women begins to cause problems.
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| (Rachel Field)
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| A best-seller when first published, this novel centres on a doctor's attempt to find a cure for deafness. In a note at the beginning of the novel, Field points out that "the place, action, and characters of this book are purely fictional. There is no Vance method of treatment to restore hearing, nor is the theory based on any actual medical findings." The book was made into a film in 1944, starring Alan Ladd and Susan Hayward.
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| This novel won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize, though Lewis refused to accept it. It tells the story of the bright, scientifically-minded, Martin Arrowsmith as he makes his way from a small town in Midwest USA to the upper echelons of the scientific community.
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| A bestseller when first published, Babbitt is a satire of American culture, society, and behavior. It critiques the vacuity of middle-class American life and its pressure on individuals toward conformity. (Wikipedia.)
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| (Ellen Glasgow)
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| This novel documents thirty years in the life of Dorinda Oakley, a woman who gradually returns the "barren ground" of the family farm to fertility and creates a prosperous dairy farm. Ellen Glasgow writes, in the preface to the novel, that Dorinda "exists wherever a human being has learned to live without joy, wherever the spirit of fortitude has triumphed over the sense of
futility."
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| A former Congressman, now Judge, Cass Timberlane is a respected figure in the community. He marries a much younger woman from a lower social class. At first the marriage is happy but Jinny, his wife, becomes bored with the small town and with the judge's friends and has an affair.
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| (F Scott Fitzgerald)
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| This is a collection of more than fifty stories which originally appeared in 'The Saturday Evening Post' and other magazines.
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| (H P Lovecraft)
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| Lovecraft is regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. Stephen King has called him "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." More than sixty stories are collected here.
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| (Willa Cather)
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| This novel concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico Territory. It was included on the "Time" magazine's 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 and the "Modern Library" list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| Samuel Dodsworth is an ambitious and innovative automobile designer. He marries Fran Voelker, a beautiful young socialite. At the age of fifty and facing retirement after selling his successful automobile company, he sets out on a leisurely trip to Europe with his wife.
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| This is the story of a young, womanising college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. He is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister and becomes the manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. He becomes her lover but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle.
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| (Lloyd C Douglas)
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| When a young surgeon accepts the blame for his mentor's mistake during surgery, he is dismissed from the hospital staff. His career in ruins, he sets out with a new identity.
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a charismatic and power-hungry politician, is elected President of the United States on a populist platform, promising to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and, more importantly, promising each citizen five thousand dollars a year. Once in power, however, he becomes a dictator; outlawing dissent, putting his political enemies in concentration camps, and creating a paramilitary force called the Minute Men who terrorize the citizens. (from: Wikipedia.)
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| Neil Kingsblood, a white middle class man, discovers that he is partly of African American descent. He begins to see himself as black, despite his lack of racial features, and is forced to choose between continuing what he now sees as a hollow existence in the white community and the oppressed minority existence of the black community. After he admits his heritage to several white friends, the news quickly spreads, and he engages in a quixotic struggle against the racism prevalent in the community.
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| (Thomas Wolfe)
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| In this, his first novel, Wolfe covers the life of Eugene Gant to the age of 19. The setting is the fictional town of Altamont, Catawba, which is considered to be a thinly veiled depiction of Wolfe's home town, Asheville, North Carolina.
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| (Willa Cather)
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| Lucy Gayheart is a young and beautiful girl from a small prairie town in the United States. She is a talented pianist and is enthusiastic about everything. Her father sends her off to Chicago to study piano and while there she is recruited as a substitute accompanist for an older man, a famous singer. A romance begins.
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| (Lloyd C Douglas)
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| Robert Merrick is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is unable to save the life of Dr. Hudson, a doctor renowned for his ability to help people. Hudson was on the other side of the lake having a heart attack at the same time. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and so he decides to become a physician (specifically a brain surgeon). [Wikipedia]
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| (Nathanael West)
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| In this black comedy set in New York in the Great Depression. A male newspaper columnist writes an advice column which is seen by the newspaper staff as a joke. As "Miss Lonelyhearts" reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of his feature editor at the newspaper. His attempts to escape from the mental anguish brought on by the letters leads to a unexpected climax. [Wikipedia]
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| (Thomas Wolfe)
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| A bestseller when first published, this is a fictionalized autobiography, detailing the protagonist's early and mid-twenties, during which time he attends Harvard University, moves to New York City and teaches English at a university there. He then travels overseas. The book is divided into eight sections, or "books" and is a continuation of Wolfe?s earlier work, "Look Homeward, Angel."
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| (Frederick Lewis Allen)
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| This book deals with that decade from the end of World War I in November 1918 to the depression of 1929-30. It tells of of Woodrow Wilson's defeat, the Harding scandals, the Coolidge prosperity, the revolution in manners and morals, the bull market and economic depression.
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| (Willa Cather)
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| This, Cather's last novel, is the story of Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert, a privileged but bitter white woman, who becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, one of her young slaves, whom Sapphira has previously favoured.
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| (Willa Cather)
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| Set in 17th century Quebec, this novel describes the quiet, isolated life of Cecile Auclair and her father, the town apothecary. [Wikipedia]
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| (Frederick Lewis Allen)
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| This is the sequel to "Only Yesterday" which was "an informal history of the 1920s."
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| (Bess Streeter Aldrich)
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| This sequel to "A Lantern in her Hand" tells the story of two Nebraska pioneer families from settlement to the 1930s. The heroine is Amalia Holmsdorfer, a German immigrant who settles on the prairie. From her late teens to her mid-eighties she deals with the forces of nature and society. The complexity, humour, endurance, and intelligence of the settlers are dealt with.
