Books like 'The Recognitions'
Readers who enjoyed The Recognitions by William Gaddis also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century classics literary-fiction postmodernism historical-fiction satire crime religion philosophical
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Collected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRaymond Carver’s spare dramas of loneliness, despair, and troubled relationships breathed new life into the American short story of the 1970s and ’80s. In collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Carver wrote with unflinching exactness about men and women enduring lives on the knife-edge of poverty and other deprivations... -
![The Little Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov]()
The Little Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe name The Little Golden Calf comes from the Bible, the Book of Exodus 32:1-4 Delighted applause from both sides of the Atlantic greeted the first publication of this comic clasic about Soviet life in the early years after the Revolution. Social changes then were so drastic and came so thick and fast that even most Russians were confused...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Complete Dramatic Works by Samuel Beckett]()
The Complete Dramatic Works by Samuel Beckett
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe present volume gathers all of Beckett's texts for theatre, from 1955 to 1984. It includes both the major dramatic works and the short and more compressed texts for the stage and for radio.'He believes in the cadence, the comma, the bite of word on reality, whatever else he believes; and his devotion to them, he makes clear, is a sufficient focus for the reader's attention...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
![The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever]()
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHere are sixty-one stories that chronicle the lives of what has been called "the greatest generation." From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in "The Enormous Radio" to the surprising discoveries and common mysteries of suburbia in "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" and "The Swimmer," Cheever tells us everything we need to know about "the pain and sweetness of life...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
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![The Flaw by Antonis Samarakis]()
The Flaw by Antonis Samarakis
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA man is seized from his afternoon drink at the Café Sport by two agents of the Regime - though what exactly he is suspected of we do not know, and neither, apparently, does he.What follows is a journey by car toward Special Branch headquarters, and the interrogation that undoubtedly awaits him there... -
![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... -
![Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver]()
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction satire 20th-century adult anthologies coming-of-age contemporary -
![JR by William Gaddis]()
JR by William Gaddis
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJ R is the long-awaited novel from William Gaddis, author of The Recognitions, that tremendous book which, in the twenty years since its publication, has come to be acknowledged as an American masterpiece...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Correction by Thomas Bernhard]()
Correction by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRoithamer, a character based on Wittgenstein, has committed suicide having been driven to madness by his own frightening powers of pure thought. We witness the gradual breakdown of a genius ceaselessly compelled to correct and refine his perceptions until the only logical conclusion is the negation of his own soul...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu]()
Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMircea Cartarescu, born in 1956, is one of Romania's leading novelists and poets...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction -
![What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies]()
What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsFrancis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small-town embalmer, an expert art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis's life were not always what they seemed...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction religion satire spirituality 20th-century adult -
![In My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer]()
In My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLike Isaac Bashevis Singer's fiction, this poignant memoir of his childhood in the household and rabbinical court of his father is full of spirits and demons, washerwomen and rabbis, beggars and rich men...Categorized as:
classics religion literary-fiction spirituality fiction 20th-century anthropomorphism contemporary -
![Old Masters: A Comedy by Thomas Bernhard]()
Old Masters: A Comedy by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOld Masters (subtitled A Comedy) is a novel by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, which was first published in 1985. It tells of the life and opinions of Reger, a 'musical philosopher', through the voice of his acquaintance Atzbacher, a 'private academic'.The book is set in Vienna on one day around the year of its publication, 1985... -
![Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod]()
Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely, he has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years.A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary family -
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![The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt]()
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHelen DeWitt's extraordinary debut, The Last Samurai, centers on the relationship between Sibylla, a single mother of precocious and rigorous intelligence, and her son, who, owing to his mother's singular attitude to education, develops into a prodigy of learning... -
![Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb]()
Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA major classic of 1930s literature, Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) is the fantastically moving and darkly funny story of a bourgeois businessman torn between duty and desire.'On the train, everything seemed fine. The trouble began in Venice ...'Mihály has dreamt of Italy all his life... -
![The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector]()
The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAficionados of South American fiction as well as literary critics will welcome this posthumous translation of a nearly plotless novel by one of Brazil's foremost writers. Availing herself of a single character, Lispector transforms a banal situation—a woman at home, alone—into an amphitheater for philosophical investigations...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism religion spirituality 20th-century adult -
