Most Popular Books by Walker Percy

The last self-help book, provocative, funny, infuriating, engaging. It may not change your life, but it will probably blow your mind.

In this National Book Award–winning novel from a “brilliantly breathtaking writer,” a young Southerner searches for meaning in the midst of Mardi Gras (The New York Times Book Review). On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is a lost soul. A stockbroker and member of an established New Orleans family, Binx’s one escape is the movie theater that transports him from the falseness of his life. With Mardi Gras in full swing, Binx, along with his cousin Kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him. Buoyant yet powerful, The Moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Walker Percy including rare photos from the author’s estate.

These collected interviews, like a visit with Percy at his home on the Bogue Falaya River, provide refreshing close-up encounters with one of America''s most celebrated writers. These twenty-seven interviews cover a period of twenty-two years, from the time of the publication of Percy''s first novel, The Moviegoer, in 1961, until 1983, when he was interviewed about his friendship with Thomas Merton. This volume is the second in the Literary Conversations series. These unabridged interviews, collected from a variety of sources, will give reading pleasure to general readers who wish to know Percy and his works more closely, and they will be of great use to Percy scholars.

Will Barrett''s unusual capacity for forgetting and imagining features of his own life involves him in the affairs of a Southern family

DIVDIV“A great adventure . . . So outrageous and so real, one is left speechless.” —Chicago Sun Times/divDIV/divDIVIn Walker Percy’s future America, the country is on the brink of disaster. With citizens violently polarized along racial, political, and social lines, and a fifteen-year war still raging abroad, America is crumbling quickly into ruin. The country’s one remaining hope is Dr. Thomas More, whose “lapsometer” is capable of diagnosing the spiritual afflictions—anxiety, depression, alienation—driving everyone’s destructive and disastrous behavior./divDIV /divDIVBut such a potent machine has its pitfalls. As Dr. More soon learns, in the wrong hands, the powerful lapsometer could lead to open warfare, pushing America into anarchy at full-speed./div /div

Writings on the South, Catholicism, and more from the National Book Award winner: “His nonfiction is always entertaining and enlightening” (Library Journal). Published just after Walker Percy’s death, Signposts in a Strange Land takes readers through the philosophical, religious, and literary ideas of one of the South’s most profound and unique thinkers. Each essay is laced with wit and insight into the human condition. From race relations and the mysteries of existence, to Catholicism and the joys of drinking bourbon, this collection offers a window into the underpinnings of Percy’s celebrated novels and brings to light the stirring thoughts and voice of a giant of twentieth century literature.

DIVDIV“A modern knight-errant on a quest after evil; grotesque, convincing and chilling.” —The New York Times Book Review/divDIV/divDIVFed up with the excesses of the 1970s, Lancelot Andrews Lamar, a liberal lawyer and distinguished member of the New Orleans gentry, is determined to stop the modern world’s ethical collapse. His quest begins with his wife—an actress who he suspects has been cheating on him for years. Though he initially plans only to gather proof of her infidelity, Lancelot quickly descends into a fog of obsession. And as he crosses the line from sanity into madness, he will try once and for all to purify the world or destroy it in the attempt./divDIV /divDIVMesmerizing and unforgettable, Lancelot is a masterful story of one man’s collision with the follies of modern culture, and a thought-provoking look at the nature of good and evil./div /div

Returning home to the small Louisiana parish where he had praticed psychiatry, Dr. Tom More quickly notices something strange occuring with the townfolk, a loss of inhibitions. Behind this mystery is a dangerous plot drug the local water supply, and a discovery that takes More into the underside of the American search for happiness.

In "Message" i"n the" "Bottle," Walker Percy offers insights on such varied yet interconnected subjects as symbolic reasoning, the origins of mankind, Helen Keller, Semioticism, and the incredible Delta Factor. Confronting difficult philosophical questions with a novelist''s eye, Percy rewards us again and again with his keen insights into the way that language possesses all of us.

Death of Foote''s mother and Percy''s battle with cancer, their letters are full of sly humor, good-natured ribbing, and a large dose of self-mockery.

A pair of profound dystopian novels from the “brilliantly breathtaking” New York Times–bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of The Moviegoer (The New York Times Book Review). Winner of the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, the “dazzlingly gifted” Southern philosophical author Walker Percy wrote two vividly imagined satirical novels of America’s future featuring deeply flawed psychiatrist and spiritual seeker Tom More (USA Today). Love in the Ruins is “a great adventure . . . so outrageous and so real, one is left speechless” (Chicago Sun-Times), and its sequel The Thanatos Syndrome “shimmers with intelligence and verve” (Newsday). Love in the Ruins: The great experiment of the American dream has failed. The United States is on the brink of catastrophe. Can an alcoholic, womanizing, lapsed-Catholic psychiatrist really save a society speeding toward inevitable collapse? Dr. Thomas More certainly thinks so. He has invented the lapsometer, a machine capable of diagnosing and curing the country’s spiritual afflictions. If used correctly, the lapsometer could make anxiety, depression, alienation, and racism things of the past. But in the wrong hands, it could rapidly propel the nation into chaos. “A comedy of love against a field of anarchy . . . Percy is easily one of the finest writers we have.” —The New York Times Book Review The Thanatos Syndrome: In Percy’s “ingenious” sequel, Dr. Tom More, fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, returns home to Louisiana, determined to live a simpler life (The New York Times). But when everyone in town starts acting strangely—from losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentences—More, with help from his cousin, epidemiologist Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to investigate. Together, they uncover a government conspiracy poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity. “The Thanatos Syndrome has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories.” —The Washington Post Book World

Remarks made at Millsaps College on the occasion of the inauguration of the Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Studies, March 15, 1982.

A collection of engaging letters by which two Charles Sanders Peirce devotees, an author and a philosopher, gain deeper insights into semiotics

Un jeune Sudiste en exil à New York est embauché par une famille de Géorgie pour partager l''existence d''un adolescent leucémique. Les grands thèmes métaphysiques (la mort, l''amour, Dieu ...) sont au centre du deuxième roman (1966) de Percy. Une oeuvre dense, sophistiquée, d''autant plus ardue que les troubles de la perception et les crises d''amnésie dont souffre le personnage principal brouillent la narration.