Today’s a great day to stock up on all those literary classics you swore you’d eventually get in Kindle format when they became available at good prices. Amazon hasn’t announced any specific sale on them, but these books are all currently being offered at a discount! Grab the ones you want right away, because we can’t say how long these prices will last.
The Grapes of Wrath (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $2.99)
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.
Note: This is an illustrated edition of the book for an engaging read.
Brave New World (4/5 stars, currently priced at $2.99)
Aldous Huxley’s tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a “utopian” future—where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order.
A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.
1984 (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $2.99)
In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind.
Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions.
Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party.
Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at 99 cents)
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery classic helped sow the seeds of abolition across the nation and became the bestselling novel of the nineteenth century
Since its publication in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel has been instrumental in shaping American attitudes about slavery and race. Throughout its long publication history, this remarkable novel has been both beloved and criticized, and its impact on antebellum cultural attitudes cannot be denied.
With a diverse and memorable cast of characters, this sentimental novel depicts both the grim realities of slavery and the tremendous strength of character that can triumph over adversity. In Uncle Tom, a noble and pious slave, readers see a man whose dignity, morality, and goodness are never compromised even by the horrors of slavery. Personifying the evils of the institution of slavery is Simon Legree, a ruthless plantation owner.
This deeply affecting novel remains a cornerstone of American history.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Heart of Darkness (4/5 stars, currently priced at 99 cents)
The classic novel that inspired Apocalypse Now
A European trading concern hires Marlow to pilot a boat up the Congo River in search of Kurtz—a first-class ivory agent and the manager of the company’s highly profitable Inner Station—who is believed to be on his deathbed. With a handful of pilgrims as his passengers and a crew of cannibals, Marlow steams his way into the African interior. The terrifying discovery he makes at the end of his journey and the horrors he witnesses along the way have thrilled and disturbed readers for more than a century.
A searing indictment of imperialism and a haunting exposé of mankind’s savage nature, Heart of Darkness is Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece.
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Lord of the Flies (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $2.99)
Before The Hunger Games there was Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among both students and literary critics who compared it to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye in its influence on modern thought and literature.
Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $1.99)
“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.” —Zadie Smith
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston.
Out of print for almost thirty years—–due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—–Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.
The Jungle (4/5 stars, currently FREE)
One Amazon reviewer says:
Half starved immigrants from Lithuania newly arrived in America were told that the land of milk and honey was Chicago. “There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything he desires is outside. And there is another kind where the things are behind bars, and the man is outside.”
Ona and Jurgis saw Chicago as a vision of power, a dream of wonder, human energy where employment gave freedom for life, love and joy.
This is a horrendous study of the early animal slaughter and meat packaging industry. “The slaughtering machine ran on. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory.”
Jurgis Ruckus labored in Brown’s Killing Fields and Durham’s fertilizer mill. Then with his wife’s death, he is blacklisted. Without work, without sustenance, after weeks of trials and tribulations, he becomes a tramp, then a harvester filling he seasonal crops. Being homeless, he wanders over the continent.
They all worked in dangerous, unhealthful, squalid places. They wrestled with hunger and privation, always falling victim to brutal firemen, cheating employers, horrific accidents, disease and death. Injustice and oppression pressed cruelly. The city, even the country was a wilderness quagmire without a visible haven. Organized and predatory greed ruled above he poverty, sickness, threats, hatred, prejudice, fraud and falsehoods.
The oppressed knew and had no comforter. They were disheartened, disinherited and finally disconnected from life without respite or any hope of deliverance from these prisons created by those who controlled power through money. All were caught beneath the juggernaut wheels of greed. A truly classical work.
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