Ben Eagle's Favorite Books

Gathers selections from the author's writings about the nature of the self, meditation, love, life, and death.

An account of the 1846 Donner-Reed expedition reveals the true events surrounding the tragedy, profiling the adventurous characters who shaped the group and how various interpersonal factors led to their harrowing experiences. "In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime. But in eagerly pursuing...

The inspiration for the film starring Dev Patel: A sprawling masterpiece about a boy making his way to manhood in nineteenth-century England. David Copperfield's father died before he was born, but he grew up loved and comfortable-until he turned seven and his mother married Edward Murdstone. His new stepfather could not banish little Davy fast enough, sending him to live with the housekeeper, Peggotty, and her fisherman brother. Murdstone growing...

Paris, 1933. Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse-- and ignite a movement, creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism: Existentialism. Interweaving biography and philosophy, Bakewell provides an investigation into what the existentialists have to offer us today, at a moment when we are once again confronting...

Fearing a violent confrontation between Earthmen and Spacers, Detective Baley and his new partner, a robot made in the image of the victim, investigate the murder of a Spacetown scientist.

"An epic novel about a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own"--

As former members of a disbanded group of superheroes called the Crimebusters start turning up dead, the remaining members of the group try to discover the identity of the murderer before they, too, are killed.

"Handsome and ambitious, Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble peasant origins and make something of his life-by adopting the code of hypocrisy by which his society operates. Julien ultimately commits a crime-out of passion, principle, or insanity-that will bring about his downfall. The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical picture of French Restoration society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed, and ennui. The complex,...

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.