Modern Fiction

In this incandescent novel, V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man, an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbing vision yet of what happens in a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions.

It’s officially booty o’clock, I’m alone again in my kitchen choking down a slice of terrible chocolate cake…and I’m pretty sure I just got drunk texted by the man I have a ginormous crush on. I’ve been daydreaming about Eliot Hoffman’s dimples for two months, and even though I’m sure this was a mistake on his end, it doesn’t mean it’s not an opportunity on mine. It’s the middle of the night, and I just wanna talk to him. So I text him back.

Desperate to escape their high-pressure life in Los Angeles, the Finch family moves to rural Oregon. But it doesn’t take long to learn that “small town” is not code for “stress-free.” As the new owners of Applegate's one and only general store, the Finches find that the simple life’s anything but simple when your little store is the town's only grocery store, gas station, hardware store, fire station, and occasional dentist’s office.

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2025 In Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Written originally in Kannada, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a...

A Room of One's Own, among Virginia Woolf's best-known works, is an extended essay, based on two lectures that she delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, women's constituent colleges at the University of Cambridge. First published in September 1929 as a book, this seminal feminist text makes a case for a literal and figurative space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by men.

Do you believe that fear only haunts the distant bhoot bangla, crumbling fort or empty village streets? Surely, it can’t touch you now. You’ve distanced yourself from the darkness by living in the glare of city lights, hiding inside secure houses, comforted by a regular job. But what if fear has accompanied you into the modern world? What if it lives inside you, eating away at your heart and mind? After all, fear is just a ticking time bomb that explodes when you least expect it, leaving your reality...twisted.

Like the creation myths they supersede, the revelations of science are seared into our collective imagination through storytelling. From Archimedes' bath to Newton's apple, vivid accounts of scientific discovery help us understand the principles behind each theory, and add to the larger narrative of how the universe works, and how we came to be here. This anthology draws out and distils science's love of narrative from a wide range of scientific disciplines, weaving theory into very human stories.

In the 1960s and early '70s, the most prominent, vocal cultural movement was the New Left: a movement that condemned America and everything it stood for: individualism, material wealth, science, technology, capitalism.

After the loss of her mother, a woman returns to the San Fernando Valley only to uncover a haunting secret about her childhood friend. A visiting professor at a charming but strange California liberal arts college must face her past in order to protect her son. A sister, lost in the woods, confronts the dangerous truth about her brother, her stepmother, and herself. Rose's dog Wolfie has died, and three seductive women offer to help return him to her. But only if she will pay the price.

When the Dickenson clan sits down for Thanksgiving dinner in 2016, it is the last holiday where their tight-knit family will ever be the same. Oldest brother Pete and his wife are expecting their first child. Youngest sibling Sophie is too busy running her restaurant. The Little Plum, to bother with any kind of social life. And middle child Charlie’s happy, uncomplicated life as a midwestern science professor is upended when his wife Annette is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Knowing this will be her last Thanksgiving, Annette asks Sophie to look after Charlie after she’s gone.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) has influenced philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Oswald Spengler, George Grant, Emil Cioran, Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Jacques Derrida, Leo Strauss, Max Scheler, Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams. His writings on aesthetics, language, truth, morality, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, and the meaning of existence have exerted a vast influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history.

An Oprah's Book Club Selection regarded as one of Faulkner's greatest and most accessible novels, Light in August is a timeless and riveting story of determination, tragedy, and hope. In Faulkner's iconic Yoknapatawpha County, race, sex, and religion collide around three memorable characters searching desperately for human connection and their own identities.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, winner of the 2019 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he...

A journey through the life of Swami Vivekananda is a study of the Indian civilization, its ethos and value system. Not only did his message of tolerance, based on knowledge, make him an exemplary spokesperson of the country, but his life's mission of creating an order of monks who dedicated their lives for others made him a prophet and a leader. His teachings continue to be relevant even today, especially in the light of the prevailing intolerance and fanaticism in the nation, and the increasing turmoil in the world.

"Kaveri is thirty; single; knows seven languages; is an interpreter by profession; has read all the books about men and how to get a date. Yet; she has not been able to figure out the language of love. Since the ‘THE ONE GREAT LOVE’ of her life has eluded her for thirty years and...

Aasha Rani, Bombay’s no. 1 heroine, has everything she wants—fame, money, success. All except for Akshay Arora, the film star she is desperately in love with. This is her story—from her days as a vulnerable small-town girl, pushed by her ambitious mother into sleeping her way to...

Deb is absolutely crazily in love with the stunning Avantika. He can’t believe that she is his. Their relationship is going great except for the one time when Deb faltered by breaching her trust. After he apologized, Avantika grudgingly accepted him back. However, his insecurity about her...

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign.

"Aisha is a precocious seventeen-year-old who idolizes her mother and wishes to have a better relationship with her older brother. Twenty-three-year-old Danish has never been able to do anything that would make his parents proud, living as he is in the shadow of his genius younger brother. Aisha...

Why don't we feel the moment when we fall in love but always remember when it ends? Akash is young, single and conservative with a preference for girls with brains than in miniskirts. One day, he runs into free-spirited Aleesha at a local discotheque. A mass-media student, Aleesha is a pampered...