The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [189]
Fiction/978–0-394-71095-2
THE FIFTH CHILD
In the unconstrained atmosphere of England in the late 1960s, Harriet and David Lovatt, an upper-middle-class couple, face a frightening vicissitude. As the days’ events take a dark and ugly turn nearing apocalyptic intensity, the Lovatts’ guarded contentedness and view of the world as a benign place are forever shattered by the violent birth of their fifth child: Ben, monstrous in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong, demanding, brutal.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72182-6
BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL
A fascinating look inside the mind of a man who is supposedly “mad.” Professor Charles Watkins of Cambridge University is a patient at a mental hospital where the doctors try to bring his mind under control by increasing his drugs. But Watkins has embarked on a tremendous psychological adventure where, after spinning endlessly on a raft in the Atlantic, he lands on a tropical island inhabited by strange creatures with strange customs. Later, he is carried off on a cosmic journey into space.
Fiction/978-1-4000-7726-7
SHIKASTA
This is the first volume in the series of novels Doris Lessing calls collectively Canopus in Argos: Archives. Presented as a compilation of documents, reports, letters, speeches and journal entries, this purports to be a general study of the planet Shikasta—clearly the planet Earth—to be used by history students of the higher planet Canopus and to be stored in the Canopian archives. Johor, an emissary from Canopus and the primary contributor to the archives, visits Shikasta over the millennia from the time of the giants and the biblical great flood up to the present. With every visit he tries to distract Shikastans from the evil influences of the planet Shammat but notes with dismay the evergrowing chaos and destruction of Shikasta as its people hurl themselves toward World War III and annihilation.
Fiction/978-0-394-74977-8
MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR
In a beleaguered city where rats and roving gangs terrorize the streets, where government has broken down and meaningless violence holds sway, a woman—middle-aged and middle-class—is brought a twelve-year-old girl and told that it is her responsibility to raise the child. The book, which the author has called “an attempt at autobiography,” is that woman’s journal—a glimpse of a future only slightly more horrendous than our present, and of the forces that alone can save us from total destruction.
Fiction/978-0-394-75759-9
ALSO AVAILABLE:
Stories, 978-0-394-74249-6
VINTAGE BOOKS
Available at your local bookstore, or visit
www.randomhouse.com