More like Bodily Harm
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- Players
Don DeLillostandalone novel1977
similar byliterary & generalidentitytenselate 20th centurypolitical intrigue+1 more
Players is Don DeLillo's fifth novel, published in 1977. It follows Lyle and Pammy Wynant, a young and affluent Manhattan couple whose casual boredom is overturned by their willing participation in chaotic detours from the everyday.
- Shadow of a Hero
Peter Dickinsonstandalone novel1994
similar byidentityliterary & generaltenselate 20th centurypolitical intrigue+1 more
In 1989, Letta, an English teenager, learns of her heritage from her grandfather, great-grandson of the legendary hero of Varina, as he becomes involved in the nationalistic political struggles in Eastern Europe.
- The Edible Woman
Margaret Atwoodstandalone novel1969
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
The Edible Woman is the first published novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in 1969. It is the story of a young woman, Marian, whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world starts to slip out of focus. Following her engagement, Marian feels her body and her self are becoming separated. Marian begins endowing food with human qualities that cause her to identify with it, and finds herself unable to eat, repelled by metaphorical cannibalism. In a foreword written in 1979 for the Virago edition of the novel, Atwood described it as a protofeminist rather than feminist work.
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díazstandalone novel2007
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centurylatin america
Dark fantasy novel. A young man who dreams of being “the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien” is doomed by a family curse, traced across generations.
- Phases of Gravity
Dan Simmonsstandalone novel1989
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
Follows Richard Baedecker, an Apollo astronaut who walked on the moon, through his midlife crisis. He meanders through India, Glen Oak Illinois, the mountains of Colorado, and the coastline of Oregon, checking up on his son and his former Apollo crewmates.
- The Names
Don DeLillostandalone novel1982
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective+1 more
The Names is the seventh novel by American novelist Don DeLillo, published in 1982. The novel, set mostly in Greece, is primarily a series of character studies, interwoven with a plot about a mysterious "language cult" that is behind a number of unexplained murders. Among the many themes explored throughout the work is the intersection of language and culture, the perception of American culture from both within and outside its borders, and the impact that narration has on the facts of a story.
- Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdiestandalone novel1980
similar byliterary & generalidentitypolitical intriguereflective
WorldCat: The life of a man born at the moment of India's independence becomes inextricably linked to that of his nation and is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirror modern India's course.
- The Cemetery of Untold Stories
Julia Alvarezstandalone novel2024
similar byliterary & generalidentitylatin americareflective
The Cemetery of Untold Stories: A Novel (2024) is a work of magical realism and the seventh novel by Dominican-American writer Julia Alvarez. The book follows Alma, a prolific author who, after retiring from her teaching job and writing career, inherits a plot of land in the Dominican Republic where she decides to create a cemetery for her unfinished manuscripts and notes.
- Brazzaville Beach
William Boydstandalone novel1990
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
Brazzaville Beach is a novel by William Boyd, for which he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1990, and the McVitie's Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. The book tells the story of a woman, Hope Clearwater, researching chimpanzees, and the circumstances that brought her to Africa. It is Boyd's first novel with a female protagonist and the first to be written, at least in part, from a first person female perspective. Boyd said that rather than try to consider how a woman, as opposed to a man, would respond to certain situations he focused on developing and understanding Hope's character and personality.
- Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Tom Robbinsstandalone novel1976
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th century
Sissy Hankshaw was born with unusually oversized thumbs, and instead of seeing them as a flaw turns them into a gift: the greatest hitchhiking thumbs in America, carrying her across the country on a restless road life. Her travels take her to New York, where she becomes star model for the Countess, a feminine-hygiene tycoon, before a stint at a Dakota ranch called the Rubber Rose brings her into the orbit of Bonanza Jellybean's cowgirls and a mountain mystic known only as the Chink. Around Sissy's wandering, Robbins builds a philosophical comedy about freedom and gender, with a flock of endangered whooping cranes crossing her path. Tom Robbins's best-known novel.
