Classic Books for the Perpetually BusyLike this list

15 items

• Animal Farm

  a Fairy Story

  Orwell, George, 1903-1950.,

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  101 pages: The animals who take over their farm are filled with idealism, but one way or another, they end up recreating human misery. Does that sound depressing? I guess it is, a little, but it's also a fleet, clever read.

• The Metamorphosis

  Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924

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  126 pages: Skip this one if you're bug-phobic - but otherwise, strap in for an eerie story about a man who wakes up one day to discover he's turned into an insect.

• Passing

  Larsen, Nella

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  128 pages: Clare, a light-skinned black woman, passes for white with everyone she knows - including her racist husband. Her precarious life makes her start to envy her childhood best friend, who's remained in the Black community.

• Bonjour Tristesse

  Sagan, Françoise, 1935-2004

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  130 pages: During one wild summer, a teenage girl embarks on a first affair of the heart while reckoning with the fact that her father plans to marry a straitlaced woman. Françoise Sagan was only 18 when this book was published, rocketing her to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Carmilla

  Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, 1814-1873,

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  156 pages: When beautiful, mysterious Carmilla shows up at an Austrian castle, she's the first friend Laura has had in years. But Carmilla hides a secret - one that's going to be the death of one or both of them.

• Giovanni's Room

  Baldwin, James, 1924-1987,

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  159 pages: David's engaged to be married to an American girl, but he's falling in love with a Parisian bartender called Giovanni. Even in cosmopolitan 1950s France, finding room to be himself might end in tragedy.

• The Great Gatsby

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940

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  170 pages: Nick Carraway spends a summer among the wealthy and becomes ever more entangled in their complicated relationships...just as Jay Gatsby becomes more and more disillusioned by them.

• Ethan Frome

  Wharton, Ethan,

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  171 pages: Ethan Frome's dreams of moving to Florida are delayed over and over again, leaving him in a loveless marriage and a hardscrabble farm life. A newcomer to his farm brings his heart alive for the first time in years...but at what cost?

• Nightwood

  Barnes, Djuna

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  182 pages: If you support women's wrongs in addition to women's rights, Nightwood might be a book for you. Between WWI and WWII, five people get into messy, destructive relationships and destroy their lives in cosmopolitan European cities.

• Picnic at Hanging Rock

  Lindsay, Joan Weigall, Lady

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  204 pages: A Valentine's Day picnic at a turn-of-the-century girls' boarding school ends in disaster when three students disappear.

• Treasure Island

  Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894.,

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  221 pages: Nearly everything you imagine when you picture a pirate comes from this swashbuckling novel, where a boy goes away to see and discovers that even the friendliest old salts can't be trusted.

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle

  Jackson, Shirley, 1916-1965

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  214 pages: Ever since her big sister, Constance, was acquitted of murdering five family members, Merricat has lived in isolation on the family estate. When she and Constance are visited by charming, handsome Charles, their quiet life is upended -…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Whose Names Are Unknown

  a Novel

  Babb, Sanora

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  222 pages: Depression-era Oklahoma is a cruel place to live for the Dunne family, but journeying to the migrant camps of California brings new perils. Sonora Babb wrote this based on her own experiences working with migrant farmers - John Steinbeck…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

  Watson, Winifred, 1906-2002

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  233 pages: When Guinevere Pettigrew is sent to take care of Delysia LaFosse, she assumes she'll be watching a child. Turns out Miss LaFosse is a grownup nightclub singer whose life is full of excitement and excess.

• Johnny Got His Gun

  Trumbo, Dalton, 1905-1976,

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  243 pages: Joe Bonham goes to World War I an idealistic soldier and returns armless, legless, and faceless. Trapped in his own mind, he has to come to grips with his current existence while remembering everything that got him to this point.