|
|
| You might see a book in the catalogue listed as STACK. These are books which are housed behind the scenes in the Central Library - items that the Library definitely wants to keep, but for some reason (e.g. older condition, or not in as high demand) the open shelf is not the right place for them. Most can be borrowed. Please ask at the enquiries counter on the Second Floor and staff will be happy to retrieve them. This web-page will highlight some of these nearly forgotten treasures, and be updated with a new stack topic every two months. The author's selections and recommendations of these golden oldies are entirely idiosyncratic!
|
 | The diary of a nobody, by George Grossmith. (1935) An English humorist, actor and writer, George Grossmith was born in London. He worked as a court reporter on The Times newspaper before becoming a singer and entertainer. He is best remembered for the collaboration with his brother Weedon, on The Diary of a Nobody published in 1892. In this comic novel, Mr Pooter's diary is a faithful record of the daily grind in respectable suburbia and the city office. It tells of his constant war against insolent tradesmen and impudent junior clerks, his incomprehensible son Lupin, and his over-whelming feeling that the biggest joke is on him.
|
 | The garden of the Finzi-Continis, by Giorgio Bassani. (1965) Bassani is one of the outstanding Italian novelists of the 20th Century. He is a sensitive chronicler of Italian Jews and their suffering under fascism. He writes with realism. and elegance. In this novel a young, middle-class Jewish narrator recounts his relationship with an insular, upper-class Jewish family in Ferrara on the eve of World War II and the family's blindness to impending destruction. |
 | Group portrait with lady, by Heinrich Boll. (1973) Heinrich Boll, a German writer and winner of the 1972 Noble Prize for Literature, was born in Cologne in 1917 and died in 1985. He served as an infantryman in World War 11 before becoming a full-time writer. In this novel which ranges from Hitler's time to the modern era, the history of a woman is pursued by means of interviews with people who have known her, to reveal an unassuming heroine, a passive rebel whose humanity augurs hope for a better world. |
 | Hunger, by Knut Hamsun. (1921) Knut Hamsun, a Norwegian novelist and winner of the 1920 Noble Prize for Literature. He twice lived for short periods in America before receiving instant acclaim for this his first novel published in 1890. It is set in Kristiana (modern-day Oslo) and tells the story of young writer is driven by starvation to fluctuating extremes of euphoria and despair.
|
 | The Dwarf, by Par Lagerkvist. (1953) Par Lagerkvist, Swedish novelist, poet and playwright and winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in 1891. He spent his writing life exploring the problems of evil and human brutality. He died in 1974. In the Dwarf, Lagerkvist presents an exploration of evil and alienation. The setting is a Renaissance court somewhere in Europe, where the dwarf of the title plots and schemes for his master. He is a truly grotesque creature: Machiavellian, sadistic, delusional, but still Lagerkvist manages to make the reader empathise with this little outsider, reviled and ridiculed since birth. |
The temple of dawn, by Yukio Mishima, Julian Huxley and G. P. Wells. (1974)
Born in 1925, Japanese writer Yukio Mishma published his first story in 1944 at the age of 19. The Temple of Dawn is part of his great tetralogy titled the Sea of Fertility which, with a central theme of reincarnation, spanned Japanese life and events in the 20th Century. The Temple of Dawn tells the story of a man called Honda's obsessive pursuit of a beautiful young Thai princess, and an equally passionate search for enlightenment that takes him to India. It dramatizes the Japanese experience from the eve of World War II through the post-war era.
The blue room, by Georges Simenon. (1965)
Belgian born French novelist, Simenon was born in Leige and began work as a journalist at the age of 16. He moved to Paris in 1922 and became a prolific writer of popular fiction, best known for his character, the French detective Maigret. In the Blue Room, vain, womanising Tony and passionate, manipulative Andree meet eight times in eleven months in the blue room at the Hotel des Voyageurs for afternoons of abandoned love. It leads inevitably to an appalling double murder and a nightmare which Tony can not escape. The novel was dramatised by David Hare and became a successful play.
The jungle, by Upton Sinclair. (1906)
Upton Sinclair born in Maryland, America, became a novelist and social reformer. Published privately by Sinclair in 1906 after commercial publishers rejected the manuscript, The Jungle was a shocking revelation of harmful labour practices and unsanitary working conditions in the Chicago stockyards. It quickly became a best-seller, arousing public sentiment and resulting in such Federal legislation as the Pure Food and Drug Act. The novel is brutally grim story of a Slavic immigrant family that migrates to America full of optimism but soon begins an inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and despair.
Train to Pakistan, by Khushwant Singh. (1956).
Kushwant Singh was born in Hadali, Pakistan and became a novelist and historian of the Sikhs. His masterpiece novel The Train to Pakistan is one of the most distinguished and graphic works on the subject of the partition of India. Set in the Punjab, it charts the descent of a community of Sikhs and Muslims into mutual fear and hatred as a result of the decisions of politicians, and events elsewhere, over which they have no control. The construction of the book is masterful, instilling at the outset a genuine sense of foreboding before building up to a climax that encompasses the futility, waste and despair of the violence of partition
Recent Stack editions: Biology miscellania | Music classics | Old farming methods | Fascinating Females
CONTACT US:
Please don't hesitate to contact the author if you wish to share your comments and views on these or any other stack book, or view previous editions. Happy delving!