- 1982 Janine
Alasdair Graystandalone novel1984
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th century+1 more
1982, Janine is a novel by the Scottish author Alasdair Gray. His second, it was published in 1984, and remains his most controversial work. Its use of pornography as a narrative device attracted much criticism, although others, including Gray himself, consider it his best work.
- Black Swan Green
David Mitchellstandalone novel2006
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
Black Swan Green is a semi-autobiographical novel written by David Mitchell, published in April 2006 in the U.S. and May 2006 in the UK. The bildungsroman's thirteen chapters each represent one month—from January 1982 through January 1983—in the life of 13-year-old Worcestershire boy Jason Taylor. The novel is written from the perspective of Taylor and employs many teen colloquialisms and popular-culture references from early-1980s England.
- Galatea 2.2
Richard Powersstandalone novel1995
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
Galatea 2.2 is a 1995 pseudo-autobiographical novel by American writer Richard Powers and a contemporary reworking of the Pygmalion myth. The book's narrator shares the same name as Powers, with the book referencing events and books in the author's life while mentioning other events that may or may not be based upon Powers' life.
- The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisnerosstandalone novel1984
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
In a series of inter-connected vignettes, this is the story of a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Contains magical realism.
- Climbers
M. John Harrisonstandalone novel1989
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
Climbers is a literary novel by the British author M. John Harrison. First published in 1989 and apparently set several years earlier, the book had been out of print for several years but was reissued in paperback by Phoenix in 2004. It has attracted considerable critical acclaim and won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 1989. It was not, however, universally popular with the British climbing public, and received at least one negative review in the popular magazine Climber.
- Lord of the Flies
William Goldingstandalone novel1954
similar byliterary & generaltense+1 more
Lord of the Flies is the 1954 debut novel of British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of prepubescent British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves that lead to a descent into savagery. The novel's themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos.
- Mother Night
Kurt Vonnegut & Jr.standalone novel1962
similar byliterary & generalidentityreflective
Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American playwright who grew up in Germany, writes his memoirs from an Israeli prison cell awaiting trial for war crimes. As the Nazis rose to power, Campbell stayed on, married a German actress, and was recruited by an American agent to serve as a double agent, broadcasting Nazi propaganda over the radio while secretly passing coded intelligence to the Allies. The catch, as Campbell tells it, is that he became one of the war's most effective propagandists in the process, whatever his loyalties. Kurt Vonnegut's darkest novel asks what a person becomes when the mask he wears for a cause is indistinguishable from his face.
- Nights at the Circus
Angela Carterstandalone novel1984
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th century
Nights at the Circus is a novel by British writer Angela Carter, first published in 1984 and the winner of the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. The novel focuses on the life and exploits of Sophie Fevvers, a woman who is – or so she would have people believe – a Cockney virgin, hatched from an egg laid by unknown parents and ready to develop fully fledged wings. At the time of the story, she has become a celebrated aerialiste. She captivates the young journalist Jack Walser, who runs away with the circus and falls into a world that his journalistic exploits had not prepared him to encounter.
- Children of Violence
series5 books1952
completed
similar byliterary & generalidentityreflective+1 more
Children of Violence is a sequence of five semi-autobiographical novels by British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing: Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965), and The Four-Gated City (1969). The novels "are strongly influenced by Lessing's rejection of a domestic family role and her involvement with communism." Lessing identified the series as a bildungsroman.
- Imagining Argentina
Lawrence Thorntonstandalone novel1987
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurylatin america+1 more
Imagining Argentina (1987) is a novel by American author Lawrence Thornton, about the Dirty War in 1970s Argentina, during which the military government abducted and "disappeared" suspected opposition activists. It was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
- Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallacestandalone novel1996
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th century+1 more
Infinite Jest is a 1996 novel by American writer David Foster Wallace. Often considered Wallace’s magnum opus, the book has been categorized as an encyclopedic novel due to its unconventional narrative structure and hundreds of extensive endnotes, some with footnotes of their own.
- Moon Palace
Paul Austerstandalone novel1989
similar byliterary & generalidentitylate 20th centuryreflective
Moon Palace is a novel written by Paul Auster that was first published in 1989.
