Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--obstetrician and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Clouds. It is also the story of his favorite orphan, Homer, who is never adopted.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Kunstlerroman in a modernist style, it traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from...

The tragedy of a young man brought up in simple Salvation Army piety who goes east to find success. The author's classic vision of the dark side of American life looks at the failings of the American dream, in the story of the rise and fall of Clyde Griffiths, who sacrifices everything in his desperate quest for success.

"The debut short novels--nearly thirty years out of print-- by the internationally acclaimed writer, newly retranslated and in one English-language volume for the first time, with a new introduction by the author. These first major works of fiction by Haruki Murakami center on two young men--an unnamed narrator and his friend and former roommate, the Rat. Powerful, at times surreal, stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism, these novellas bear...

"A special 25th anniversary edition of Paulo Coehlo's extraordinary international bestselling phenomenon--the inspiring spiritual tale of self-discovery that has touched millions of lives around the world.Combing magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations. Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical...

"The story of a financier's young son, disgraced by his father's ruin, who seeks to simplify his life and live it anew among the village folk out at the Cape... [I]n the coming of the man from New York and his daughter, young Roscoe Paine finds interest, adventure, romance, and a return to the business talent that has been his father's heritage..." -- amazon.com

A groundbreaking masterpiece of early European modernism originally published in 1910. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge unspools the vivid reflections of the titular young Danish nobleman and poet. From his Paris garret, Brigge records his encounters with the city and its outcasts, muses on his family history, and lays bare his earliest experiences of fear, tenderness, and desolation. With a poet's feel for language and a keen instinct for storytelling,...

Augie March is a Jewish-American boy growing up fatherless and poor in Depression-era Chicago. He seeks a "special destiny," although his circumstances seem to position him for a uniquely disappointing life: his family consists of a simple-minded mother, a brother and "grandmother" who prove to be Machiavellian in their intentions, and an "idiot" youngest brother, Georgie.

This pioneering novel explores a young man's journey from boyhood to the warfront by the author of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Jacob Flanders is a young man typical of his generation-like so many who would go on to face death in the battlefields of the Great War. In this probing, elegiac book, his life is recounted through the private memories and sentiments of those who knew him. We meet Jacob as the boy who preoccupies his mother's thoughts;...

Nathan Empson's dream job working for the eccentric matriach of a wealthy New England family promises both opportunities and problems.