Frank Carlson Library

This is one of Shakespeare's darkest comedies, for the romantic story of a young man, Bassanio, who has squandered his fortune and must borrow money to woo the wealthy lady he loves is set against the most disturbing story of the Jewish moneylender Shylock and his demand for the "pound of flesh" owed him by the Venetian merchant, Antonio, who has fallen into Shylock's debt. Here pathos and farce combine with moral complexity and romantic entanglement...

The celebrated Victorian author of Middlemarch explores the turbulent world of Florence during the Italian Renaissance in this sweeping historical novel. Florence, 1492. Lorenzo de Medici has just died, leaving governance of the Florentine Republic to his son Piero, an unskilled ruler. Meanwhile, Tito Melema, a shipwrecked stranger, finds love with a young woman named Romola, the devoted daughter of a blind scholar. Though her brother has a vision...

Lucy Honeychurch falls in love with the young man she meets in Florence, but only an unusual sequence of events brings them together.

The story of Elena and Lila begins in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. The two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, sometimes to their own detriment, as each discovers more about who she is and suffers or delights in the throes of their intense friendship. There is a piercing honesty about Ferrante's prose that makes My Brilliant Friend a compulsively readable portrait of two young women,...

Hill Towns is a classic novel of remarkable emotional power, insight, and sensitivity from Anne Rivers Siddons, whose books live on the New York Times bestseller list and in the hearts of millions of her adoring fans. One of the acknowledged masters of contemporary Southern fiction—the author of such phenomenally popular works as Nora, Nora; Outer Banks, Islands; and Sweetwater Creek—Siddons carries the reader from the mountains of

...

"#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline presents Loyalty, an emotional, action-packed epic of love and justice, set during the rise of the Mafia in Sicily"-- "Loyalty can save a soul--or destroy one. Franco Fiorvanti is a handsome laborer toiling on the estate of a baron. He dreams of owning a lemon grove, but the rigid class system of Sicily thwarts his ambition. When the baron asks him to kidnap a little boy, Franco makes a decision that will change...

"In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon's bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti's own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder. On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri...

When he's apprised at the last minute of a mandatory meeting abroad, Stone Barrington rushes off to Europe for a whirlwind tour of business and, of course, pleasure. But from the start the trip seems to be cursed, plagued by suspicious "accidents" and unfortunate events, and some of Stone's plans go up in flames--literally. Not a believer in coincidence, Stone sets out to learn the true source of his curious misfortune and finds that what appeared...

Hired to investigate a suspicious near-drowning that left a girl permanently brain damaged years earlier, Brunetti struggles to determine if a crime was actually committed, in a case set against a backdrop of dynamic transitions in contemporary Venice.

Unique features include an extensive overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater by the general editor of Signet Classic Shakespeare series, plus a special introduction to the play by the editor Sylvan Barnet, Tufts University. This book contains information on the source from which Shakespeare derived "Othello"--Selections from Giraldi Cinthio's "Hecatommithi". Special introduction by Alvin Kernan, Princeton University.