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Stoner by John Williams was first published in 1965 but was not that popular, even though there were positive reviews of the book and critical acclaim for the novel. However, Stoner was rediscovered in early 2000, quickly becoming an international bestseller and now considered by many to be a literary masterpiece.

This is a quiet novel with beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking prose, as the life of William Stoner unfolds beginning with his birth to simple parents working the land on a hardscrabble farm in Missouri, as had their ancestors. That was to be William Stoner's fate as well. However, he was given the opportunity to attend the University of Columbia to obtain an education in agriculture that would enable him to bring improved and scientific methods to the family farm. The agrarian program required that he have a certain amount of hours in the humanities. It was during his second year of college that he was introduced to Professor Archer Sloane and the beauty of English literature, with the course of his life changed in an instant while listening to one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Shortly thereafter, Stoner switched from the agrarian program to majoring in English with the eventual goal of becoming a teacher. At the heart of this beautiful novel, are the issues of love and loyalty and all of the forces that may interfere, all making for a complete life and a truly lovely book. It is one novel that I certainly will read again.

"In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense. Sometimes he would pause, remove a volume from the shelves, and hold it for a moment in his large hands, which tingled at the still unfamiliar feel of spine and board and unresisting page. Then he would leaf through the book, reading a paragraph here and there, his stiff fingers careful as they turned the pages as in in their clumsiness they might tear and destroy what they took such pains to uncover."

"The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print--the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly."