Herman Wouk - Free Library Land Online - Dystopia

Aurora Dawn

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

The publication of 'Aurora Dawn' in 1947 immediately established Herman Wouk as a novelist of exceptional literary and historical significance. Today, Aurora Dawn's themes have grown still more relevant and, in the manner of all great fiction, its characters and ironies have only been sharpened by the passage of time. Wouk's raucous satire of Manhattan's high-power elite recounts the adventures of one Andrew Reale as he struggles toward fame and fortune in the early days of radio. On the quest for wealth and prestige, ambitious young Andrew finds himself face-to-face with his own devil's bargain: forced to choose between soul and salary, true love and a strategic romance, Wouk's riotous, endearing hero learns a timeless lesson about the high cost of success in America's most extravagant metropolis.

The Hope

Tue, 12 Oct 1993 17:44:00 +0200

"One of our best writers today—a modern Charles Dickens—is Herman Wouk… The Hope* is not only a good read, but it also causes a good think."*

—William Safire, New York Times*

Starting in 1948 and reaching its climax during the Six-Day War of 1967, The Hope begins the story of Israel, a country fighting for its life—outmatched and surrounded by enemies. Zev Barak, Sam Pasternak, Don Kishote, and Benny Luria are all officers in the Israeli Army, caught up in the sweep of history, fighting the desperate desert battles and meeting the larger-than-life personalities that shaped Israel’s fight for independence. The four heroes, and the women they love—three Israelis and one American—weave a compelling tapestry of individual destinies through the grand social history of one nation’s struggle against the odds. Their story—and Israel’s—is concluded in The Glory, which picks up from the Six-Day War and carries through to the hope for peace of the Camp David accords. In this two-part epic, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Herman Wouk brings out the passion, romance, and heroism of Israel’s struggle for survival—adding to his oeuvre yet another enthralling saga that’s impossible to put down.

A Hole in Texas

Mon, 12 Jul 2004 14:41:30 +0300

With this rollicking novel hailed equally for its satiric bite, its lightly borne scientific savvy, and its tender compassion for foible-prone humanity, one of America's preeminent storytellers returns to fiction.
Guy Carpenter is a regular guy, a family man, an obscure NASA scientist, when he is jolted out of his quiet life and summoned to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Through a turn of events as unlikely as it is inevitable, Guy finds himself compromised by scandal and romance, hounded by Hollywood, and agonizingly alone at the white-hot center of a firestorm ignited as three potent forces of American culture — politics, big science, and the media — spectacularly collide.

Marjorie Morningstar

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

A starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves New York to accept the job of her dreams-working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest-and the most destructive-love of her life.
Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine. This unforgettable paean to youthful love and the bittersweet sorrow of a first heartbreak endures as one of Herman Wouk's most beloved creations.

City Boy

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

'City Boy' spins a hilarious and often touching tale of an urban kid's adventures and misadventures on the street, in school, in the countryside, always in pursuit of Lucille, a heartless redhead personifying all the girls who torment and fascinate pubescent lads of eleven.

The Glory

Wed, 12 Oct 1994 17:44:00 +0200

In The Hope, world-famed historical novelist Herman Wouk told the riveting saga of the first twenty years of Israel's existence, culminating in its resounding triumph in the Six-Day War, which amazed the world as few events of this turbulent century have. With The Glory, Wouk rejoins the story of Israel's epic journey in one of his most compelling works yet. From the euphoric aftermath of that stunning victory in 1967, through the harrowing battles of the Yom Kippur War, the heroic Entebbe rescue, the historic Camp David Accords, and finally the celebration of forty years of independence and the opening of the road to peace, Wouk immerses us in the bloody battles, the devastating defeats, the elusive victories.

The Winds of War

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

Like no other masterpiece of historical fiction, Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II is the great novel of America's Greatest Generation. Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of global events, as well as all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of World War II, as it immerses us in the lives of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom. The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance stand as the crowning achievement of one of America's most celebrated storytellers.

