Books like 'The World According to Garp'
Readers who enjoyed The World According to Garp by John Irving also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century comedy europe western-central-europe austria urban usa massachusetts classics
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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 historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Complete Yes Prime Minister by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay]()
The Complete Yes Prime Minister by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPresented in the form of diaries, official documents, and letters, rather than simply transcribed scripts, this book is a companion to the successful BBC series, "Yes Prime Minister... -
![The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov]()
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSergei Dovlatov’s subtle, dark-edged humor and wry observations are in full force in The Suitcase as he examines eight objects—the items he brought with him in his luggage upon his emigration from the U.S.S.R... -
![Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace]()
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 60 ratingsA gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America... -
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![What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski]()
What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCharles Bukowski's gamble in art was as prolific as it was audacious. The second in Black Sparrow's series of posthumous volumes of Bukowski's poetry takes us deeper into the raw, wild vein that extends from the early 1970s to the 1990s... -
![Noises Off by Michael Frayn]()
Noises Off by Michael Frayn
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNoises Off, the classic farce by the Tony Award—winning author of Copenhagen, is not one play but two: simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage “drama” that develops during Nothing On’s final rehearsal and tour... -
![More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin]()
More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe divinely human comedy that began with Tales of the City rolls recklessly along as Michael Tolliver pursues his favourite gynaecologist, Mona Ramsey uncovers her roots in a desert whorehouse, and Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with the amnesiac of her dreams... -
![Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away by Richard Brautigan]()
Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThree unforgettable Brautigan masterpieces reissued in a one-volume omnibus edition. REVENGE OF THE LAWN: Originally published in 1971, these bizarre flashes of insight and humor cover everything from "A High Building in Singapore" to the "Perfect California Day." This is Brautigan's only collection of stories and includes "The Lost Chapters of TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA...Categorized as:
high-school historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century adult anthologies -
![Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski]()
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsIn what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H... -
![The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov]()
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFrom the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales—eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time—display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire university 20th-century -
![Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler]()
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsEbullient and perverse, thrice married, Barney Panofsky has always clung to two cherished beliefs: life is absurd and nobody truly ever understands anybody else. But when his sworn enemy publicly states that Barney is a wife abuser, an intellectual fraud and probably a murderer, he is driven to write his own memoirs... -
![Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart]()
Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLoudmouthed, redheaded Cee Cee Bloom has her sights set on Hollywood. Bertie White, quiet and conservative, dreams of getting married and having children. In 1951, their childhood worlds collide in Atlantic City. Keeping in touch as pen pals, they reunite over the years ... always near the ocean...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic 20th-century -
![Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo]()
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRichard Russo's slyly funny and moving novel follows the unexpected operation of grace in a deadbeat town in upstate New York—and in the life of one of its unluckiest citizens, Sully, who has been doing the wrong thing triumphantly for fifty years... -
![Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh]()
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBrace yourself, America, for Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting—the novel and the film that became the cult sensations of Britain. Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh's spectacular career—an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives. It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age dark drama high-school historical-fiction humor literary-fiction -
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![The Collected Plays, Vol. 1 by Neil Simon]()
The Collected Plays, Vol. 1 by Neil Simon
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis first volume of The Collected Plays of Neil Simon contains the triumphs that put his unique brand of comic genius on the American stage, and made him the most successful playwright of his generation... -
![The Complete Plays by Joe Orton]()
The Complete Plays by Joe Orton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history and was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward... -
![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 coming-of-age historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire urban 20th-century -
![Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell]()
Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn its first two years of production, Dario Fo's controversial farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama... -
![Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov]()
Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn unsuccessful writer and an inveterate alcoholic, Boris Alikhanov has recently divorced his wife Tatyana, and he is running out of money... -
![The Collected Stories by Grace Paley]()
The Collected Stories by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis reissue of Grace Paley's classic collection—a finalist for the National Book Award—demonstrates her rich use of language as well as her extraordinary insight into and compassion for her characters, moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again... -
![Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee]()
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 35 ratings"Twelve times a week," answered Uta Hagen when asked how often she'd like to play Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In the same way, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games... -
![The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty]()
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhite Boy Shuffle is Man Booker-winner Paul Beatty’s electrifying debut novel about teenage-surf-bum Gunnar Kaufman who is forced to wise up when his mother moves from suburban Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighbourhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a ‘divided, downtrodden people’...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age high-school humor literary-fiction satire university 20th-century -
![Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner]()
Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhen they meet for the first time at summer camp, two ten-year-old girls discover they are twins and agree to exchange identities in an attempt to reconciliate their divorced parents... -
![Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary]()
