#46 The Iliad by Homer

There are names for women like Helen of Troy, and by the tenth year of a most bloody and unceasing war, she has called herself every one. Every day, men have their limbs slashed, eyes gouged, throats cut, skulls smashed and corpses defiled, all because of her. The war starts when she, already married to Menalaus of Sparta, ran away with Paris of Troy. The Greeks launch a thousand ships to get her back. When the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus get involved, it quickly turns into a battle between the mortal and immortal: an unfair match. All this fuss over one woman. She’s beautiful, yes, but can she cook?

#45 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Long before Maury Povich came on the scene to reveal paternity, people just had to take the mother’s word for it. The problem in this novel is that Hester Prynne isn’t talking. Her husband cannot be the father of her child, because he is thought to be two years at the bottom of the sea. Rather than leave the confines of her strict Puritan town, she stays and is forced to wear the letter “A”, for “adultery”, upon her chest. So who is the father? One who speaks eloquently about the Heavenly Father, and who suffers unimaginably in hypocrisy and shame. His secret letter “A” is the agony within his heart.

#44 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

First there was the land and the land was good. Wang Lung is a poor farmer in China before the revolution, whose love of his land rules his life.   Wang sweats through sunshine, rain and harvest time, reaping the crops from his good and fertile land. Then Wang Lung chooses O-Lan, a slave woman from the majestic house of Hwang, to be his wife.   She is no beauty, with her big feet and big hands, but she works and bears sons, and brings prosperity to Wang Lung's house.  But as Wang Lung’s wealth grows, so do his troubles.  In the end, the land remains, planted with seeds of deceit and greed.

#43 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

To a wood, in the dark of night,

Fair Hermia and Lysander steal away.

In the midst of their secret flight,

Fairies make mischief, confusion and play.

Helena, spurned by Demetrius, tells him of the lovers’ plan.

Demetrius, spurned by Hermia, chase to the lovers gives.

Helena, love-sick and forlorn, follows this rough, unfeeling man

In whose heart no love for Helena lives.

Under moonlight, Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen

Quarrel over a little boy who to the queen belongs.

Oberon with his henchfairy, Puck, schemes

To make Titania, to a Donkey, sing love’s sweet songs.

Oh what fools these Mortals be!

Yes, Fairy Puck, I quite agree.

#42 The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

It is a good island, but what about the boys marooned there? Fair-haired Ralph tries to maintain order and to keep a fire going as a signal for ships and airplanes. Meanwhile, red-haired and blood-thirsty Jack does not want to be rescued at all. Why get rescued? There are no rules on this island and one can hunt and kill whatever or whomever one pleases. When Jack allows the fire to go out when there is a ship on the horizon, all systems break down. Ralph has been named Chief, but who is really in charge here? It is the spirit of evil and savagery, the Lord of the Flies.

#41 The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Some women become doctors, some become lawyers and others become warriors.  Maxine Hong Kingston is a warrior. She uses this phantasmagorical memoir to battle the many “ghosts” of her childhood.  Some of these are the ghosts of her mother’s talk-story about life in China.   Others are the unfamiliar and frightening faces of her American neighborhood: mail-carrier ghosts, meter-reader ghosts,  teacher ghosts, white ghosts and black ghosts.  Maxine, a Chinese-American, must make her way among these specters while trying to find her place among the Chinese who believe that it is “better to raise geese than girls.”   But in becoming an American, she finds that she has become a ghost herself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#40 A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

 Their parents perish in a mysterious fire and three children’s lives go up in smoke. Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudalaire are orphans.  They must live with Count Olaf, a  man with a creepy tattoo on his ankle and two menacingly shiny, shiny eyes. Olaf immediately becomes the “bane of their existence”, a phrase which here means, “he schemes to lay his filthy hands on the fortune the children have inherited” and his treachery haunts the Baudalaires ad infinitum. Fortunately, Violet’s clever inventions, Klaus’s skillful research and Sunny’s four unusually sharp teeth help to keep them out of Olaf’s clutches.  Unfortunately, their gifts are constantly required in a series of unfortunate events.