Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Clarissa Dalloway, a high-society woman in post-WWI London, prepares for a party she is hosting that evening. As she walks through the streets, her thoughts drift to her past, her rejected suitor Peter Walsh, and her choice of husband. Parallel to her day is the story of Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran descending into madness. Their lives touch briefly but profoundly.

Virginia Woolf's novel is a masterpiece of modernism. Using her fluid stream-of-consciousness style, she captures the shimmering surface of life and the deep undercurrents of memory, regret, and the terror of existence.