1970s Books
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs book: The book details a bedtime story narrated by a grandfather to his grandchildren, chronicling the daily lives of the citizens of an unordinary town called Chewandswallow characterized by its strange daily meteorological pattern that provides the townsfolk with all of their required daily meals by raining food. Although the residents of the town enjoy a lifestyle devoid of any grocery shopping or cookery, the weather unexpectedly and inexplicably takes a turn for the worse, devastating the local community with destructive and uncontrollable storms of either unpleasant or dangerously oversized foods, resulting in unstoppable catastrophes for the townspeople. Their lives endangered by the threats of the storms, they relocate to a different community of normal non-edible meteorological patterns, safe from the hazards that once were presented by raining meals. However, they are forced to learn how to obtain food the normal way.The following morning, the man's grandchildren awaken to discover snowfall. After bundling up and hurrying outside to play, the granddaughter, in first-person narration, describes the scent of mashed potatoes detected while romping with her brother, implying that the grandfather's story might not be purely fictitious. (www.wikipedia.com)
.The Drifters Book: This book has real events in it such as the Vietnam War and 1968 Democratic National Convention and related protest activity. (www.wikipedia.com)
(www.Fifth Business Book: Ramsay's passion for hagiology and his guilty connection to Mary Dempster provide most of the impetus and background for this novel. He spends much of the book struggling with his image of Mary Dempster as a fool-Saint and dealing with issues of guilt that grew from a childhood accident.The entire story is told in the form of a letter written by Ramsay on his retirement from teaching at Colborne College, addressed to the school headmaster. (www.wikipedia.com)
Smiley's People: Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova, a Soviet émigrée in Paris, is told by a Soviet agent calling himself "Kursky" that her daughter Alexandra, whom she was forced to leave behind, may be permitted to join her for "humanitarian reasons". Maria eagerly applies for French citizenship for her daughter, but time passes with no sign of Alexandra and no further contact with "Kursky". Realising she has been duped, Maria writes to General Vladimir, a former Soviet general and British agent, for help. Vladimir immediately realises that Maria was unwittingly used to provide a "legend", or false identity, for an unknown young woman, a ploy which KGB spymaster Karla has fruitlessly tried before. Vladimir also recognises that the operation is wholly unofficial, because Karla uses blundering amateur agents instead of trained intelligence officers. (www.wikipedia.com)
JailBird Book:
This novel introduces Vonnegut's fictitious megacorporation, RAMJAC, which he says owned 19% of all business in the United States at its peak. Throughout the novel, whenever a business is mentioned, Vonnegut frequently mentions RAMJAC in a parenthetical comment, such as "Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (A RAMJAC Corporation)". RAMJAC may have been Vonnegut's response to megacorporation television ads common around the time of the novel's publication, in which they would detail the many familiar brand names under their corporate wing.
Jailbird also features a brief appearance of Kilgore Trout, a recurring Vonnegut character who writes science fiction novels and stories. However in this appearance, "Kilgore Trout" is revealed to be the pseudonym of a character in prison, deliberately contradicting the autobiographical details of Trout's life as delineated in both earlier and subsequent Vonnegut novels. (www.wikipedia.com)
This novel introduces Vonnegut's fictitious megacorporation, RAMJAC, which he says owned 19% of all business in the United States at its peak. Throughout the novel, whenever a business is mentioned, Vonnegut frequently mentions RAMJAC in a parenthetical comment, such as "Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (A RAMJAC Corporation)". RAMJAC may have been Vonnegut's response to megacorporation television ads common around the time of the novel's publication, in which they would detail the many familiar brand names under their corporate wing.
Jailbird also features a brief appearance of Kilgore Trout, a recurring Vonnegut character who writes science fiction novels and stories. However in this appearance, "Kilgore Trout" is revealed to be the pseudonym of a character in prison, deliberately contradicting the autobiographical details of Trout's life as delineated in both earlier and subsequent Vonnegut novels. (www.wikipedia.com)
1980s Books
(wwwThe Parsifal Mosaic: Michael Havelock, is an intelligence officer working for the US State Departments black operation division "Consular Ops". At the beginning of the novel he believes he has just witnessed the execution of his partner and the love of his life, Jenna Karas (anglicized version of Jana Karasova) along an isolated stretch of the Costa Brava. Jenna had been marked for execution because she had been proved to be a KGB double agent. (www.wikipedia.com)
Cujo Book: The story takes place in the setting of numerous King works; the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Revolving around two local families, the narrative is interspersed with vignettes from the seemingly mundane lives of various other residents. There are no chapter headings but breaks in between passages to indicate when the narration switches to a different point of view. (www.wikipedia.com)
The BFG: The story is about a young orphaned girl named Sophie, living in a girl's orphanage run by the cantankerous Mrs. Clonkers. One night, Sophie sees a cloaked giant blowing something via a trumpet-like object into a bedroom window down the street; whereupon the giant carries her to his homeland of Giant Country. There, he identifies himself as the Big Friendly Giant ('BFG'), who nightly blows bottled dreams into the bedrooms of children, and explains the other type of giants that eat humans, mostly children. Because the BFG refuses to eat people or steal food from humans, he subsists on a foul-tasting vegetable known as a snozzcumber. (www.wikipedia.com)
A Perfect Spy: A Perfect Spy is the life story of Magnus Pym, a British intelligence officer and double agent. After attending his father's funeral, Pym mysteriously disappears. As his fellow intelligence officers frantically search for him it becomes clear that, throughout most of his career, Magnus worked as a spy for the Czechoslovska secret service. Although intrigue, wit, and suspense compose the novel, the story of Magnus Pym is partly an unadorned recollection of Magnus' childhood and memories of his father Rick Pym.The non-linear narrative cuts back and forth between the present-day manhunt for Pym by his mentor, boss, and longtime friend, Jack Brotherhood, and Pym's first-person reminiscences of his life as, in hiding, he writes a memoir explaining to his family and friends why he betrayed his country. It incorporates flashbacks to Pym's childhood with his father, the enterprising, charismatic rogue and con-man, Rick; to his early years at school and university; to his many amorous adventures, to his introduction to espionage and state secrets; and to his encounters with long-time friend and Czech spy Axel. The portraits reveal Pym as a man who for so long has manipulated his appearance to those closest to him that, in the end, he was unable to hold together the conflicting personae in his self. Magnus Pym has been a perfect spy, but at the cost of his soul. (www.wikipedia.com)
If Tomorrow Comes: Tracy is a successful bank-worker in Philadelphia, engaged to a wealthy heir, whose child she is carrying. Then her mother commits suicide, after being scammed by the New Orleans mafia and left in debt. Tracy gets a gun to frighten the scammer, Joe Romano, into admitting her mother’s innocence, but he tries to rape her and is wounded in the struggle. Her attorney convinces her that she will get a much shorter sentence if she pleads guilty, but the judge sentences her to fifteen years, and she realises that the judge and the attorney are both working for Romano’s boss, mafia don Orsatti. As she goes to jail, her employer and her fiancé abandon her and the unborn child, which she miscarries under the horrendous abuse she suffers from other prisoners. (www.wikipedia.com)