Out of print bestsellers

Widely popular when published in 1933, "Anthony Adverse" chronicles the life of a merchant in the 19th century. In a plot device wrested from Dickens, Anthony begins life in the French alps, the product of a tryst between an Italian marquise and her young lover. When the father is slain by the jealous marquis and the mother dies in childbirth, their child is left on the doorstep of a convent. By a miraculous coincidence, Anthony grows up and apprentices to his maternal grandfather's mercantile business, which he eventually inherits - only to squander his good fortune in an aimless sea voyage and languish brokenhearted in the West Indies for a good chunk of the text. Finally returning home, he reunites with his first love and struggles to regain his lost business. The novel is slow-paced, the language is archaic, and the descriptions are steeped in religious symbolism. Weighing in at 1,200 pages, "Anthony Adverse" is not for the faint of heart. By J. Johnson

Among Winston Churchill's prodigious talents (the renowned statesman was also a skilled landscape painter) were those of historian. "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples" and "The Gathering Storm" are among his best-known works, but "The World Crisis" holds up well, too. Written after World War I, in which Churchill served for a time as First Lord of the Admiralty, the book shows how, in his words, "Germany clanked obstinately, recklessly, awkwardly towards the crater" of a hideous and devastating European conflagration "and dragged us all in with her." Churchill knows he's no omniscient eye, watching from above: We get the war from inside the beast, from a man who helped make key decisions and suffered personal consequences. The final section of Volume One defends his ultimately disastrous plan to attack the Turks at Gallipoli in 1915. Readers are left with British and Allied forces trapped on the beach, literally a cliffhanger of an ending. By Gregory M. Lamb

Where there's a will - and disgruntled heirs contesting its provisions - there's Nero Wolfe, an eccentric and highly sought-after private detective. And where there's Nero Wolfe, there's his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin. Both are in top form in this 1940 adventure, which features a trio of sisters named April, May, and June, who receive a peach, a pear, and an apple, respectively, in the will of their brother, Noel Hawthorne. The real sticking point for the family, though, is the $7 million bequeathed to Hawthorne's mistress. After Wolfe takes the case, things get complicated: The police discover that Hawthorne was murdered, two heavily veiled women claim to be his wife, and - gasp! - the reclusive detective actually leaves his house to do some in-person investigating. The result is another satisfying success for Wolfe and Goodwin and a surprise ending for the reader. By Judy Lowe

If its seems odd that a Stephen King book is on the out-of-print list, bear in mind that "Rage" is one of several stories originally published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Like other novellas "Bachman" wrote, "Rage" isn't really a horror story. More psychological thriller, it revolves around Charlie Decker, the mentally unhinged narrator who one day brings a gun to school, kills two teachers, and holds his math class hostage (a prescient plot, given that King wrote the story in 1966 and published it in '77). The bulk of the story is a conversation between Decker and his fellow students - uninhibited, confessional, and increasingly disturbing as they recount intimate details about themselves and each other. By the surprising conclusion, it's unclear just whose rage the title refers to. The story is a quick, entertaining read - though it occasionally loses momentum - and King does a good job capturing adolescent angst. It's not, however, one of his most memorable works. By Amanda Paulson

Previous

1 | 2