Showing results by author "Upton Sinclair" in All Categories

Few books have so affected radical social changes as The Jungle, first published serially in 1906. Exposing unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry in Chicago, Sinclair's novel gripped Americans by the stomach, contributing to the passage of the first Food and Drug Act. If you’ve never read this classic novel, don't be put off by its gruesome reputation. Upton Sinclair was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who could turn even an exposé into a tender and moving novel.

As he did so masterfully in The Jungle, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Upton Sinclair interweaves social criticism with human tragedy to create an unforgettable portrait of Southern California's early oil industry. Enraged by the oil scandals of the Harding administration in the 1920s, Sinclair tells a gripping tale of avarice, corruption, and class warfare, featuring a cavalcade of characters, including senators, oil magnates, Hollywood film starlets, and a crusading evangelist.

The Jungle is the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Slavic immigrant who marries frail Ona Lukoszaite and seeks security and happiness as a workman in the Chicago stockyards. Once there, he is abused by foremen, his meager savings are filched by real estate sharks, and at every turn he is plagued by the misfortunes arising from poverty, poor working conditions, and disease. Finally, in accordance with Sinclair’s own creed, Rudkus turns to socialism as a way out.

The year 1942 marked the turning point of World War II. The Americans destroyed the Japanese Battle Fleet in the decisive engagements of Midway and the Coral Sea. General Montgomery defeated General Rommel at El Alamein. But for President Roosevelt, 1942 was the darkest hour of the war. He knew the Germans were developing the atomic bomb. Our victories would be meaningless if the Nazis perfected the “A” bomb first. There was only one man who could find out the biggest Nazi secret of the war: Lanny Budd.

Telepathy, or mind-reading: that is to say, can one human mind communicate with another human mind, except by the sense channels ordinarily known and used—seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and touching?

In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Lanny Budd’s financial acumen and his marriage into great wealth enable him to continue the lifestyle he has always enjoyed. But the devastation the collapse has wrought on ordinary citizens has only strengthened Lanny’s socialist ideals. In Germany to visit relatives, Lanny encounters a disturbing atmosphere of hatred and jingoism. But Lanny’s gravest fear is the threat a national socialist government poses to the German Jewish family of Hansi, the musician husband of Lanny’s sister, Bess.

"The Fasting Cure" by Upton Sinclair is an intriguing exploration into the health benefits of fasting, first published in 1911. In this work, Sinclair diverges from his better-known investigative and fictional writings to delve into personal health and wellness.

In 1943, the once-unstoppable Nazi war machine is starting to falter. For a decade and a half, Lanny Budd’s cover as a fine-art dealer and Fascist sympathizer has held firm, earning him the confidence of Hermann Göring and other top officials, including Adolf Hitler himself. With the Allies preparing to retake Europe, Lanny must make certain that the location of the invasion remains hidden from the Nazi high command. But his mission is compromised and his life endangered when Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s feared Gestapo chief, uncovers Lanny’s true loyalties.

Lanning “Lanny” Budd spends his first 13 years in Europe, living at the center of his mother’s glamourous circle of friends on the French Riviera. In 1913, he enters a prestigious Swiss boarding school and befriends Rick, an English boy, and Kurt, a German. The three schoolmates are privileged, happy, and precocious - but their world is about to come to an abrupt and violent end. When the gathering storm clouds of war finally burst, raining chaos and death over the continent, Lanny must put the innocence of youth behind him.

Europe, 1940. As war rages across the continent, America watches anxiously from the sidelines. And President Franklin Roosevelt has been keeping an even closer eye on developments in the Third Reich. At the president’s personal request, Lanny Budd gained the confidence of the Nazi high command and began transmitting valuable information back to the White House. Espionage is a dangerous game, however, and Presidential Agent 103 soon finds himself a target of the French Resistance fighters he is attempting to assist.

Wide Is the Gate followed the 1943 Pulitzer Prize-winning Dragon’s Teeth and introduces Lanny as a secret double agent fighting the Nazis as a supporter of the resistance in Germany. Lanny is living in England with his wife of almost five years, Irma Barnes, the twenty-three-million-dollar heiress. But Lanny is conflicted continuously in his heart and soul for the workers and social justice. He attempts to commit to Irma, to “behave” himself and lead a normal aristocratic life.

Upton Sinclair was a man in search of truth, in search of knowledge, in search of a good story, and forever in search of good health. Sinclair had many chronic ailments during his life and was always looking for new ways to improve his wellbeing. He experimented with and explored all the trends and new ideas of the early 20th century. Sinclair spent years as a vegetarian after researching the meat packing industry for his bestselling 1906 exposé, The Jungle. He learned about fasting to improve digestion and a host of other maladies.

The First World War brought an abrupt end to Lanny Budd’s idyllic youth. Now, in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles, he barely recognizes the beloved Europe of his boyhood. At the start of his career as an international art dealer, Lanny travels to Italy and witnesses the brutal charisma of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Meanwhile, in Germany, the failed Beer Hall Putsch led by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party strikes an ominous note foreshadowing the devastation to come.

Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus has invested every last hope in achieving a prosperous new start in a new country. But the only job open to him - in the appalling stockyards of Packingtown, Chicago - will become a brutal, dispiriting, and dangerous challenge to his pride, his family, his life, and his faith in the American Dream. A scathing condemnation of capitalism, corporate corruption, and the exploitation of the working class, The Jungle was a sensation when first published. It stands as one the greatest and most influential proletarian novels ever written.

Dashing and well-connected, Lanny Budd has earned the trust of the Nazi high command. To Adolf Hitler and his inner circle, the American art dealer is a “true believer” committed to their Fascist cause. But Lanny is actually a secret agent serving as President Franklin Roosevelt’s eyes and ears in Germany. When he learns of the Führer’s plans for conquest, Lanny’s dire warnings to Neville Chamberlain and other reluctant European leaders fall on deaf ears.

The American Classics Collection: Volume II is a century-spanning collection of 15 classic novels, short stories, essay, and poetry by American authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Adam Sims; Nathan Osgood; Robert G. Slade; Jonathan Keeble, Katherine Fenton; and more. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including Herman Melville; Upton Sinclair; Mark Twain; Walt Whitman; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Thornton Wilder; Edith Wharton; Jack London; amongst a host of others.

Our protagonist comes to New York as a lawyer seeking to make his name and build a career. His younger brother has come before him and has already been successful in working his way into the inner circles of the High Society. The younger brother introduces him to the moguls with their extraordinary fortunes, amassed by owners of the Trusts, the Monopolies, the Banks, and the Financiers. With all the money in the world has come all the power. And, with all the money and the power has come the grotesque excess and the decadence and the moral rot.

A Signature Performance: Oscar nominee and passionate vegan Casey Affleck highlights the more-relevant-than-ever issues of business ethics and food production in Upton Sinclair’s meatpacking industry bombshell.

Based on the 1914 and 1915 Colorado coal strikes, King Coal describes the abhorrent conditions faced by workers in the western United States' coal mining industry during the 1910s. The story follows Hal Warner, a rich man looking to get a better view of the lives of commoners. It is a tale of struggle, threats, and violence, of hardened men and the advocacy for workers' rights. In this business, the road to unionization is a rocky one.

An American art expert raised in a world of European wealth and privilege, Lanny Budd is dedicated to his socialist ideals and to combatting the twin scourges of Nazism and Fascism. In 1937, a chance encounter in New York with Professor Charles Alston—his boss at the Paris Peace Conference and now one of President Roosevelt’s top advisors—provides Lanny with the opportunity to make a profound difference.