“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

“Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words!” - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epistolary novel of two sisters’ triumph in the face of significant adversity in 1930s southern Georgia. From the first edition cover by Judith Leeds.

“We didn’t exactly believe your story, Miss O’Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright.” - Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a … new t-shirt?” Perhaps not the way Joyce chose to open his classic first serialized in 1918, but we don’t think he would complain about the shirt. From the iconic book jacket designed by Edward McKnight Kauffer for a novel many consider to be among the best in modern fiction.

Nancy Drew encounters danger at every turn as she attempts to solve two mysteries and salvage her relationship with her best friends. From the 1933 original dust jacket by Russell Tandy.

Oil smuggling, submarines and mysterious disappearances? Join Frank and Joe Hardy as they travel to Mexico in search of answers, but “beware of the mark on the door!” From the “Flashlight” series cover by Rudy Nappi.