The Book of the City of Ladies

First of all, one has a very difficult problem in defining exactly what this compendium is. Is it a book, a poem, a history, an epic? Well, it is all of those and many more. The Anatomy of Melancholy is, without a doubt, the best book ever written, bar none.

It was compliled from all the books of the 17th century and is not really about melancholy, per se. It is, rather, Robert Burtons view of mankind and mankinds condition. All mankind. And all conditions. It is about melancholia, sure, but it is about everything else as well. Melancholia was just Burtons excuse to write about everything under the sun in a strikingly original way and then have the nerve to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun. This is a book filled with both endless quotes and endless quotable material and, to the surprise of many, it is a comic masterpiece. Perhaps the comic masterpiece. Burton chose to publish this book as having been written by Democritus Junior, and if that doesnt give you a hint regarding the humor that follows, then not much will.

If you like good literature, youll love this book. If you like psychology, youll love this book. If you want to seem pretentious, you need this book. Mostly, however, this is a book for people who love words. Burton may have seemed like a raving madman to some, but he was a man obsessed with a love for the English language...and it shows.

The Anatomy of Melancholy wasnt meant to be read from the first page to the last; I have never met anyone who did that and one would have to be more than a little mad to even try. Just pick up the book. Open it to any page. You may find lists, digressions, bits of 17th century prose, quotes, much Latin. Whatever you find, it is sure to please if you only give it half a chance.

The Anatomy of Melancholy is definitely the desert island book. Dont go without. That would be a terrible mistake.

"Astonishing, original....an early chapter in women's revisionary history [that] offers true eloquence resurrected from the silence of the past."—The New York Times Book Review

After taking up arms in a heavenly war, teen angel Isabella is banished to Earth. Her penance: to live as an immortal teenager. Her objective: to create a safe haven for her fellow exiled angels who believe in her mantra of independence. Faced with life on the mortal plane, she and her girls form a rock band as a means to literally sing for their supper.

But when Isabella saves a fallen male angel, things fall apart. If she thought her penance was hard before, she's got an even harder path to follow now that she realizes Nathan is her soul mate--and that he holds the key to returning her to the heavenly realm. But she has no intention of going anywhere if it means leaving her sisters alone in exile. Until she discovers a hellish plan to amass a human-turned-demon army. Now she must convince the very angels who cast her out that war can no longer be avoided--if they want to survive...

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.