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| (F Scott Fitzgerald)
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| Dick and Nicole Diver, a rich couple, take a villa in the South of France. Dick, a psychoanalyst, had treated Nicole for a breakdown, after which they married. Nicole is an heiress and her sister thinks Dick is marrying her for her money. Nicole becomes stronger while Dick's life goes down-hill.
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| (James Oliver Curwood)
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| This novel, subtitled "A Novel of High Hearts and Open Woods," is a story of the backwoods of Canada. Into this is woven a fight for supremacy between two rival timber companies, and a love story. Clifton Brant returns to Canada after World War I, determined to seek out his enemy who had been the cause of his father's death, and who also had tried to bring about Clifton's early death. In finding his enemy, Clifton sets himself not only to right an ancient wrong, but to avenge a new and terrible peril to the girl who later becomes his wife.
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| (Gertrude Stein)
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| This work was written in the guise of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, who was Gertrude Stein's lover. According to Virgil Thomson, who wrote music to libretti authored by Stein, the "book is in every way except actual authorship Alice Toklas's book; it reflects her mind, her language, her private view of Gertrude, also her unique narrative powers. Every story in it is told as Alice herself had always told it...Every story that ever came into the house eventually got told in Alice's way, and this was its definitive version." [Wikipedia.]
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| (Frederick Lewis Allen)
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| As the author described it, "this book is an attempt to sketch some of the major changes which took place in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century." He went on to state that he had fixed his "chief attention upon the changes which have taken place in the character and quality of American life by reason of what might be called the democratization of our economic system, or the adjustment of capitalism to democratic ends; the way in which an incredible expansion of industrial and business activity, combined with a varied series of political, social and economic forces, has altered the American standard of living and with it the average American's way of thinking and his status as a citizen."
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| (Lloyd C Douglas)
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| A best seller when first published, The Big Fisherman is an historical novel about the later life of Peter, one of the closest disciples of Jesus Christ. It was later made into a film. The novel is closely related to Douglas' previous book, The Robe, which was also made into a film.
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| (Edith Wharton)
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| On a cruise ship, Martin Boyne, a bachelor in his forties, befriends a group of children whose parents are estranged. The parents are on the cruise ship with the children in an attempt to reconcile. The children are weary of being shuttled from one parent to the other and hope that the reconciliation will be successful. Boyne is smitten by fifteen-year-old Judith, the eldest of the "children." In this story Wharton presents a picture of the manners, morals, and social behaviour of a group of Americans abroad.
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| (F Scott Fitzgerald)
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| Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire, originally from North Dakota. he has shady business connections and an obsessive love for Daisy Fay Buchanan, whom he had met when he was a young officer in World War I. The narrator, Nick Carraway, records Gatsby's story with its backdrop of corruption, selfishness and violence.
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| (F Scott Fitzgerald)
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| Seventeen stories featuring Pat Hobby, a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood. From the author of 'The Great Gatsby.'
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| (John Erskine)
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| This book was a best seller when first published and was made into a silent film in 1927. It has sharp insights into human behaviour and witty dialogue, which is consistent with what was written by the ancients on the subject of Helen of Troy. The lives of Helen, Menelaus, Hermione, Orestes, and the rest of the Atreus family are covered.
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| (Willa Cather)
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| When Professor Godfrey St. Peter and wife move to a new house, he becomes uncomfortable with the route his life is taking. He keeps on his dusty study in the old house in an attempt to hang on to his old life. Also the marriages of his two daughters have removed them from the home and added two new sons-in-law, precipitating a mid-life crisis that leaves the Professor feeling as though he has lost the will to live because he has nothing to look forward to.
The novel's central section turns to Tom Outland, a friend of the professor and the fiancé of his elder daughter. It recounts in first-person the story of Outland's exploration of an ancient cliff city in New Mexico. The section is a retrospective narrative remembered by the professor. [Wikipedia]
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| (Lloyd C Douglas)
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| A best seller when first released, the Robe is an historical novel about the Crucifixion of Christ. It was later made into a movie.
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| (Rachel Field)
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| Kate Ferald falls in love with Christopher Fortune, who is part of a wealthy New England shipping family. Chistopher returns her interest but the class structure of the 19th century precludes their marriage. The story is set against the decline of the New England shipbuilding industry.
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| (Ellen Glasgow)
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| This is a love story told against the background of a Scotish-Irish family through three generations in a Virginia village. It also describes life in rural Virginia, and the growth of the urban South, during the first three decades of the 20th century.
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| (Lloyd C Douglas)
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| This story is about a woman who influences the lives of people around her in a most delightful and compelling way. It also illustrates the practical applications of the tenets of forgiveness and turning the other cheek.
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| (Sinclair Lewis)
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| This novel, a best-seller at the time of first publication, deals with three generations of the Weagle family, who live and work in boarding houses and hotels. Two brothers of the second generation are the main focus of the story: the mercurial Ora and the plodding Myron, who dreams of running the perfect hotel.
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| (Thomas Wolfe)
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| This novel tells the story of George Webber, a budding author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill. When the residents of Libya Hill read the book and see the egregious distortions Webber has penned, they begin sending Webber death threats and menacing letters expressing their discontent with the novel, even though it is held in high regard in the rest of the country. Wolfe, as in many of his other novels, explores the themes of a changing America, including the stock market crash and the illusion of prosperity, and the passing of time, which inhibits George from being able to go "home again". [Wikipedia]
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