Books like 'Demian'
Readers who enjoyed Demian by Hermann Hesse also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century psychological military, war & conflict classics coming-of-age bildungsroman spirituality literary-fiction philosophical
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A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsIn the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying... -
![Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov]()
Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsSo far the Foundation was safe. But there was a hidden Second Foundation to protect the first. The Mule has yet to find it, but he was getting closer all the time. The men of the Foundation sought it, too, to escape from Mule's mind control. Only Arkady, a 14 year-old girl seemed to have the answer, or did she.. -
![The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsFrom the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth...Categorized as:
classics lgbtq literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens -
![Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon]()
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 82 ratingsThe new novel by George Orwell is the major work towards which all his previous writing has pointed. Critics have hailed it as his "most solid, most brilliant" work. Though the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place thirty-five years hence, it is in every sense timely. The scene is London, where there has been no new housing since 1950 and where the city-wide slums are called Victory Mansions...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century alternate-history -
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![Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin]()
Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRussian novelist Victor Pelevin is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most brilliant young writers at work today. His comic inventiveness and mind-bending talent prompted Time magazine to proclaim him a "psychedelic Nabokov for the cyber-age... -
![Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, William T. Vollmann]()
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsLouis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism...Categorized as:
classics drama existentialism historical-fiction literary-fiction spirituality war 20th-century -
![The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille]()
The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsCaptain Ann Campbell is a West Point graduate, the daughter of legendary General "Fighting Joe" Campbell. She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found, naked and bound, on the firing range.Paul Brenner is a member of the Army's elite undercover investigative unit and the man in charge of this politically explosive case... -
![Tripwire by Lee Child, Dick Hill]()
Tripwire by Lee Child, Dick Hill
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsOn the publication of Lee Child's debut novel, the multiple award-winning Killing Floor, critics nationwide marked its success. His last book, Die Trying, inspired the Chicago Tribune to call him "a suspense writer to be reckoned with." In Tripwire, Reacher is settling into lazy Key West when his life is interrupted by a stranger who comes looking for him... -
![Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell]()
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 101 ratingsWinston Smith is a low-rung member of the Party, the ruling government of Oceania. He works in the Ministry of Truth, the Party's propoganda arm, where he is in charge of revising history. He is but a small brick in the pyramid that is the Party, at the head of which stands Big Brother. Big Brother the infallible. Big Brother the all-powerful...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century alternate-history -
![The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera]()
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 75 ratingsIn The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover... -
![Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré]()
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA modern classic in which John le Carré expertly creates a total vision of a secret world, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins George Smiley's chess match of wills and wits with Karla, his Soviet counterpart. It is now beyond a doubt that a mole, implanted decades ago by Moscow Centre, has burrowed his way into the highest echelons of British Intelligence...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratings'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor--seemingly there for the men's solace--their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail...Categorized as:
classics drama existentialism high-school literary-fiction philosophical war 20th-century -
![The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum]()
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereWho is Jason Bourne? Is he an assassin, a terrorist, a thief? Why has he got four million dollars in a Swiss bank account? Why has someone tried to murder him?...Jason Bourne does not know the answer to any of these questions. Suffering from amnesia, he does not even know that he is Jason Bourne... -
![Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsBroad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century adult -
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![Birdy by William Wharton]()
Birdy by William Wharton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not yet born" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Birdy is an inventive, hypnotic novel about friendship and family, dreaming and surviving, love and war, madness and beauty, and, above all, "birdness...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century -
![First Blood by David Morrell]()
First Blood by David Morrell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFirst came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of First Blood to take his place in the American cultural landscape... -
![The Reason You're Alive by Matthew Quick]()
The Reason You're Alive by Matthew Quick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAfter sixty-eight-year-old David Granger crashes his BMW, medical tests reveal a brain tumor that he readily attributes to his wartime Agent Orange exposure. He wakes up from surgery repeating a name no one in his civilian life has ever heard - that of a Native American soldier whom he was once ordered to discipline... -
![Las huellas imborrables by Camilla Läckberg]()
Las huellas imborrables by Camilla Läckberg
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe SandMan Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition"So the spirit of the universe will cease to think, and everything will cease to exist." "That is not something I care about, glory. The stars burn and fall. People live and die. Someday, even "eternity" will come to an end. I am responsible for it all the time. "" Did not you care, the king of dreams? Maybe. It may not be your responsibility...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![The Clown by Heinrich Böll]()
The Clown by Heinrich Böll
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAcclaimed entertainer Hans Schnier collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won’t marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life—the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality war 20th-century -
![V. by Thomas Pynchon]()
V. by Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men—one looking for something he has lost, the other with nothing much to lose—and "V.," the unknown woman of the title...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction philosophical war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue]()
The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAlternative cover edition here.The Hunting Gun, set in the period immediately following WWII, follows the consequences of a tragic love affair among well-to-do people in an exclusive suburb of the great commercial cities of Osaka and Kobe. Told from the viewpoints of three different women, this is a story of the psychological impact of illicit love... -
