Top Non-Fiction Best Sellers Books
As the novel opens, protagonist Dagny Taggart, the Operating Vice President of Taggart Transcontinental, a railroad company established by her grandfather, attempts to keep the company alive against collectivism and statism. Her brother, James Taggart, the railroad's President, is peripherally aware of the company's troubles, but seems to make irrational decisions, such as preferring to buy steel from Orren Boyle's Associated Steel, rather than Hank Rearden's Rearden Steel, despite the former continually delaying delivery of vital rail. In this as in other decisions, Dagny simply continues her own policy; but is herself disappointed to discover that Francisco d'Anconia, her childhood friend and first love, appears to be destroying his family's international copper company without cause.
Hank Rearden, a self-made steel magnate, has developed an alloy called Rearden Metal, now the most reliable metal in the world; but keeps its composition secret, sparking jealousy among competitors. As a result, pressure is put on Dagny to use conventional steel; but she refuses. Hank's career is hindered by his feelings of obligation to his wife, mother, and younger brother. Dagny also becomes acquainted with Wesley Mouch, a Washington lobbyist initially working for Rearden, whom he betrays; and later notices the nation's most capable business leaders abruptly disappearing, leaving their industries to failure. The most recent of these is Ellis Wyatt, the sole founder and supervisor of Wyatt Oil, who leaves his most successful oil well spewing petroleum and fire into the air (later named "Wyatt's Torch"). Each of these men remains absent despite a thorough search by politicians. While economic conditions worsen and government agencies enforce their control on successful businesses, the citizens are often heard repeating "Who is John Galt?", in response to questions to which the individual has no answer. It sarcastically means, "Don't ask important questions, because we don't have answers", or more broadly, "What's the point?" or "Why bother?".
Having demonstrated the reliability of Rearden Metal in a railroad line named after 'John Galt', Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart become paramours; and later discover, amongst the ruins of an abandoned factory, an incomplete motor that transforms atmospheric static electricity into kinetic energy, of which they seek the inventor. Eventually this search reveals the reason of business-leaders' disappearances, when Dagny pursues a scientist to 'Galt's Gulch', where the character John Galt is leading an organized "strike" of business leaders against the government.
Reluctant to forsake her railroad, Dagny leaves Galt's Gulch; but Galt follows Dagny to New York City, where he hacks into a national radio broadcast to deliver a long speech (70 pages in the first edition), to explain the novel's theme and Rand's Objectivism.[27] As the government collapses, the authorities capture Galt; but he is rescued by his partisans, while New York City loses its electricity. The novel closes as Galt announces that they will later re-organize the world.
Source: Wikipedia
The story takes place during three years (1933–35) of the Great Depression in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama, the seat of Maycomb County. It focuses on six-year-old Jean Louise Finch (Scout), who lives with her older brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo, and, for many years few have seen him. The children feed one another's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. After two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone leaves them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, he never appears in person.
Judge Taylor appoints Atticus to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus's actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view.
Atticus does not want Jem and Scout to be present at Tom Robinson's trial. No seat is available on the main floor, so by invitation of Rev. Sykes, Jem, Scout, and Dill watch from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers—Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk—are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella made sexual advances toward Tom, and that her father caught her and beat her. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice becomes badly shaken, as is Atticus', when the hapless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.
Despite Tom's conviction, Bob Ewell is humiliated by the events of the trial, Atticus explaining that he "destroyed [Ewell's] last shred of credibility at that trial."[11] Ewell vows revenge, spitting in Atticus' face, trying to break into the judge's house, and menacing Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout while they walk home on a dark night after the school Halloween pageant. One of Jem's arms is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.
Sheriff Tate arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has died during the fight. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of charging Jem (whom Atticus believes to be responsible) or Boo (whom Tate believes to be responsible). Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective, and regrets that they had never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.
Source: Wikipedia
![Harper Lee-To Kill a Mockingbird](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlwkE_eBu6u3tZAQ6bb8SgXPX0r6zY6fEuz1WvalksoyVAvl88U8cOFb0auHkgE5WadelVly6fNoUnbGaCTd71DMBKJwcYdIKZPRZV0NopQ_zvDBYEyHtFEPtQYs3PWMp2zznPwQ6V6hT/s1600/LH3.jpg" "Harper Lee-To Kill a Mockingbird")
The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran from the Midwest – who serves as the novel's narrator – takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the (fictional) village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds extravagant parties but does not participate in them. Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Fay Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. She reveals to Nick that Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the "valley of ashes":[11] an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to an apartment they keep for their affair. At the apartment, a vulgar and bizarre party takes place. It ends with Tom breaking Myrtle's nose after she annoys him by saying Daisy's name several times.
