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Novels

To be great, a novel must show an old thing in a new way. It's equally disastrous to espouse tradition for its own sake as to propose novelty for the sake of novelty—only together can these elements have meaning.

Modernist and postmodernist authors are infatuated with newness as a thing in itself. They subject language to increasingly complicated gymnastic maneuvers, play with ideas rather than defending them, and generally wreak havoc on established forms. This results in novels that may or may not be aesthetically pleasing, but are surely meaningless.

If we adhere too closely to the forms of the past, however, we run the risk of shortsightedness, bigotry, and prejudice. Humans too often must be shaken from their stupor, made to see things as others see them in order to promote equality and peace and goodwill. A good novel rooted in universal ideals freshly presented can do just that.

Novels are seldom the impetus for social movements, but they often augment cultural change. As a literary form, they came into being because writers wanted a venue for espousing or exploring ideas that wasn't rooted in history or "real life." They wanted, in short, to write fiction.

Before the novel, works modern readers would view as fictional were generally considered in a different light. Either they were actual history, or they were meta-narratives, or they were religious, or they were simply narrative philosophy. The idea was to impart truth, not simply data. As writers became more concerned with the world-as-it-is and scientific understanding, they turned toward forms more consistent with the Enlightenment emphasis on knowledge-acquisition as a means to truth.

The novel was such a form. Symbolism was never abandoned wholesale (except by certain eccentric groups at various times), but a new attention was paid to detail—not just detail integral to the story or signifying something else, but detail that set the scene, that gave the reader a sense of place, mood, circumstance and character. It was this attention to detail that helped fiction emerge as a respectable genre.

For ancient and Medieval writers, the seen world and the world beyond were indistinguishable. The famed Celtic knot was intended to show the interrelatedness of all things, how each realmbled into the other and held everything in place. Pre-Enlightenment writing reflected this view, and any detail provided in a poem or narrative was intended, not to portray physical or human "realities," but to demonstrate truths consistent between realms.

When the Enlightenment came around and proclaimed scientific observation and empiricism the new guides (replacing revelation and divine authority), a new approach was needed. No longer were things primarily representative of other things, things were essentially what they were—meaning things were eseentially physical.

Description evolved to fit the new ethos, and creative literature evolved with it. The novel, prose rather than poetry, devoted to detail and incident rather than sweeping generalization, was one of the best weapons in the Enlightenment arsenal. Writers were no longer primarily concerned with affecting readers' attitudes and hearts, they wanted to change their minds. Western culture has never recovered.

Fortunately, the novel was never stagnant, and never fully enslaved by Enlightenment practitioners. Novels have diversified: there are philosophical novels, poetic novels, experimental novels, comic novels, historical novel, all of them aimed at the reader in such a way that the encounter is either devastating or uplifting, frightening or comforting, horrible and sad or fresh and beautiful.

