英语小说网

Raymond Chandler是世界小说史上最伟大的名字之一。他是艾略特、加谬、钱钟书、村上春树等文学大师最崇拜的小说家。被称为“文学大师崇拜的大师”。他是世界上唯一一位被写入经典文学史册的侦探小说大师。他的作品被收录到《美国文库一》中。他共创作了七部长篇小说和20部左右的短篇。钱德勒被誉为硬汉派侦探小说的灵魂，代表着硬汉派书写哲学的最高水平。他是美国推理家协会（MWA）票选150年侦探小说创作史上最优秀作家的第一名，他塑造的侦探菲利普·马洛被评为最有魅力的男人。在四十年代好莱坞男演员以能扮演菲利普·马洛为荣，其中以亨弗莱· 鲍嘉扮演的马洛最为成功。The Long Goodbye是Raymond Chandler最重要的小说。

《美国众神》描述主人公——影子从监狱释放后，穿越美国大陆的旅行过程中的一系列奇遇。讲他与生活在美国土地上的各种神祇相遇，由此引发了出许多精彩动人、奇诡绚丽的故事。 　　 影子为一个叫做星期三的老头跑腿当差使，而星期三其实是一个名叫奥丁的老神仙。奥丁是在9世纪的时候，搭乘怀着早期维京探险者的挪威梦想来到北美的。他不过是美国的无数神祇之一。影子随后还遭遇了主神奥丁的兄弟、狡诈之神洛奇，来自埃及的圣猫女神巴斯特，斯拉夫的黑暗与死亡之神岑诺博格，来自西非的骗术之神南西，印度教的毁灭之神伽梨，埃及神话中的冥界之神阿努比斯，盎格鲁－撒克逊神话中的黎明之神伊斯特，等等。

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book in 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881-82 under the title The Sea Cook; or, Treasure Island: A Story for Boys. Traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, it is an adventure tale known for its atmosphere, character and action, and also a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver—unusual for children's literature then and now. It is one of the most frequently dramatised of all novels. The influence of Treasure Island on popular perception of pirates is vast, including treasure maps with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders.

Night and Day is a novel by Virginia Woolf first published on 20 October 1919. Set in Edwardian London, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives and romantic attachments of two acquaintances, Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet. The novel examines the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. Dialogue and descriptions of thought and actions are used in equal amount, unlike in Woolf's later book, To the Lighthouse. There are four major characters, Katharine Hilbery, Mary Datchet, Ralph Denham, and William Rodney. Night and Day deals with issues concerning women's suffrage, if love and marriage can coexist, and if marriage is necessary for happiness. Motifs throughout the book includes the stars and sky, the River Thames, and walks. Also, Woolf makes many references to the works of William Shakespeare, especially As You Like It.

"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is a piece of short fiction by Mark Twain. It first appeared in Harper's Monthly in December 1899, and was subsequently published by Harper Collins in the collection The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Sketches (1900).

    “绯闻女孩系列”讲述纽约上东区的上流贵族社会青少年的成长故事，他们年轻而富有、漂亮而聪明、世故而张扬；他们做作、虚伪；他们喝酒、滥交、相互勾心斗角、甚至吸毒已经成了喝白开水。复杂的生活环境、复杂的人性；但却感觉得到这是他们实实在在的生活，在繁华的面纱之下，也有触动人心的亲情、友情和爱情。     这是发生在绚烂繁华的纽约大都市中青春的故事，，里面充斥了当下的众多流行元素：电邮、短信等等，在书中你也会看到众多世界一流的各种名店、高级服装品牌、高级化妆品。

Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson's third novel, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's other novels it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy. Stephenson explained the title of the novel in his 1999 essay In the Beginning... was the Command Line as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Apple Macintosh computer. Stephenson wrote about the Macintosh that "When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set — a 'snow crash'". The book presents the Sumerian language as the firmware programming language for the brainstem, which is supposedly functioning as the BIOS for the human brain. According to characters in the book, the goddess Asherah is the personification of a linguistic virus, similar to a computer virus. The god Enki created a counter-program which he called a nam-shub that caused all of humanity to speak different languages as a protection against Asherah (a re-interpretation of the ancient Near Eastern story of the Tower of Babel). Snow Crash was nominated for both the British Science Fiction Award in 1993, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1994.

Jude the Obscure, the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, began as a magazine serial and was first published in book form in 1895. The book was burned publicly by William Walsham How, Bishop of Wakefield, in that same year. Its hero, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The themes in the novel revolve around issues of class, education, religion, and marriage. Hardy began making notes for the story in 1887.

The dreary March evening is rapidly passing from murky gloom to obscurity.  Gusts of icy rain and sleet are sweeping full against a man who, though driving, bows his head so low that he cannot see his horses.  The patient beasts, however, plod along the miry road, unerringly taking their course to the distant stable door.  The highway sometimes passes through a grove on the edge of a forest, and the trees creak and groan as they writhe in the heavy blasts.  In occasional groups of pines there is sighing and moaning almost human in suggestiveness of trouble.  Never had Nature been in a more dismal mood, never had she been more prodigal of every element of discomfort, and never had the hero of my story been more cast down in heart and hope than on this chaotic day which, even to his dull fancy, appeared closing in harmony with his feelings and fortune.  He is going home, yet the thought brings no assurance of welcome and comfort.  As he cowers upon the seat of his market wagon, he is to the reader what he is in the fading light--a mere dim outline of a man.  His progress is so slow that there will be plenty of time to relate some facts about him which will make the scenes and events to follow more intelligible.