Books like 'A Very Private Life'
Readers who enjoyed A Very Private Life by Michael Frayn also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical sc-fi 20th century dystopia poverty far-future post-apocalyptic literary-fiction classics
-
Animal Farm / 1984 by George Orwell
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsThis edition features George Orwell’s best-known novels—1984 and Animal Farm—with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith joins a secret revolutionary organisation called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party... -
The Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsDrunk, and in charge of a bicycle / introduction by Ray Bradbury--The night --Homecoming--Uncle Einar --The traveler --The lake --The coffin --The crowd --The scythe --There was an old woman --There will come soft rains --Mars is heaven --The silent towns --The earth men --The off season --The million-year picnic --The fox and the forest --Kaleidoscope --The rocket man --Marionettes, inc...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure aliens anthologies brazil -
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFor more than sixty years, the imagination of Ray Bradbury has opened doors into remarkable places, ushering us across unexplored territories of the heart and mind while leading us inexorably toward a profound understanding of ourselves and the universe we inhabit. In this landmark volume, America's preeminent storyteller offers us one hundred treasures from a lifetime of words and ideas...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies fiction -
George Orwell Complete & Unabridged by George Orwell
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsContains the following works by George Orwell:- Animal Farm- Burmese Days- A Clergyman's Daughter- Coming Up for Air- Keep the Aspidistra Flying- Nineteen... -
-
The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in the vast windswept Central Asian steppes and the infinite reaches of galactic space, this powerful novel offers a vivid view of the culture and values of the Soviet Union's Central Asian peoples...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book fiction -
Bílá nemoc by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDrama Bílá nemoc napsal Karel Čapek v předvečer druhé světové války. Bylo varováním před nastupujícím nacismem. Stejně jako ostatní jeho romány a hry je neskutečně současné a alarmující... -
Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsKnown in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem’s words, “wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century adult alternate-history anthologies fiction -
Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsUrsula K. Le Guin is one of the greatest science fiction writers and many times the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her career as a novelist was launched by the three novels contained in Worlds Of Exile And Illusion. These novels, Rocannon's World, Planet Of Exile, and City Of Illusions, are set in the same universe as Le Guin's ground-breaking classic, The Left Hand Of Darkness...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford by Philip K. Dick, Steven Owen Godersky
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in his works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention... -
Malevil by Robert Merle, Derek Coltman
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIf you are a fan of the post apocolypse genre, then you will appreciate this gem of a book. It is difficult to find, but it is well worth perservering with a search. The title of the book refers to an old castle in rural France, and which is owned by our hero, the narrator of the story...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 3: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K... -
Complete Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Dave Eggers
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFeaturing five never-before-published Vonnegut stories!Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the twentieth century’s foremost imaginative geniuses. More than half of Vonnegut’s output was short fiction, and never before has the world had occasion to wrestle with it all together... -
Those Who Survive by Kir Bulychev
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Planet Had No Name! When the exploratory starship from Earth PolarStar crashed in the ice-covered mountains of the nameless planet the few survivors who made it to the warmer lowlands had no idea just how hostile this world could be. The plants were poisonous or actively hunted them, the animals were not all that friendly either. Most of them died. Some had children... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 5: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsContents:- Introduction (October 1986) by Thomas M...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens anthologies -
-
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThese 18 darkly complex short stories and novellas touch upon human nature and perception, metaphysics and epistemology, and gender and sexuality, foreshadowing a world in which biological tendencies bring about the downfall of humankind. Revisions from the author's notes are included, allowing a deeper view into her world and a better understanding of her work...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens anthologies -
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsPhilip K. Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens anthologies -
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMockingbird is a powerful novel of a future world where humans are dying. Those that survive spend their days in a narcotic bliss or choose a quick suicide rather than slow extinction. Humanity's salvation rests with an android who has no desire to live, and a man and a woman who must discover love, hope, and dreams of a world reborn...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult ai -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford by Philip K. Dick, Steven Owen Godersky
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMany thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in his works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention... -
Dangerous Visions by Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe most honored anthology of fantastic fiction ever published, featuring the works of such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Bloch, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Damon Knight, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, Frederik Pohl, Roger Zelazny and Samuel Delany... -
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFirst published in Collier's, May 6, 1950.The story concerns a household in Allendale, California, in the aftermath of a nuclear war...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century ai apocalyptic audiobook -