We don't pretend to carry every important novel ever penned. We don't apologize for that....or for the fact that we carry novels at all. It's easy to look at fiction as mere escapism, much harder to engage it seriously hoping to be transformed. Our goal is to offer books (whether "classics" or not) that offer new ways of seeing, opportunities for transformation, encounters with the sublime as harrowing as they are exhilerating.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
New Ed from University of California Press
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$15.95
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain, edited by Mary R. Reichardt
from Ignatius Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Oxford World's Classics
by Mark Twain, edited with an introduction and notes by Emory Elliott
2008 Reissue from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 10th-Adult
1921 Pulitzer Prize winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren, edited and afterword by Noel Polk
from Mariner Books
for Adult
1947 Pulitzer Prize
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
by Michael Chabon
from Picador
for Adult
2001 Pulitzer Prize winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
50th Anniversary Edition from Signet Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.99
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
Reprint from Plume Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
Centennial from Plume Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Band of Angels
by Robert Penn Warren
from Louisiana State University Press
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
from Harper Perennial
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
from Vintage Classics
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories
by Herman Melville
from Bantam Books
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95 $2.50 (1 in stock)
Blood Meridian
by Cormac McCarthy
1st edition from Vintage Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder
from HarperCollins
for 9th-Adult
1928 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
from Back Bay Books
for 10th-Adult
1952 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Cannery Row
by John Steinbeck
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller
from HarperCollins
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Catch-22
by Joseph Heller
50th Anniversary Edition from Simon and Schuster
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Charlatan's Boy
by Jonathan Rogers
from WaterBrook Press
for 5th-7th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Chosen
by Chaim Potok
from Simon and Schuster
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Cloudsplitter
by Russell Banks
from Harper Perennial
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Common Life
Mitford Series Book 6
by Jan Karon
from Penguin Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Death Comes for the Archbishop
by Willa Cather
from Vintage Classics
Realistic Fiction for 9th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
Deerslayer
Leatherstocking Tales #1
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Earth Abides
by George R. Stewart
from Harper Voyager
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Revised from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.00
Egg and I
by Betty MacDonald
from HarperCollins
Biography for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Enchantment
by Orson Scott Card
1st edition from Del Rey
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Endless Knot
Song of Albion #3
by Stephen R. Lawhead
2nd edition from Thomas Nelson Publishers
Celtic Fantasy for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00
Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.00
Finale
by Calvin Miller
from InterVarsity Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
Reissue from Tonatiuh International Inc.
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Giant
by Edna Ferber
from Harper Perennial
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Gift of Asher Lev
by Chaim Potok
from Ballantine Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson
from Picador
for 10th-Adult
2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Go Down, Moses
by William Faulkner
from Vintage Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$13.95
Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck
from Washington Square Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.99
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
from Penguin Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Reissue from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Fiction for 9th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Grendel
by John Gardner
from Vintage Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Gringos
by Charles Portis
1st edition from Overlook Press
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.95
Hannah Coulter
by Wendell Berry
from Counterpoint, LLC
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.95
Home to Holly Springs
by Jan Karon
1st edition from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Hood
The King Raven Trilogy Book 1
by Stephen R. Lawhead
First Edition from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Hours
by Michael Cunningham
First Edition
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
House Made of Dawn
by N. Scott Momaday
from Harper Perennial
for Adult
1969 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
House of the Seven Gables
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$11.95 $4.00 (1 in stock)
In the Hall of the Dragon King
by Stephen R. Lawhead
from Crossway Books
for 9th-Adult
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Invisible Heart
by Russell Roberts
from MIT Press
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$27.95 $8.00 (2 in stock)
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
2nd edition from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
from Quality Paperback Book Club
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Israel Potter
by Herman Melville
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Joan of Arc
by Mark Twain
from Ignatius Press
Biography for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$18.95
Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
Later Printing
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Jungle, The
Norton Critical Editions
by Upton Sinclair
Norton Critical Edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
Social Commentary for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Killing Mister Watson
by Peter Matthiessen
from Vintage Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
from Riverhead Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Lancelot: A Novel
by Walker Percy
1st edition from Picador
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.00
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
Reprint from Penguin Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$13.00
Last of the Mohicans
Leatherstocking Tales #2
by James Fenimore Cooper
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Late George Apley
by John P. Marquand
from Time Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lathe of Heaven
by Ursula K. Le Guin
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
from Harvest Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
from Canon Gate
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Light in the Window
Mitford Series Book 2
by Jan Karon
from Penguin Putnam
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Little Women
by Lousia May Alcott
from Penguin Putnam
Realistic Romantic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.00
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
from Vintage Classics
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lonesome Dove: A Novel
by Larry McMurtry
from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$23.00
Long Fatal Love Chase
by Louisa May Alcott
First Thus from Dell Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.99
Lord of Light
by Roger Zelazny
from HarperCollins
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$13.99
Magnificent Ambersons
by Booth Tarkington
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
1919 Pulitzer Prize
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
March
by Geraldine Brooks
from Penguin Putnam
for Adult
2006 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Matterhorn
by Karl Marlantes
Reprint from Hickory Grove Press
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Reprint from Picador
for 11th-Adult
Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
from Penguin Putnam
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Moby-Dick
Wordsworth Classics
by Herman Melville
from Wordsworth Classics
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
My Antonia
by Willa Cather
from Mariner Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.99
My Name is Asher Lev
by Chaim Potok
from Anchor Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.95
Mysterious Affair at Styles
A Hercule Poirot Mystery #1
by Agatha Christie
from William Morrow & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
New Song
Mitford Series Book 5
by Jan Karon
from Penguin Putnam
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
No Less Than Victory
by Jeff Shaara
1st edition from Ballantine Books
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
O Pioneers
by Willa Cather
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
Octopus
by Frank Norris
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.95
Of Mice and Men
by John Steinbeck
from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00
Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$13.99
Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway Library Edition from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
from Random House
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Omoo
by Herman Melville
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.95
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
Out to Canaan
Mitford Series Book 4
by Jan Karon
from Penguin Putnam
Adult Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Ox-Bow Incident
by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Reissue from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Peace Like a River
by Leif Enger
from Atlantic Monthly Press
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00
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