"Style is diction; style is cadence; style is syntax; style is word choice and the spectrum of a writer’s vocabulary; style is length of sentences and the careful placement of different length sentences into a paragraph in the way a master stonemason would set stones into an unmortared wall meant to last for centuries; style is repetition and knowing when not to repeat; style is omission; style is misdirection and subliminal suggestion; style is specificity set into deliberate vagueness; style is crafty vagueness set amidst a forest of specificity; style is the motion of the mind at work; style is the pulse and heartbeat of the narrative sensibility; style is balance; style is the projective will of the writer creating a portal of access to the receptive will of the discerning reader; style is the sound our words make on paper.
Style is goddamned hard." -- Dan Simmons
First published in 1931, this classic novel about Chinese peasant life around the turn of the 20th century seems a little dated now but still possesses enough emotional power to engage modern readers. I first read this when I was 14. I am eager to read it again.
The book traces the slow rise of Wang Lung from humble peasant farmer to great landlord-a feat he achieves by steadily adding to his lands and making enormous sacrifices to retain them through hard times.
As one of the first Western novels to explore the lives of ordinary Chinese, this work has had an enormous influence on American views of China, and it propelled Buck to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938.
Books » Fiction & Literature » Classics
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Modern Classics
By Betty Smith, Anna Quindlen (Foreword by)
The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.
The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.
Reviews"A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life. . . . If you miss "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" you will deny yourself a rich experience."--"New York Times"
This is my favorite. I have read and re-read my copy of this novel so often it is falling apart. I think I am ready to reread it again.
Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Atticus Finch's children, Pulitzer Prize-winner Lee explores with rich humor and unanswering honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.
This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of a modern classic that inspired a beloved, Academy Award-winning film.
If we can manage to refrain from harming others in our everyday actions and words, we can start to give more serious attention to actively doing good, and this can be a source of great joy and inner confidence. We can benefit others through our actions by being warm and generous toward them, by being charitable, and by helping those in need.
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