Graham Greene
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Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Military Fiction
Notable Novels: 1950s
Novels of Power and Influence
Military Fiction
Notable Novels: 1950s
Novels of Power and Influence
Description
While the French Army in Indo-China is grappling with the Vietminh, back in Saigon a young and high-minded American named Pyle begins to channel economic aid to a "Third Force." Caught between French colonialists and the Vietminh, Fowler, the narrator and seasoned foreign correspondent, observes: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." As young Pyle's policies blunder on into bloodshed, the older man finds it impossible...
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Mexico, the late 1930s: A paramilitary group has outlawed the Catholic Church and been executing its clergy. Now the last priest is on the run, fleeing not just an unshakable police lieutenant but also his own wavering morals. As he scraps his way toward salvation, haunted by an affair from his past, the nameless "whiskey priest" is pulled between the bottle and the Bible, tempted to renounce his religion yet unable to ignore the higher calling he's...
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Set in Brighton among the criminal rabble, the book depicts the tragic career of a 17-year-old boy named Pinkie whose primary ambition is to lead a gang to rival that of the wealthy and established Colleoni. His calamitous childhood and repressed sexuality combine to create a force of evil which is both fascinating and repellent.
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THE THIRD MAN is one of the truly great post-war films. It is a thrilling story of black-marketeering set against a backdrop of Vienna in the immediate post-war era, when the city was divided into four zones amongst the major powers, Russia, Britain, France and America. The two main characters are quintessential Englishmen who attended the same public school. The story is written in the first person from the view of the British Chief of Police, who...
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These wide-ranging tales of menace, tragedy, and comedy offer ample proof that “in the short story, as well as the novel, Graham Greene is the master” (The New York Times).
Written between 1929 and 1954, here are twenty-one stories by a “master storyteller” (Newsweek). Whatever the crime, whatever the pursuit, whatever the mood—from the tragic and horrifying to the ribald...
Written between 1929 and 1954, here are twenty-one stories by a “master storyteller” (Newsweek). Whatever the crime, whatever the pursuit, whatever the mood—from the tragic and horrifying to the ribald...
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English
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Description
Retired bank manager Henry Pulling, having spent his life in a dull suburb, becomes involved in an exciting new lifestyle after he meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in fifty years and is persuaded to accompany her on a tour of Europe.
10) The comedians
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"Three men, Brown, Smith, and Jones, meet on a ship bound for Haiti, where "Papa Doc" and the Tontons Macoute rule, with sinister secret police."
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On a peaceful Sunday afternoon, Arthur Rowe comes upon a charity fete in the gardens of a Cambridgeshire vicarage where he wins a game of chance. If only this were an ordinary day. Britain is under threat by Germany, and the air raid sirens that bring the bazaar to a halt expose Rowe as no ordinary man. Recently released from a psychiatric prison for the mercy killing of his wife, he is burdened by guilt, and now, in possession of a seemingly innocuous...
12) The man within
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Graham Greene's first published novel tells the story of Andrews, a young man who has betrayed his fellow smugglers and fears their vengeance. Fleeing from them, with no hope of pity or salvation, he takes refuge in the house of a young woman, also alone in the world. Elizabeth persuades him to give evidence against his accomplices in court, but neither she nor Andrews is aware that to both criminals and authority, treachery is as great a crime as...
13) A burnt-out case
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Querry is a world-renowned architect noted for his magnificent churches, each designed not for the glory of God, but for the satisfaction of self. Suddenly infected with indifference, he has abandoned his pursuit of pleasure. Now he has reached the end of desire at the end of the world-a colony of lepers in the remote jungles of Africa.
Here, under the guidance of Doctor Colin, a fellow atheist, Querry's consideration of the sick could be something...
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In 1938, Graham Greene, a burgeoning convert to Roman Catholicism, was commissioned to expose the anticlerical purges in Mexico by President Plutarco Elías Calles. Churches had been destroyed, peasants held secret masses in their homes, religious icons were banned, and priests disappeared. Traveling under the growing clouds of fascism, Greene was anxious to see for himself the effect it had on the people-what he found was a combination of despair,...
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In what Greene calls My Own World-as opposed to the Common World of shared reality-he accompanies Henry James on a disagreeable riverboat trip to Bogota, is caught in a guerilla crossfire with Evelyn Waugh and W. H. Auden, strolls in the Vatican garden with Pope John Paul II who's doling out Perugina chocolates like hosts, offers refuge to a suicidal Charlie Chaplin, and stages a disastrous play in blank verse for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton....
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Affairs, obsessions, grand passions and tiny ardours are illuminated in this collection of 12 wryly humorous tales of love. Whether depicting the innocence and corruption of a honeymoon couple or the frustration of missed sexual opportunities, the stories expose a range of human frailties.
17) Loser takes all
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A modest London accountant on a budget, Mr. Bertram has settled on a honeymoon at the seaside resort of Bournemouth with his fiancée, Cary. However, Bertram's boss, the solicitous Herbert Dreuther, won't hear of anything so common. Bertram and Cary are to be married in Monte Carlo, after which they'll be Dreuther's guests on his private yacht and sail down the coast of Italy. It sounds too lovely to be true. And surely Bertram can afford one night...
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Graham Greene set off in 1935 to discover Liberia, a remote and unfamiliar republic founded for released slaves. Now with a new introduction by Paul Theroux, "Journey Without Maps" is the spellbinding record of Greene's journey. Crossing the red-clay terrain from Sierra Leone to the coast of Grand Bassa with a chain of porters, he came to know one of the few areas of Africa untouched by colonization. Western civilization had not yet impinged on either...