The shining

Author : Stephen King

Title : The shining

Publ Info : London : Hodder and Stoughton, 2007

Call No. : 813.54 K587SN 2007


 
Summary : 

When his father becomes caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Danny’ visions grow out of control.

As winter closes in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seems to develop a life of its own, it is meant to be empty. So who is the lady in Room 217 and who are the masked guests going up and down in the elevator? And why do the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive?

Somewhere, somehow, there is an evil force in the hotel-and that too is beginning to shine

Confessions of a shopaholic

Author : Sophie Kinsella

Title : Confessions of a shopaholic

Publ Info : New York : Bantam Dell, 2003, c2001

Call No. : 813 K625C 2003


 

Summary : 

Becky Bloomwood has what most young women only dream of: a flat in London’s trendiest neighborhood, a troupe of glamorous socialite friends, and a closet brimming with the season’s must-haves. The only trouble is, she can’t actually afford it-not any of it. Her job writing at Successful Saving magazine not only bores her to tears, it doesn’t pay much at all. Still, how can she resist that perfect pair of shoes? Or the divine silk blouse in the window of that ultra-trendy boutique? But lately Becky’s been chased by dismal letters from Visa and the Endwich Bank-letters with large red sums she can’t to read- and they’re getting ever harder to ignore. She tries cutting back; she even tries making more money. But none of her efforts succeeds. Her only consolation is to buy herself something … just a little something….

 

Finally, a story arises that Becky actually cares about, and her front-page article catalyzes a chain of events that will transform her life- and the lives of those around her- forever.

Sense and sensibility

Author : Jane Austen

Title : Sense and sensibility

Publ Info : Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004

Call No. : 823.7 Au74SE 2004


 
Summary : 

Pray, pray be composed,” cried Elinor, “and do not betray what you feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet.”

For Elinor Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuous younger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they love appears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwood sisters have neither fortune nor connections. Concerned for others and for social proprieties, Elinor is ill-equipped to compete with self-centred fortune-hunters like Lucy Steele, while Mariannne’s unswerving belief in the truth of her own feelings makes her more dangerously susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men.

Through her heroines’ parallel experiences of live, loss, and hope, Jane Austen offers a powerful analysis of the ways in which women’s lives were shaped by the claustrophobic society in which they had to survive

Wuthering Heights

Author : Emily Bronte

Title : Wuthering Heights

Publ Info : Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1998

Call No. : 823.8 B789W 1998


 
Summary : 

‘If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be…’
The haunting intensity of Catherine Earnshaw’s attachment to Heathcliff is the focus of a novel in which relations between men and women are described with an emotional and imaginative power unparalleled in English fiction.

First published in 1847, Wuthering Heights is set on the bleak Yorkshire moors, where the drama of Catherine and Heathcliff’s cruel revenge against Edgar and Isabella Linton, and the promise of redemption through the next generation is enacted.

Harry Potter and the half-blood prince

Author : J.K. Rowling

Title : Harry Potter and the half-blood prince

Publ Info : London : Bloomsbury Pub., 2005

Call No. : 823.914 R797HB 2005


 
Summary : 

It is Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As Voldemort's sinister forces amass and a spirit of gloom and fear sweeps the land, it becomes more and more clear to Harry that he will soon have to confront his destiny. But is he up to the challenges ahead of him?
In her darkest and most breathtaking adventure yet, J.K. Rowling skilfully begins to unravel the complex web she has woven, as we discover more of the truth about Harry, Dumbledore, Snape and, of course, He Who Must Not Be Named...

The kite runner

Author : Khaled Hosseini

Title : The kite runner

Publ Info : New York : Riverhead Books, 2003

Call No. : 813.6 H794Kx 2003


 
Summary : 

This powerful first novel… tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in The Kite Runner, are only a part of this story. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence – forces that continue to threaten them even today.

