Leisure Reading — Literature

Set by the Mississippi River in the 1840’s, this tale is a follow-up to his original book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry takes off on a raft down the Mississippi with Jim, a slave seeking his freedom. They run into two con artists, the Duke and the King, as they drift southward, and Huck reunites with Tom Sawyer near the end of the book. The book exposes attitudes prevalent at the times, especially racism, and includes coarse language.

The domesticated life of a powerful St. Bernard-Shepherd mix named Buck is quickly turned on end when he is stolen away from his master and put to work as a sled dog in Alaska. His once life of luxury turns into a life of survival and adaptation as he learns the ways of the wilderness.

The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

Audio recording from January, 1959, at the Big Table Reading at the Shaw Festival, Chicago, read by Ginsberg."Howl" is considered to be one of the great works of American literature. It came to be associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation, which included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Sinclair wrote this novel to portray the lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Many readers were most concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper.

Enduringly eerie story of a naive and irresistible young man lured by decadent Lord Henry Wotton into a life of depravity. Though Dorian is steeped in sin, his face remains perfect, unlined as years pass-while only his portrait, locked away, reveals the blackness of his soul.

The story of Uncle Tom, an enslaved person, depicted as saintly and dignified, noble and steadfast in his beliefs. While being transported by boat to auction in New Orleans, Tom saves the life of Little Eva, an angelic and forgiving young girl, whose grateful father then purchases Tom. Eva and Tom soon become great friends. Always frail, Eva’s health begins to decline rapidly, and on her deathbed she asks her father to free all his enslaved people. He makes plans to do so but is then killed, and the brutal Simon Legree, Tom’s new owner, has Tom whipped to death after he refuses to divulge the whereabouts of certain escaped slaves. Tom maintains a steadfastly Christian attitude toward his own suffering.