![Nuns and Soldiers by Iris Murdoch]()
Nuns and Soldiers by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSet in London and in the South of France, this brilliantly structured novel centers on two women: Gertrude Openshaw, bereft from the recent death of her husband, yet awakening to passion; and Anne Cavidge, who has returned in doubt from many years in a nunnery, only to encounter her personal Christ...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality war 20th-century adult -
![Out of Mind by J. Bernlef]()
Out of Mind by J. Bernlef
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis intimate and affecting story of the dramatic decline suffered by an elderly man afflicted by Alzheimer's disease draws its strength from the first-person narrative voice of the man himself. Initially lucid, if fatigued, 71-year-old Maarten Klein lives with his wife Vera in Gloucester, Mass... -
![The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick]()
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Transmigration of Timothy Archer, the final novel in the trilogy that also includes Valis and The Divine Invasion, is an anguished, learned, and very moving investigation of the paradoxes of belief. It is the story of Timothy Archer, an urbane Episcopal bishop haunted by the suicides of his son and mistress - and driven by them into a bizarre quest for the identity of Christ...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction magical-realism philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult -
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![Age of Iron by J.M. Coetzee]()
Age of Iron by J.M. Coetzee
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Cape Town, South Africa, an old woman is dying of cancer. A classics professor, Mrs. Curren has been opposed to the lies and brutality of apartheid all her life, but has lived insulated from its true horrors. Now she is suddenly forced to come to terms with the iron-hearted rage that the system has wrought... -
![Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos]()
Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNational best seller and Today show Book Club selection, Broken for You is the story of two women in self-imposed exile whose lives are transformed when their paths intersect. Stephanie Kallos's debut novel is a work of infinite charm, wit and heart. It is also a glorious homage to the beauty of broken things...Categorized as:
drama friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Latecomers by Anita Brookner]()
Latecomers by Anita Brookner
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsA novel about the 50-year friendship of two dissimilar German refugees brought over to England as children from Nazi Germany. Their friendship becomes a funny yet touching model for the ways in which human beings come to terms with the tragedy of living... -
![The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood]()
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsFrom the extraordinary imagination of Margaret Atwood, author of the bestselling The Handmaid's Tale and Cat's Eye, comes her most intricate and subversive novel yet.Roz, Charis, and Tony--war babies all--share a wound, and her name is Zenia. Zenia is beautiful and smart and hungry, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless, the turbulent center of her own never-ending saga...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism war -
![An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine]()
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsOne of Beirut’s most celebrated voices, Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller, The Hakawati, with a heartrending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut’s beauties and horrors along the way.Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books...Categorized as:
drama friendship historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction war 21st-century action-adventure -
![Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow]()
Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
Rated: 3.76 of 5 stars · 27 ratings“An enduring testament and prophecy.” –Chicago Sun-Times Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a “registrar of madness,” a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities)...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality war 20th-century adult -
![The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene]()
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
Rated: 3.64 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a small continental country civil war is raging. Once a lecturer in medieval French, now a confidential agent, D is a scarred stranger in a seemingly casual England, sent on a mission to buy coal at any price...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Sphere by Michael Crichton]()
Sphere by Michael Crichton
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsA group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old... -
![Xenocide by Orson Scott Card]()
Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsThe war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the heart of a child named Gloriously Bright.On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought... -
![Mao II by Don DeLillo]()
Mao II by Don DeLillo
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"One of the most intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America" (The New York Times), Don DeLillo presents an extraordinary new novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction philosophical spirituality war 20th-century adult -
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![Something Happened by Joseph Heller]()
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBob Slocum was living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife, three lovely children, a nice house...and all the mistresses he desired. He had it all -- all, that is, but happiness. Slocum was discontent. Inevitably, inexorably, his discontent deteriorated into desolation until...something happened... -
![Point Omega by Don DeLillo]()
Point Omega by Don DeLillo
Rated: 3.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsDon DeLillo looks into the mind and heart of a "defense intellectual," one of the men involved in the management of the country's war machine.Don DeLillo has been "weirdly prophetic about twenty-first-century America" (The New York Times Book Review). In his earlier novels, he has written about conspiracy theory, the Cold War and global terrorism... -
![The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier]()
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsJerry Renault ponders the question on the poster in his locker: Do I dare disturb the universe? Refusing to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser may not seem like a radical thing to do. But when Jerry challenges a secret school society called The Vigils, his defiant act turns into an all-out war...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction religion -
![Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood]()
Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 3.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA powerfully and brilliantly crafted novel, Bodily Harm is the story of Rennie Wilford, a young journalist whose life has begun to shatter around the edges. Rennie flies to the Caribbean to recuperate, and on the tiny island of St. Antoine she is confronted by a world where her rules for survival no longer apply... -
![Lord of the Flies by William Golding]()
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 63 ratingsAt the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century -
![A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka]()
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Rated: 3.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was bestselling author Marina Lewycka's bestselling debut novel which has sold over one million copies worldwide. Lewycka tells the side-splittingly funny story of two feuding sisters, Vera and Nadezhda, who join forces against their father's new, gold-digging girlfriend...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure
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