Night at the museum : battle of the Smithsonian

Author : Michael Anthony Steele

Title : Night at the museum : battle of the Smithsonian

Publ Info : Hauppauge, N.Y. : Barron's Educational Series, c2009

Call No. : 813.6 St323N 2009


 
Summary : 

Wealthy business executive Larry Daley fondly recalls his time as a low-paid night guard at New York’s Museum of Natural History – and how the exhibits would magically come to life. But now, Jedediah, the miniature cowboy, Dexter the monkey, and his old museum pals are being replaced and shipped off to the Smithsonian’s archives in Washington, D.C. Then Larry learns that the mystical tablet of Ahkmenrah was shipped by mistake, bringing his friends to life in unfamiliar surroundings! Now, it’s up to the former night guard to save Jed and the others while stopping a nefarious plot by the pharaoh Kamunrah, Al Capone, and a host of other sinister evil-doers. Luckily, Larry’s not alone. He’s getting important help form the famous aviator Amelia Earhart.

Marley & me : life and love with the world's worst dog

Author : John Grogan

Title : Marley & me : life and love with the world's worst dog

Publ Info : London : Hodder, 2006

Call No. : 636.752 G893M 2006


 
Summary : 

John and Jenny were young and deeply in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggle yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.
Marley quickly grew into an uncontrollable ninety-seven pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever. Expelled from obedience school, even the tranquillisers prescribed by the vet couldn't stop him.
Yet through the chaos and the hilarity he won hearts and remained a steadfast model of devotion to his family, even when they were at their wits' end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.

Bridget Jones: the edge of reason

Author : Helen Fielding

Title : Bridget Jones: the edge of reason

Publ Info : London : Picador, 1999

Call No. : 823.914 F46BE 1999


 
Summary : 

The Wilderness Years are over! But not for long. At the end of Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget hiccuped off into the sunset with man-of-her-dreams Mark Darcy. Now, in The Edge of Reason, she discovers what it is like when you have the man of your dreams actually in your flat and he hasn't done the washing-up, not just the whole of this week, but ever.
Lurching through a morass of self-help-book theories and mad advice from Jude and Shazzer, struggling with a boyfriend-stealing ex-friend with thighs like a baby giraffe, an 8ft hole in the living-room wall, a mother obsessed with boiled-egg peelers, and a builder obsessed with large reservoir fish, Bridget embarks on a spiritual epiphany, which takes her from the cappuccino queues of Notting Hill to the palm - and magic-mushroom-kissed shore of...

Curious case of Benjamin Button

Author : F. Scott Fitzgerald

Title : Curious case of Benjamin Button

Publ Info : New York : Scribner, 2007

Call No. : 813.52 F576CB 2007


 
Summary : 

Daisy Fuller Williams is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital the day that Hurricane Katrina hits. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks In 1860 Benjamin Button is born an old man and mysteriously begins aging backward. At the beginning of his life he is withered and worn, but as he continues to grow younger he embraces life – he goes to war, runs a business, falls in love, has children, goes to college and prep school, and, as his mind begins to devolve, he attends kindergarten and eventually returns to the care of his nurse.

Big fish

Author : Daniel Wallace

Title : Big fish

Publ Info : London ; New York : Pocket Books, 2004

Call No. : 813.54 W155B 2004


 
Summary : 

A captivating novel about a father and a son, mythmaking and truth, death and life.
He could outrun anybody, and he never missed a day of school. Animals loved him. People loved him. Women loved him (and he loved them back). And he knew more jokes than any man alive.
Now, as he lies dying, Edward Bloom can't seem to stop telling jokes – or the tall tales that have made him, in his son's eyes, an extraordinary man. Big fish is the story of this man's life, told as a series of legends and myths inspired by the few facts his son, William, knows. Through these tales – hilarious and wrenching, tender and outrageous – William begins to understand Edward Bloom's great feats, and his great failings, managing to reckon with the father he's about to lose. And find a way to say goodbye.

Gossip Girl: the second collection

Author : Cecily Von Ziegesar

Title : Gossip Girl: the second collection

Publ Info : New York : Little, Brown, 2003

Call No. : 813.54 V897GG 2003


 
Summary : 

Welcome to New York City’s Upper East Side, where my friends and I live fabulously, go to school occasionally, and play – constantly.
Enter the world of Gossip Girl – a world of jealousy and betrayal, where everything is hip. Beautiful, and far more fantastic than anything you ever imagined.

