Added by: babakinfos | Karma: 2211.42 | Fiction literature | 1 December 2016
5
The Wind in the Willows (with explanatory notes)
One of the best-known classics of children's literature, a timeless masterpiece and a vital portrait of an age, The Wind in the Willows began originally in Kenneth Grahame's letters to his young son, where he first recounted the adventures of Rat and Badger, of Mole and Toad--all narrated in virtuoso language ranging from lively parody to elaborate fin-de-si�cle mysticism. Yet for a children's book, it is concerned almost exclusively with adult themes: fear of radical changes in political, social, and economic power...
Added by: babakinfos | Karma: 2211.42 | Fiction literature | 12 October 2016
6
Babbitt (with explanatory notes)
Amusing and tragic by turn, Sinclair Lewis's classic novel is a biting satire of middle-American values whose title has entered the language as a byword for smug complacency, conformity, and materialism, and whose suburban targets are still much in evidence. A successful real estate agent, George F. Babbitt is a member of all the right clubs, and unquestioningly shares the same aspirations and ideas as his friends and fellow Boosters. Yet even Babbitt dreams of romance and escape, and when his best friend does something to throw his world upside down, he rebels, and tries to find fulfillment in romantic adventures and liberal thinking.