![The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, Theodore Ziolkowski]()
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, Theodore Ziolkowski
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThe final novel of Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.Set in the twenty-third century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult -
![Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux]()
Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe main story is a love affair between Alaric Darconville, an English professor at a Virginia women's college, and one of his students, Isabel.The style relies on complex syntax and unusual words. The satire is broad, and uses southern culture cliches but is often very funny. Some of the names of the girls at the school, for example, are Mimsy Borogoves, Barbara Celarent, and Pengwynn Custiss... -
![Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThe American poet John Shade is dead. His last poem, 'Pale Fire', is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire 20th-century -
![A Million Little Lies by Bette Lee Crosby]()
A Million Little Lies by Bette Lee Crosby
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA lifetime of lies, and a truth too painful to tell.When Suzanna Duff was ten years old, she lost her mama, and that’s when the lies began. At first, they were just harmless little fibs, a way to hide her unbearable loneliness and the truth about a daddy who came home rip-roaring drunk every night... -
![62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar]()
62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs one of the main characters, the intellectual Juan, puts it: to one person the City might appear as Paris, to another it might be where one goes upon getting out of bed in Barcelona; to another it might appear as a beer hall in Oslo...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg]()
What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhat Makes Sammy Run?Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction satire 20th-century adult anti-hero -
![Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMore than sixty stories, poems, and essays are included in this wide-ranging collection by the extravagantly versatile Raymond Carver. Two of the stories—later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love—are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver’s literary development...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction satire 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
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![The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia]()
The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the first appearance in English of a Mexican novelist of enormous talent. His brilliant novel is based on fact: the discovery in the yard of a small-town brothel of the corpses of six prostitutes...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin]()
Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe collection consists of the best of his early works - Sukhodol, The Last Rendezvous, Apple Fragrance, The Gentleman from San Francisco - and stories written in his last years - Leka, Sunstroke, Shadowed Paths, and others. They may be called stories about love and about the unforgettable Russian landscape. For here, Bunin writes about himself, in the hushed stillness of the fields..Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth]()
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis novel in verse about a group of California yuppies was one of the most highly praised books of 1986 and a bestseller on both coasts...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction satire 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme]()
Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis collection of pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces is a companion to Sixty Stories, Barthelme's earlier retrospective volume. Barthelme spotlights the idiosyncratic, haughty, sometimes downright ludicrous behavior of human beings, but it is style rather than content which takes precedence...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
![What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe]()
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIf Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had ever managed to collaborate, they might have produced this shamelessly entertaining novel, which introduces readers to what may be the most powerful family in England--and is certainly the vilest. A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer...Categorized as:
classics crime historical-fiction literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire 20th-century -
![Women and Men by Joseph McElroy]()
Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBeginning in childbirth and entered like a multiple dwelling in motion, Women and Men embraces and anatomizes the 1970s in New York from experiments in the chaotic relations between the sexes to the flux of the city itself...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![The Harder They Come by Michael Thelwell]()
The Harder They Come by Michael Thelwell
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLike the acclaimed film of the same title, this lyrical, lilting, densely textured novel is based on the exploits of the legendary Jamaican folk hero and reggae star Rhygin...Categorized as:
literary-fiction classics crime fiction 20th-century journey male-author contemporary -
![A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov]()
A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHailed by Nabokov as a masterpiece, Sokolov's first novel is set at a school for "disturbed" children outside Moscow...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien]()
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs... -
![The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac, David Lodge]()
The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac, David Lodge
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe masterpiece of one of the greatest modern Catholic writersthe divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths. It is the unforgettable tale of the battle for one man's soul...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality 20th-century adult audiobook -
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![A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley]()
A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrederick Exley's inimitable "fictional memoir" A Fan's Notes has assumed the status of a classic since its first publication in 1968. Mordantly and poignantly, Exley describes the profound failures of his life; professional, sexual, and personal... -
![Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 by Richard Brautigan]()
Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA collection of 62 very short stories set in 1960s California, particularly around the author's home town of San Francisco. Richard Brautigan is the author of "Willard & His Bowling Trophies", "Trout Fishing in America", "In Watermelon Sugar" & "A Confederate General From Big Sur"...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies comedy -
![The Loser by Thomas Bernhard]()
The Loser by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThomas Bernhard was one of the most original writers of the twentieth century. His formal innovation ranks with Beckett and Kafka, his outrageously cantankerous voice recalls Dostoevsky, but his gift for lacerating, lyrical, provocative prose is incomparably his own...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies]()
The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsHailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in the bestselling Lyre of Orpheus.There is an important decision to be made...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality 20th-century adult arthurian -
![Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins]()
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThis is a gutsy, fun-loving, and provocative novel in which a bean can philosophises, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a rowdy redneck welder discovers the lost god of Palestine...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction postmodernism religion satire spirituality 20th-century action-adventure -
![Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard]()
Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is 1967. In separate wings of a Viennese hospital, two men lie bedridden. The narrator, Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of the celebrated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller]()
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhence Henry Miller's title for this, one of his most appealing books; first published in 1957, it tells the story of Miller's life on the Big Sur, a section of California coast where he lived for fifteen years.Big Sur is the portrait of a place one of the most colorful in the U.S...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction spirituality 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![The Tunnel by William H. Gass]()
The Tunnel by William H. Gass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThirty years in the making, William Gass's second novel first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, at which time it was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. The story of a middle aged professor who, upon completion of his massive historical study, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, finds himself writing a novel about his own life instead of the introduction to his magnum opus... -
![Gantenbein by Max Frisch]()
Gantenbein by Max Frisch
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA stranger walks out of a bar and is later found dead at the wheel of his car. The narrator creates the story of this man -- or, rather, two stories, based on the two personae that he has imagined. One of these is named Enderlin; the other, Gantenbein.Originally published as A Wilderness of Mirrors... -
![In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass]()
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIN THIS SUITE of five short pieces -- one of the unqualified literary masterpieces of the American 1960s -- William Gass finds five beautiful forms in which to explore the signature theme of his fiction: the solitary soul’s poignant, conflicted, and doomed pursuit of love and community...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
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![Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies]()
Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn amateur production of The Tempest provides a colourful backdrop for an hilarious look at unrequited love. Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows that she has plans of her own, Hector despairs and tries to commit suicide on the play's opening night... -
![Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson, John Lanchester]()
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson, John Lanchester
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsChristie Malry is a simple man. His job in a bank puts him next to, but not in possession of, money. As a clerk he learns the principles of Double-Entry Bookkeeping and adapts them in his own dramatic fashion to settle his personal account with society...Categorized as:
classics crime literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire 20th-century adult -
![The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies]()
The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsDefrocked monks, mad professors, and wealthy eccentrics - a remarkable cast peoples Robertson Davies' brilliant spectacle of theft, perjury, murder, scholarship, and love at a modern university. Only Mr. Davies, author of Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders, could have woven together their destinies with such wit, humour-and wisdom...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction religion satire spirituality 20th-century adult -
![Koolaid's Art of War by Rabih Alameddine]()
Koolaid's Art of War by Rabih Alameddine
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDetailing the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war in Beirut on a circle of friends and family, "Koolaids" tells the stories of characters who can no longer love or think except in fragments of time, each of which goes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears... -
![The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life by Josef Škvorecký]()
The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life by Josef Škvorecký
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSix tales which trace the libidinous ardours of a young man in wartime Czechoslovakia. His fantasies obstinately refuse to become reality, and in a world of unyielding girls and ruthless Nazi invaders, jazz is his only solace. By the author of "The Bass Saxophone" and "The Engineer of Human Souls"...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Sepharad: A Novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina]()
Sepharad: A Novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn “amazing” novel about the diaspora of Sephardic Jews amid the tumult of twentieth century history (The Washington Post Book World).From one of Spain’s most celebrated writers, this extraordinary blend of fiction, history, and memoir tells the story of the Sephardic diaspora through seventeen interlinked chapters...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction religion spirituality fiction war ww2 contemporary
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