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn this Newbery Honor Book from beloved author Beverly Cleary, eight-year-old Ramona Quimby's zest for life is infectious as ever. Whether speaking her mind to her third-grade teacher, or befriending her schoolyard bully, Ramona can't be kept down!Then one day an embarrassing incident in the classroom leaves Ramona completely humiliated... -
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![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... -
![Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereIn Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth... -
![The Best of Saki by Saki]()
The Best of Saki by Saki
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsThe short stories of Saki give brief but dazzling glimpses into the lives of the Edwardian rich; a class that virtually disappeared with the advent of the First World War. With delicious malice, Saki portrays the follies, eloquence, tradition and foibles of his characters... -
![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... -
![Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins]()
Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNineteen-year-old Harold Chasen is obsessed with death. He fakes suicides to shock his self-obsessed mother, drives a customized Jaguar hearse, and attends funerals of complete strangers. Seventy-nine-year-old Maude Chardin, on the other hand, adores life...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic 20th-century -
![The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh]()
The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative aging mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific... -
![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... -
![The Risk Pool by Richard Russo]()
The Risk Pool by Richard Russo
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Risk Pool is a thirty-year journey through the lives of Sam Hall, a small-town gambling hellraiser, and his watchful, introspective son Ned...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama family humor literary-fiction realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
![Significant Others by Armistead Maupin]()
Significant Others by Armistead Maupin
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSignificant Others, the fifth self-contained chronicle in the Tales of the City saga, is a cunningly observed class comedy that's sure to be relished by the cognoscenti and by new readers alike.A holiday in the redwoods goes uproariously awry when the opposing sexes camp out rather too close to each other for comfort... -
![Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante]()
Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is going to be a cold winter in Rocklin, Colorado for the family of Svevo Bandini. The immigrant Italian bricklayer is spending his money at the Imperial Poolhall and his time at the widow Hildegarde's.His angelic wife Maria stays at home, cleaning, praying, dreading the arrival of her fearsome mother...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction usa -
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![Babycakes by Armistead Maupin]()
Babycakes by Armistead Maupin
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe characters that filled the pages of the three earlier Tales of the City books with love and laughter are at it again, as an ordinary house-husband and his ambitious wife discover there's more to making a baby than meets the eye. Unexpected help arrives in the form of a British monarch, a grieving gay neighbour, and an international ring of mail-order brides... -
![The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie]()
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsIn this darkly comic short story collection, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spoke Indian Reservation...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family high-school historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic -
![Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin]()
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsSan Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous—unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin... -
![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 humor literary-fiction satire university -
![Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard]()
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 63 ratingsHamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a tragic but inevitable end...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire university -
![My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki]()
My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA cross-cultural tale of two women brought together by the intersections of television and industrial agriculture, fertility and motherhood, life and love—the breakout hit by the celebrated author of A Tale for the Time BeingRuth Ozeki’s mesmerizing debut novel has captivated readers and reviewers worldwide... -
![The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, Nathan Lane]()
The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, Nathan Lane
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsComedy / 6m, 2f / Int. This classic comedy opens as a group of the guys assembled for cards in the apartment of divorced Oscar Madison. And if the mess is any indication, it's no wonder that his wife left him. Late to arrive is Felix Unger who has just been separated from his wife... -
![Junie B. Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake by Barbara Park]()
Junie B. Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake by Barbara Park
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"I'm the bestest winner in the world!" It's Carnival Night, and Lucille has already won a box of fluffy cupcakes with sprinkles on them. But when Junie B. wins the Cake Walk, she chooses the bestest cake of all- the one wrapped in sparkly aluminum foil... -
![The Crow Road by Iain Banks]()
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsFrom its bravura opening onwards, THE CROW ROAD is justly regarded as an outstanding contemporary novel. 'It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach... -
![Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One by C.D. Payne]()
Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp, Book One by C.D. Payne
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsSix months in the life of the world's most dangerous teenager.Youth in Revolt is the journals of Nick Twisp, California's most precocious diarist, whose ongoing struggles to make sense out of high school, deal with his divorced parents, and lose his virginity result in his transformation from an unassuming fourteen-year-old to a modern youth in open revolt...Categorized as:
bildungsroman coming-of-age high-school humor literary-fiction realistic satire 20th-century -
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![Sexus by Henry Miller]()
Sexus by Henry Miller
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSexus is the first volume of the scandalous trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, Henry Miller's major life workHenry Miller called the end of his life in America and the start of a new, bohemian existence in 1930s Paris his 'rosy crucifixion'. His searing fictionalized autobiography of this time of liberation was banned for nearly twenty years... -
![Sure of You by Armistead Maupin]()
Sure of You by Armistead Maupin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this, the sixth and final self-contained volume of Armistead Maupin's epic chronicle of modern life, a fiercely ambitious TV talk show host finds she must choose between national stardom in New York and a husband and child in San Francisco... -
![Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins]()
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 56 ratingsStill Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders...Categorized as:
classics drama family high-school historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic -
![Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Mulliner collectionIn the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest, Mr Mulliner tells his amazing tales, which hold his audience of drinkers (referred to only as Pints of Stout and Whiskies-and-Splash) in the palm of his expressive hand... -
![Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Mulliner collectionIn the Angler's Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![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...
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