Shelfology Book Pairing

by Ernest Hemingway

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from “the good fight,” For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise. “If the function of a writer is to reveal reality,” Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, “no one ever so completely performed it.” Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

A Franz Kafka Tale of Transmutation.

by Franz Kafka

Gregor Samsa, a sales representative, awakens in his bed to end up changed into an enormous insect. He checks out his room, which seems typical, and chooses to return to fall back to sleep and disregard what has occurred. He endeavors to turn over while sleeping, just to find that he can't anymore because of his new body-he is stuck on his hard, arched convex back. He attempts to scratch a tingle on his stomach, yet when he contacts himself with one of his numerous new legs, which is sickening for him. His disgust reminds him of his job, his life, and the responsibilities he has on the shoulders of his parents and his sister. Gregor tries to get out of the bed but finds it difficult to do so because of his new metamorphosis. His new look scares everyone in the family and his life turns upside down with it. Losing his job, all he could do was to stay in the room, climb the walls and ceiling and watch his family being distressed about no income.