Shelfology Book Pairing

A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

by Donna Tartt

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE "The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love--and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

75th Anniversary Edition

by Shirley Jackson

A trove of iconic horror stories from the legendary Shirley Jackson, “the master of the haunted tale” (The New York Times Book Review). One of the darkest, most nightmarish stories of the twentieth century, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” created a sensation when it was first published in 1948. Now celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary, this lucid tale of a sleepy town’s annual lottery—and the monstrous desires it awakens—endures as an essential classic of American fiction. The Lottery and Other Stories unites “The Lottery” with twenty-four wonderfully strange and equally terrifying short stories from the legendary Shirley Jackson. Together they demonstrate Jackson’s remarkable range—from the hilarious to the horrible, the unsettling to the ominous—and showcase a true master at the height of her haunting powers.