Beautiful, sophisticated and endlessly ambitious Lily Bart endeavours to climb the social ladder of New York's elite by securing a good match and living beyond her means. Now nearing 30 years of age and having rejected several proposals, forever in the hope of finding someone better, her future prospects are threatened. A damning commentary of 20th-century social order, Edith Wharton's tale established her as one of the greatest British novelists of the 1900s.

The story of "The Age of Innocence" is set in upper-class New York City in the 1870s, during the so-called Gilded Age. Newland Archer has the perfect life. He is rich, young, good looking and member of the New York High Society. Newland is engaged to a lovely, delightful girl, May Welland and later they get married. When her cousin (Ellen Olenska), comes back from Europe, her presence threatens their happiness as Newland develops feelings for her... Wharton manages to dissect the hypocrisy of a society where customs and position take center stage.

The House of Mirth is the story of Lily Bart, a penniless woman of the high society of New York City, who was raised and educated to become wife to a wealthy man, a hothouse flower for conspicuous consumption. As an unattached woman with gambling debts and an uncertain future, Lily is destroyed by the society who created her. Written in the style of a novel of manners, the writing itself is an illustration of American literary naturalism.

The beautiful, much-desired Lily Bart has been raised to be one of the perfect wives of the wealthy upper class, but her spark of character and independent drive prevents her from becoming one of the many women who will succeed in those circles. Though her desire for a comfortable life means that she cannot marry for love without money, her resistance to the rules of the social elite endangers her many marriage proposals.

Undine Spragg is a Midwestern girl who tries to ascend in New York City society. The Spraggs, a family of midwesterners from the fictional city of Apex who have made money through somewhat shady financial dealings, arrive in New York City at the encouragement of their beautiful, ambitious, but socially-naive daughter, Undine. She marries Ralph Marvell, a member of an old New York family that no longer enjoys significant wealth.

It is the story of 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

Letting Go describes a simple and effective means by which to let go of the obstacles to enlightenment and become free of negativity. During the many decades of the author's clinical psychiatric practice, the primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to relieve human suffering in all of its many forms. The inner mechanism of surrender was found to be of great practical benefit and is described in this book.

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.

At ten years old, Chelsea opened a lemonade stand and realized she’d make more money if the drinks were spiked. So she added vodka to her recipe and used her earnings to upgrade herself to first-class on a family vacation—leaving her parents and siblings in coach. She moved to Los Angeles and got fired from her temp job when she admitted she didn’t know how to transfer calls. She’s played pickleball with the scions of an American dynasty. She’s sexted a governor. She shared psychedelics with strangers in Spain.