Don't Stop the Carnival

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 12:25:43 +0300

The basis for the Herman Wouk–Jimmy Buffett musical: A middle-aged New Yorker buys a Caribbean hotel and learns that paradise has its drawbacks in this novel that “moves as fast as a Marx Brothers movie” (The New York Times Book Review).
Broadway press agent Norman Paperman is pushing fifty with one heart attack already under his belt. So he decides to chuck the stressful Manhattan life and bring his wife and teenage daughter to a lush green island. With the help of a wheeler-dealer friend, he winds up buying a small hotel. How hard could running one be?
Pretty hard, actually, when you throw in an earthquake, plumbing problems, rampaging ants, and a few more unexpected developments at the Gull Reef Club. Before long, Norman’s spirit is as drained as his bank account, his marriage is on the brink, and he’s desperately searching for a way out of this beautiful nightmare . . .
Don’t Stop the...

War and Remembrance

Thu, 12 Oct 1978 17:44:00 +0300

These two classic works capture the tide of world events even as they unfold the compelling tale of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom. The multimillion-copy bestsellers that capture all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of the Second World War -- and that constitute Wouk's crowning achievement -- are available for the first time in trade paperback.

Youngblood Hawke

Thu, 12 Jul 2018 14:41:29 +0300

A writer finds wealth, fame, and sorrow in midcentury Manhattan in "a tremendous novel...full of wisdom and pain" by a #1 New York Times-bestselling author (Los Angeles Times).

Arthur Youngblood Hawke, an ex-Navy man, moves from hardscrabble rural Kentucky to New York, hoping to make his mark on the literary world. His first novel becomes an instant hit, and he is toasted by critics and swept along on a tide of celebrity.

But as he gives himself over to the lush life that gilds artistic success—indulging in an affair with an older married woman and a flirtation with his editor, dabbling in real estate developments as his second novel brings him massive wealth and even bigger opportunities—he will soon find himself in a self-destructive downward spiral.
Inspired by the life of Thomas Wolfe, and spanning from the Manhattan publishing world to Hollywood to Europe, Youngblood Hawke is both a riveting saga of...

The Lawgiver

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:51:26 +0300

For more than fifty years, legendary author Herman Wouk has dreamed of writing a novel about the life of Moses. Finally, at age ninety-seven, he has found an ingeniously witty way to tell the tale in The Lawgiver, a romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day. The story emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, recorded talk, Skype transcripts, and text messages.

At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father's strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses if the script meets certain standards, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including a reunion with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business.

Two other key characters...

The Caine Mutiny

Tue, 17 Nov 1992 12:09:55 +0200

SUMMARY:
The Novel that Inspired the Now-Classic Film The Caine Mutiny and the Hit Broadway Play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life-and mutiny-on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II. In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has become a perennial favorite of readers young and old, has sold millions of copies throughout the world, and has achieved the status of a modern classic.
SUMMARY:
Upon its original publication in 1951, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was immediately embraced as one of the first serious works of fiction to help readers grapple with the human consequences of World War II. In the intervening half-century, Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining story of life-and mutiny-on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater has achieved the status of a modern classic.

Inside, Outside

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 14:41:32 +0300

A "truly enjoyable" journey through one man's Jewish American experience by the #1 New York Times-bestselling authorof Marjorie Morningstar (Newsday).

Israel David Goodkind is a minor bureaucrat in the Nixon White House, killing time in the office by writing the story of four generations of his large, sprawling Russian-Jewish immigrant family. As he recounts his brief stint in show business, his torrid affair with a showgirl, and his encounters with a hassled and distracted President Nixon, Goodkind also witnesses historical events firsthand—the Watergate scandal, the Yom Kippur War—and eventually finds his way back to his Jewish faith.
Combining Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk's wildly comic streak with his deep respect for religious tradition, Inside, Outside is both one man's story and "a social comedy of Jewish-American life reaching from New York to Jerusalem and spanning much of the 20th century"...