In this era of political correctness, it is often impossible to say things as one would like. Indeed, certain ways of feeling and talking that were once acceptable are now, in effect, forbidden. Of course, taboos extend further than speech. Social and sexual inhibitions are also evident. Benjamin DeMott argues that the very least a society should do is to try to understand the meaning of its own inhibitions. As he writes in this new edition of You Don't Say, "a supple awareness of...

Supergrow is a collection of fifteen essays that appeared between 1966 and 1969 in publications such as the American Scholar, the New York Times, Antioch Review, Esquire, and the Saturday Review. Author Benjamin DeMott discusses everything under the sun--music, improving one's sex life, violence in Mississippi, theater, student revolts--but a single theme unifies the material: people ought to use their imaginations more. The book starts from the assumption that our troubles stem from failu...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time"It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham," wrote Gore Vidal. "He was always so entirely there."Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sen...

D. H. Lawrence’s great autobiographical novel paints a provocative portrait of an artist torn between affection for his mother and desire for two beautiful women. Set in the Nottinghamshire coalfields of Lawrence’s own boyhood, the story follows young Paul Morel’s growth into manhood in a British working-class family.Gertrude Morel, Paul’s puritanical mother, concentrates all her love and attention on Paul, nurturing his talents as a painter. When she muses that he might marry some...

Over 40 years ago the historic Kerner Commission Report declared that America was undergoing an urban crisis whose effects were disproportionately felt by underclass populations. In America's Urban Crisis and the Advent of Color-blind Politics, Curtis Ivery and Joshua Bassett explore the persistence of this crisis today, despite public beliefs that America has become a "post-racial" nation after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency.Ivery and Bassett combine their...

This is the story of an unremarkable man leading an unremarkable existence who suddenly turns his back on everything to live life as an artistwithout artifice or apology. A classic English novel. One of W. Somerset Maughams best works, it was inspired by the life of French painter, Paul Gauguin who himself moved from the churning streets of nineteenth-century Paris to the beaches of exotic Tahiti in lustful indulgence of his own artistic passions. :::: This updated electronic edition (care...

Kangaroo is a novel by D.H. Lawrence, first published in 1923. Set in Australia, it revolves around an English writer named Richard Lovat Somers and his wife, Harriet, who have moved to Australia after World War I. They encounter an enigmatic figure known as "Kangaroo," a charismatic and politically influential local leader who is deeply involved in the country's social and political affairs.

The Rainbow by D. H.Lawrence..

The Man Who Knew Too Much is a suspenseful thriller written by G.K. Chesterton, first published in 1922. The story follows Horne Fisher, a brilliant and enigmatic detective, as he investigates a series of mysterious crimes and political intrigues. Fisher's keen intellect and unconventional methods lead him to uncover dark secrets and hidden motives behind seemingly ordinary events. As the plot unfolds, Fisher becomes embroiled in a web of deception and danger, confronting powerful adversar...

Tristan and Iseult is a tale made popular during the 12th century through French medieval poetry, inspired by Celtic legend and possibly the 11th century Persian story Vis and Rāmin.

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Franz Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on...

Agnes Grey is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë, first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works within families of the English gentry. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Brontë's own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre, it addresses what the precarious position of governess e...