Ruby Sisson Library

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from...

The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky's crowning achievement, is a tale of patricide & family rivalry that embodies the moral & spiritual dissolution of an entire society (Russia in the 1870s). It created a national furor comparable only to the excitement stirred by the publication, in 1866, of Crime & Punishment. To Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov captured the quintessence of Russian character in all its exaltation, compassion, & profligacy. Significantly,...

"On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold...

Featuring eight works of short fiction, South Sea Tales by Jack London is an adventurous collection with a nautical theme. With settings on islands or ships, South Sea Tales tell the exciting, but often heartbreaking tales of violence, colonialism, and racism. The House of Mapuhi follows the son of a trading magnate, who travels from island to island buying valuable items for his mother's business. When he learns of a brilliant pearl owned by one...

Rejected by the man she loves when he discovers that her father will disinherit her if they marry, Catherine Sloper again meets Morris Townsend after the death of her forbidding and domineering parent

A mysterious minister who never removes the black veil shrouding his face, an eccentric scientist who experiments with the fate of his friends, a cheerful tombstone carver who speaks the wisdom of the graveyard, these are but a few of the unusual New Englanders you'll meet in Twice-Told Tales

A reprint of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen's 1929 novel in which Irene, an African-American woman with a comfortable life, is disturbed by the return of a childhood friend, Clare, who has passed for white since adolescence and now wants to rejoin the African-American community.

Probably Garcia Marquez's finest and most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.

An abandoned orphan Gypsy boy Heathcliff is taken in by a well-to-do 19th century English family, the Earnshaws on the isolated moors. He becomes their stable boy and falls in love with the family's spoiled young daughter Catherine Earnshaw, his childhood friend. The beautiful Cathy is desperately in love with Heathcliff, but because of his low birth begins seeing a wealthy neighbor's son. Heathcliff leaves during a misunderstanding and with driving...

Originally published in 1902, this is a story of deceit and betrayal, as well as of forgiveness. Milly Theale is an heiress with a short time to live and a passion for experiencing life to its fullest. Merton Densher is the man she loves, and the magnificent, predatory Kate Croy is the woman he loves, and will conspire with against Millie.