The Name of the Rose is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. It was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983.
Confession, in many religions, is the acknowledgment of sinful thoughts and actions. This may occur directly to a deity or to fellow people.
The Monkey King or Sun Wukong is a literary, and religious figure best known as one of the main players in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West. In the novel, Sun Wukong is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven, he is imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha. After five hundred years, he accompanies the monk Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) riding on the White Dragon Horse and two other disciples, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing, on a journey to obtain Buddhist sutras from the West, where Buddha and his followers dwell.
Gilgamesh the King is a 1984 historical novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, presenting the Epic of Gilgamesh as a novel. In the afterword the author wrote "at all times I have attempted to interpret the fanciful and fantastic events of these poems in a realistic way, that is, to tell the story of Gilgamesh as though he were writing his own memoirs, and to that end I have introduced many interpretations of my own devising which for better or for worse are in no way to be ascribed to the scholars".
The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796 across three volumes. Written early in Lewis's career, it was published before he turned twenty, and he withheld his name from the first edition. It tells the story of a virtuous monk who gives into his lustful urges, setting off a chain of events that leave him damned. It is a prime example of the type of Gothic that specializes in horror.
The Brothers Karamazov, also translated as The Karamazov Brothers, is the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880. Dostoevsky died less than four months after its publication. It has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.
A Game of Thrones is the first novel in A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin. It was first published on August 6, 1996. The novel won the 1997 Locus Award and was nominated for both the 1997 Nebula Award and the 1997 World Fantasy Award. The novella Blood of the Dragon, comprising the Daenerys Targaryen chapters from the novel, won the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella. In January 2011, the novel became a New York Times Bestseller and reached No. 1 on the list in July 2011.
True History of the Kelly Gang is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey, based loosely on the history of the Kelly Gang. It was first published in Brisbane by the University of Queensland Press in 2000. It won the 2001 Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the same year. Despite its title, the book is fiction and a variation on the Ned Kelly story.
Christopher Hovelle Wood was an English screenwriter and novelist, best known for the Confessions series of novels and films which he wrote as Timothy Lea. Under his own name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker (1979).
Dying Inside is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg. It was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1972, and both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1973.
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone is the ninth of 12 Indiana Jones novels published by Bantam Books. Max McCoy, the author of this book, also wrote three of the other Indiana Jones books for Bantam. Published on April 1, 1995, it is preceded by Indiana Jones and the White Witch and followed by Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs.
Debre Libanos is an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo monastery, lying northwest of Addis Ababa in the North Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region. It was founded in 1284 by Saint Tekle Haymanot as Debre Atsbo and was renamed as Debre Libanos in the 15th century. He meditated in a cave above the current monastery for 29 years. The monastery's chief abbot, called the Ichege, was the second most powerful official in the Ethiopian Church after the Abuna.
Jonathan Ned Katz is an American author of human sexuality who has focused on same-sex attraction and changes in the social organization of sexuality over time. His works focus on the idea, rooted in social constructionism, that the categories with which society describes and defines human sexuality are historically and culturally specific, along with the social organization of sexual activity, desire, relationships, and sexual identities.
Shulim or Nikolai Aleksandrovich Notovich, known in the West as Nicolas Notovitch, was a Crimean Jewish adventurer who claimed to be a Russian aristocrat, spy and journalist.
Zanoni is an 1842 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a story of love and occult aspiration. By way of introduction, the author confesses: "... It so chanced that some years ago, in my younger days, whether of authorship or life, I felt the desire to make myself acquainted with the true origins and tenets of the singular sect known by the name of Rosicrucians." A manuscript came into his hands written in what Bulwer-Lytton described as an "unintelligible cipher", a manuscript which through the author's own interpretation became Zanoni.
The Monastery: a Romance (1820) is a historical novel by Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels. Set in the Scottish Borders in the 1550s on the eve of the Reformation, it is centred on Melrose Abbey.
Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American coming-of-age story. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel briefly recounts Eugene's father's early life, but primarily covers the span of time from Eugene's birth in 1900 to his definitive departure from home at the age of 19. The setting is a fictionalization of his home town of Asheville, North Carolina, called Altamont in the novel.
Ira Silverberg is an American editor and consultant to writers, artists, publishers, funders, and non-profit arts organizations. He is a member of the adjunct faculty of the Columbia University School of the Arts, MFA Writing Program.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is an historical fiction novel by British author David Mitchell published by Sceptre in 2010. It is set during the Dutch trading concession with Japan in the late 18th-century, during the period of Japanese history known as Sakoku.
The Monk is a 2011 thriller drama film directed by Dominik Moll. It is an adaptation of Matthew Lewis's 1796 gothic novel of the same name, and chronicles the story and downfall of a Capucin Ambrosio, a well-respected monk in Spain. An international co-production between France and Spain, it was partially shot in the barri vell of the city of Girona in Catalonia.