As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Nick encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, an aloof and surprisingly young man who recognizes Nick from their same division in the war. Through Jordan, Nick later learns that Gatsby knew Daisy from a romantic encounter in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion, hoping to one day rekindle their lost romance. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are an attempt to impress Daisy in the hope that she will one day appear again at Gatsby's doorstep. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. They begin an affair and, after a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans' house, Daisy speaks to Gatsby with such undisguised intimacy that Tom realizes she is in love with Gatsby. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is outraged by his wife's infidelity. He forces the group to drive into New York City and confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, asserting that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand. In addition to that, he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal whose fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.
When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes[11] on their way home, they discover that Gatsby's car has struck and killed Tom's mistress, Myrtle. Nick later learns from Gatsby that Daisy, not Gatsby himself, was driving the car at the time of the accident but Gatsby intends to take the blame anyway. Myrtle's husband, George, falsely concludes that the driver of the yellow car is the secret lover he recently began suspecting she has, and sets out on foot to locate its owner. After finding out the yellow car is Gatsby's, he arrives at Gatsby's mansion where he fatally shoots both Gatsby and then himself. Nick stages an unsettlingly small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest, disillusioned with the Eastern lifestyle.
Source: Wikipedia
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at Tom's childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area.
The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle John's. Tom finds his family loading a Hudson saloon converted to a truck with the remains of their possessions; with their crops destroyed by the Dust Bowl, the family defaulted on their bank loans. As their farm is repossessed, the Joads have no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay. The Joads put everything they have into making the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides it is worth the risk, and invites Casy to join him and his family.
Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family find the road crowded with other migrants. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some returning from California, and worry about lessening prospects. Along the road, Granpa dies and they bury him in a field; Granma dies close to the California state line; and both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie Rivers (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family. Led by Ma, the remaining members realize they can only continue, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma.
Reaching California, they find the state oversupplied with labor, so wages are low and workers are taken advantage of. The big corporate farmers are in collusion, and smaller farmers suffer from collapsing prices. Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency, offers better conditions, but does not have enough resources to care for all the needy families. As a Federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by California deputies.
In response to the exploitation, Casy becomes a labor organizer and tries to recruit for a labor union. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers in a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. When Tom Joad witnesses Casy's fatal beating, he kills the attacker and flees as a fugitive. The Joads later leave the orchard for a cotton farm, where Tom is at risk of arrest for the homicide.
He bids farewell to his mother, promising to work for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn. Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. With rain, the Joads' dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground. In the final chapter of the book, the family take shelter from the flood in an old barn. Inside they find a young boy and his father, who is dying of starvation. Rose of Sharon takes pity on the man and offers him her breast, so that he can be saved from starvation.
Source: Wikipedia
In the spring of 1922, Howard Roark is expelled from his architecture school for refusing to adhere to the school's conventionalism. Despite an effort by some professors to defend Roark and a subsequent offer to continue, Roark chooses to leave the school. He believes buildings should be sculpted to fit their location, material and purpose elegantly and efficiently, while his critics insist that adherence to historical convention is essential. He goes to New York City to work for Henry Cameron, a disgraced architect whom Roark admires. Peter Keating, a popular but vacuous fellow student, has graduated with high honors. He too moves to New York to take a job at the prestigious architectural firm of Francon & Heyer, where he ingratiates himself with senior partner Guy Francon. Roark and Cameron create inspired work, but rarely receive recognition, whereas Keating's ability to flatter brings him quick success. To hasten his rise to power, Keating bends his skills in manipulation towards the removal of rivals within his firm. His actions culminate in the unintended manslaughter of Lucius Heyer, a senior partner, who dies of a stroke when threatened with blackmail by Keating. Though he occasionally feels guilt for his unethical actions that lead to his partnership within the firm, Keating demonstrates that he will always pursue his lust for prestige regardless of personal cost.
After Cameron retires, Keating hires Roark, who is soon fired for insubordination by Francon. Roark works briefly at another firm and then opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down. He takes a job at a granite quarry owned by Francon. Meanwhile, Keating has developed an interest in Francon's beautiful, temperamental and idealistic daughter Dominique, who works as a columnist for The New York Banner, a yellow press-style newspaper. While Roark is working in the quarry, he meets Dominique, who has retreated to her family's estate in the same town. There is an immediate attraction between them. Rather than indulge in traditional flirtation, the two engage in a battle of wills that culminates in a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later describes as a rape. Shortly after their encounter, Roark is notified that a client is ready to start a new building, and he returns to New York before Dominique can learn his name.
Ellsworth M. Toohey, author of a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who is covertly rising to power by shaping public opinion through his column and his circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads. Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman to hire Roark to design a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Given full freedom to design it as he sees fit, Roark includes a nude statue of Dominique, which creates a public outcry. Toohey manipulates the client into suing Roark. At the trial, prominent architects (including Keating) testify that Roark's style is unorthodox and illegitimate. Dominique speaks in Roark's defense, but he loses the case.
Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants, in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness, she will live completely and entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She offers Keating her hand in marriage. Keating accepts, breaking his previous engagement with Toohey's niece Catherine. Dominique turns her entire spirit over to Keating, doing and saying whatever he wants. She fights Roark and persuades his potential clients to hire Keating instead. Despite this, Roark continues to attract a small but steady stream of clients who see the value in his work.
To win Keating a prestigious commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand then buys Keating's silence and his divorce from Dominique, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wynand subsequently discovers that every building he likes was designed by Roark, so he enlists Roark to build a home for himself and Dominique. The home is built, and Roark and Wynand become close friends, although Wynand does not know about Roark's past relationship with Dominique.
Now washed up and out of the public eye, Keating realizes he is a failure. He pleads with Toohey for his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees to design it in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed. When Roark returns from a long trip with Wynand, he finds that the Cortlandt design has been changed despite his agreement with Keating. Roark dynamites the building to prevent the subversion of his vision.
The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banner's circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique's help. Wynand is eventually faced with the choice of closing the paper or reversing his stance. He gives in; the newspaper publishes a denunciation of Roark over Wynand's signature. At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a speech about the value of ego and the need to remain true to oneself. The jury finds him not guilty and Roark wins Dominique. Wynand, who has finally grasped the nature of the "power" he thought he held, shuts down the Banner and asks Roark to design one last building for him, a skyscraper that will testify to the supremacy of man. Eighteen months later, the Wynand Building is under construction and Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework.
Source: Wikipedia
The story takes place from 1922 to 1925, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the protagonist of the story, is the younger daughter of a bourgeois family. An independent spirit with a will to match, she rejects any attempt by her family or the nascent Soviet state to cast her into a mold. At the beginning of the story, Kira returns to Petrograd with her family, after a prolonged exile due to the assault of the Bolshevik revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which was seized and nationalized. Having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the victories of the Red Army, the family returns to the city in search of livelihood. They find that their home has also been seized and converted to living quarters for several families.
Kira's family eventually manages to find living quarters, and Kira's father gets a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times. Rand portrays long queues, weary citizens and low standards of living. With some effort, Kira manages to obtain her Labor Book, which permits her to study and work. Kira also manages to enroll in the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer. At the Institute, Kira meets Andrei Taganov, a co-student, an idealistic Communist and an officer in the Soviet secret police. The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs, and become friends.
In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky, an attractive man with a free spirit. It is love at first sight for Kira, and she throws herself at Leo, who initially takes her to be a prostitute. He is also strongly attracted to her and promises to meet her again. Kira and Leo are shown to be united by their desperate lives and their beliefs that run counter to what is being thrust on them by the state. After a couple of meetings, when they share their deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape the country together.
From this point on, the novel slowly cascades into a series of catastrophes for Kira and Leo. They are caught while attempting to flee the country, but escape imprisonment with the help of an official who knew Leo's father before the revolution. Kira leaves her parents' apartment and moves into Leo's. Soon the state decides to expel any college students of a bourgeois background, and Kira is also fired from her job. The relationship between Kira and Leo, intense and passionate in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the weight of their hardships and their different reactions. Kira keeps her ideas and aspirations alive, but decides to go along with the system until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. Leo, in contrast, sinks slowly into indifference and depression. He contracts tuberculosis and is prescribed treatment in a sanatorium. Kira's efforts to finance his treatment fail, and her appeals to the authorities to get state help fall on deaf ears.
As Kira's relationship with Leo evolves, so does her relationship with Andrei. Despite their political differences, she finds Andrei to be the one person with whom she could discuss her most intimate thoughts and views. Andrei's affection and respect for Kira slowly turns into love. When he confesses his love to Kira, she is dismayed but also desperate, so she feigns love for Andrei and agrees to become his mistress. She uses money from Andrei to fund Leo's treatment.
Leo returns cured of tuberculosis and healthy, but a changed man. He opens a food store that is a facade for black market trade. Andrei, who is concerned that corruption is damaging the communist state, starts investigating Leo's store. He arrests Leo and in the process discovers that Kira has secretly been living with Leo. Disillusioned about both his personal relationship and his political ideals, Andrei secures Leo's release and shortly thereafter commits suicide. Kira, perhaps the only genuine mourner at his state funeral, wonders if she has killed him. Having lost any moral sense that he may have left, Leo leaves Kira to begin a new life as a gigolo. After Leo's departure, Kira makes a final attempt to cross the border. Almost in sight of freedom, she is shot by a border guard and dies.
Source: Wikipedia