The little prince

Author : Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Title : The little prince

Publ Info : Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, c2000

Call No. : 843.912 Sa229P 2000


 
Summary : 

A pilot stranded in the desert awakes one morning to see, standing before him, the most extraordinary little fellow. “Please”, asks the stranger, “draw me a sheep”. And the pilot realizes that when life’s events are too different to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. He pulls out pencil and paper… And thus begins this wise and enchanting fable that, in teaching the secret of what is really important in life, has changed forever the world for its readers.

Brokeback Mountain

Author : Annie Proulx

Title : Brokeback Mountain

Publ Info : New York : Scribner, 2005

Call No. : 813.54 P947B 2005


 
Summary : 

Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they’re working as sheepherder and camp tender on summer on a range above the tree line. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer.
Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that’s what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it.

Interview with the vampire

Author : Anne Rice

Title : Interview with the vampire

Publ Info : New York : Ballantine Books, 1977, c1976

Call No. : 813.54 R36i 1977


 
Summary : 

Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force – a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses.

Transformers : revenge of the fallen

Author : Alan Dean Foster

Title : Transformers : revenge of the fallen

Publ Info : New York : Del Rey, 2009

Call No. : 813.54 F811T 2009


 
Summary : 

This cryptic warning is ignored by the national security advisor who feels the ruthless Decepticon threat is no more. The allies are victorious, the enemy has been defected, and the world is safe. Small attacks around the world have been contained, and the remaining pieces of the coveted ALLSpark are locked in an electromagnetic vault on one of the most secure Naval bases in the world. But nothing is as it seems, and there is a shift in the shadows. Things can change in an instant – and fragile peace will become all-out war.

The third day, the frost

Author : John Marsden

Title : The third day, the frost

Publ Info : Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia, 1996

Call No. : 823.3 M351TH 1996


Summary :
Reissue of a dramatic novel for teenagers, first published in 1995. Sequel to 'Tomorrow, When the War Began' and 'The Dead of the Night'. Ellie, Fi, Lee, Homer, Robyn and Kevin struggle to survive in enemy-occupied Australia, knowing their attempts at sabotage may lead to tragedy. Award-winning author's other publications include 'So Much to Tell You' and 'Letters from the Inside'.

The reef

 
Author : Edith Wharton

Title : The reef

Publ Info : London : Virago, 1983

Call No. : 813.52 W555RE 1983

Summary :

"I put most of myself into that opus," Edith Wharton said of "The Reef," possibly her most autobiographical novel. Published in 1912, it was, Bernard Berenson told Henry Adams, "better than any previous work excepting "Ethan Frome.""
A challenge to the moral climate of the day, "The Reef" follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success.
For its dramatic construction and acute insight into social mores and the multifaceted problem of sexuality, "The Reef" stands as one of Edith Wharton's most daring works of fiction.

Pygmalion : a romance in five acts

 Author : Bernard Shaw

Title : Pygmalion : a romance in five acts

Publ Info : New York, NY : Signet Classic, [2006], 1980

Call No. : 822.912 Sh26PY 2006

Summary :

Pygmalion both delighted and scandalized its first audiences in 1914. A brilliantly witty reworking of the classical tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his perfect female statue, it is also a barbed attack on the British class system and a statement of Shaw’s feminist views. In Shaw’s hands, the phoneticist Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion figure who believes he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into a duchess at ease in polite society. The one thing he overlooks is that his ‘creation’ has a mind of her own.

A kestrel for a knave

Author : Barry Hines

Title : A kestrel for a knave

Publ Info : Long Preston, England : Dales Large Print Books, 2002

Call No. : 823.914 H589K 2002


Summary :  

As a child, Dave Pelzer was horrifically abused by his mother, who considered him to be an ‘it’, not a child. But he survived and lived to tell his courageous story. Haunted by memories of his years bruised and cowering in his mother’s basement, his life remained a struggle—but he was determined to make something of himself.

Dave’s dramatic reunion with his dying father and a shocking confrontation with his mother led to his ultimate calling: mentor to others struggling with personal hardships. From a difficult marriage to the birth of his son and an enduring friendship, Dave was finally able to break free from his past, to trust, to love and to live.