A utopian classic with a rich legacy–influencing authors from Huxley to Herbert and beyond–Erewhon satirizes Victorian society with biting insight still relevant today. When Higgs, a young traveler, stumbles upon the beautiful land of Erewhon, he soon discovers that its seemingly ideal culture is founded upon bizarre, unsettling beliefs. Crime is a sickness, while sickness is a crime; the greatest scholarly achievement is unreason, and all machines...

"In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the Oasis. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines -- puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first...

Feminist novel, written in 1915, tells the story of three male explorers who discover an all-female society and have trouble understanding how it can work so well without men.

In the two-dimensional world known as Flatland, all existence is limited to length and breadth and its inhabitants unable even to imagine a third dimension. A Square chronicles the various facets of his world, including its physics and metaphysics, its history, customs, and religious beliefs. But when a strange visitor mysteriously appears and transports the incredulous Flatlander to Spaceland, a land of three dimensions, his worldview is forever...

The Dialogues of Plato, written between 427 and 347 b.c., rank among the most important and influential works in Western thought. Most famous are the first four, in which Plato casts his teacher Socrates as the central disputant in colloquies that brilliantly probe a vast spectrum of philosophical ideas and issues. Socrates' ancient words are still true, and the ideas found in Plato's Dialogues still form the foundation of a thinking person's education....

"Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous--and addictive--than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest--a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize....

"It is a world in which near-instantaneous travel from continent to continent is free to all. In which automation now provides for everybody's basic needs. In which nobody living can remember an actual war. In which it is illegal for three or more people to gather for the practice of religion--but ecumenical "sensayers" minister in private, one-on-one. In which gendered language is archaic, and to dress as strongly male or female is, if not exactly...

"The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end. Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency hum within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location. The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hives bought the world's stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction could ever dominate. So...

Fleeing war-torn China, a small planeload of people is hijacked to an idyllic valley in the Himalayas where time has virtually stopped. There Conway, a British diplomat, falls in love with a beautiful woman, and is asked to remain in Shangri-La as its new leader.