Top 10 Los Gatos Library Classics Collection Books

1. A tree grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn.

2. Ender's game, Orson Scott Card

An expert at simulated war games, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin believes that he is engaged in one more computer war game when, in truth, he is commanding the last Earth fleet against an alien race seeking Earth's complete destruction.

3. Atlas shrugged, Ayn Rand

he story of a man who said he would stop the motor of the world--and did. This novel is the setting for the author's philosophy of Objectivism.(amazon)

4. Animal farm: George Orwell

As ferociously fresh as it was more than a half century ago, this remarkable allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked, mistreated animals, and their quest to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing satires ever published. (amazon)

5. The end of the affair, Graham Greene

In post-WWII England, an American writer hires a private detective to learn why his mistress ended their adulterous affair so abruptly.

6. Lord of the flies, William Golding

A group of boys, aged six to twelve, are marooned on a tropical island after a plane crash. Their struggle to survive and impose order quickly evolves from a battel against nature into a battle against their own primitive instincts.

7. Great expectations, Charles Dickens

The orphan, Pip, and the convict, Magwitch, the beautiful Estella, and her guardian, the embittered and vengeful Miss Havisham, the ambitious lawyer, Mr. Jaggers -- all have a part to play in the mystery.

8. The age of innocence, Edith Wharton

The work presents a picture of upper-class New York society in the late 19th century and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921.

9. Speaker for the dead, Orson Scott Card          

Ender Wiggin, the young military genius, discovers that a second alien war is inevitable and he must dismiss his fears to make peace with humanity's strange new brothers.

10. The circuit: Francisco Jiménez

These independent but intertwined stories follow the family through their circuit, from picking cotton and strawberries to topping carrots--and back agai--over a number of years. As it moves from one labor camp to the next, the little family of four grows into ten.