VALIS & Later Novels: A Maze of Death / VALIS / The Divine Invasion / The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn 2007, Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s became the fastest selling title in The Library of America's history. The 2008 companion volume, Five Novels of the1960s & 70s, broke series records for advance sales...Categorized as:
classics post-apocalyptic 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical literary -
Rapsodie der eenzaamheid by Agnar Mykle, Maurice Michael
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDutch translation of Lasso rundt fru Luna...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book fiction historical -
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe advanced technology of a house first pleases then increasingly terrifies its occupants... -
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 2: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe second volume of the definitive five-book set of the complete collected stories of the twentieth century's greatest sf author includes such masterpieces as the title story, with its endless war being fought by ever more cunning and sophisticated robot weapons, and "Impostor" where a man accused of being an alien spy finds his whole identity called into question... -
-
The Philip K. Dick MEGAPACK ®: 15 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Philip K. Dick Megapack assembles no less than 15 classic science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. Included are:INTRODUCTION: PHILIP K. DICKEXHIBIT PIECEBEYOND LIES THE WUBTHE DEFENDERSTHE CRYSTAL CRYPTBEYOND THE DOORSECOND VARIETYTHE EYES HAVE ITTHE GUNTHE VARIABLE MANTONY AND THE BEETLESTHE HANGING STRANGERTHE SKULLPIPER IN THE WOODSMR... -
Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAt the far end of our universe, on the twin planets of Werel and Yeowe, all humankind is divided into "assets" and "owners," tradition and liberation are at war, and freedom takes many forms. Here is a society as complex and troubled as any on our world, peopled with unforgettable characters struggling to become fully human...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens anthologies -
R Is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsContents:Introduction · in R Is for Rocket [“King of the Gray Spaces”] · ss Famous Fantastic Mysteries Dec ’43 The End of the Beginning [“Next Stop: The Stars”] · ss Maclean’s Oct 27 ’56 The Fog Horn [“The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 23 ’51 The Rocket [“Outcast of the Stars”] · ss Super Science Stories Mar ’50 The Rocket Man · ss Maclean’s Mar 1 ’51 The Golden...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure anthologies children-books fiction -
City by Clifford D. Simak
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsSimak's "City" is a series of connected stories, a series of legends, myths, and campfire stories told by Dogs about the end of human civilization, centering on the Webster family, who, among their other accomplishments, designed the ships that took Men to the stars and gave Dogs the gift of speech and robots to be their hands...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens -
La Jetée: ciné-roman by Chris Marker
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLa Jet�e is the book version of the legendary 1964 science fiction film about time and memory after a nuclear apocalypse. Chris Marker, the undisputed master of the filmic essay, composed the film almost entirely of still photographs...Categorized as:
dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult book cyberpunk fiction -
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 1: Rocannon’s World / Planet of Exile / City of Illusions / The Left Hand of Darkness / The Dispossessed / Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBeginning in the 1960s and 70s, Ursula K. Le Guin redrew the map of modern science fiction...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies female-author fiction historical -
Limes inferior by Janusz A. Zajdel
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsW absurdalnym, sztucznie wykreowanym świecie Argolandu, nic nie jest tym, czym się na pierwszy rzut oka wydaje. Drobny kombinator dzięki sprytowi i inteligencji odkrywa prawdę o pozornie idealnym porządku społeczno-ekonomicznym.Sztandarowa powieść Janusza A. Zajdla, twórcy nurtu fantastyki socjologicznej w Polsce... -
Watchbird by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a certified government contract if you want to save the human race... -
His Name was Death by Rafael Bernal, Kit Schluter
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA bitter drunk forsakes civilization and takes to the Mexican jungle, trapping animals, selling their pelts to buy liquor for colossal benders, and slowly rotting away in his fetid hut... -
The Best of Richard Matheson by Richard Matheson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe first career retrospective of terrifying stories by "one of the greatest writers of the 20th century" (Ray Bradbury), edited by award-winning author Victor LaValle.Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson... -
-
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"It crouches near the center of creation. There is no night where it waits. Only the riddle of which terrible dream will set it loose. It beheaded mercy to take possession of that place. It feasts on darkness from the minds of men. No one has ever seen its eyeless face. When it sleeps we know a few moments of peace. But when it breathes again we go down in fire and mate with jackals...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century adult anthologies apocalyptic fiction -
The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSet the controls for the heart of the sun.The Captain bent in the warm air, cursing, felt his hands run over the cold machine, and while he worked he saw a future which was removed from them by the merest breath. He saw the skin peel from the rocket beehive, men thus revealed running, running, mouths shrieking, soundless. Space was a black mossed well where life drowned its roars and terrors...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook -
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIn "A Sound of Thunder", Time Safari, Inc. offers the greatest hunting trips ever--any year, any animal. But they don't guarantee you'll come back, or what you'll find if you do. And in "Night Call, Collect", who is harassing Emil Barton, the last man in the universe? After decades of waiting on Mars, these twisted phone calls could kill him! Winner of a Peabody Award...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book -
Stories Volume 1 by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOne hundred classic stories from the celebrated author of Fahrenheit 451. In this, the first volume of Ray Bradbury's short stories, some of the author's finest works are published together, among them 'Homecoming', 'Veldt', 'A Sound of Thunder' and 'The Long Rain'...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies fiction hard-sci-fi -
Soul by Andrei Platonov, Robert Chandler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsA New York Review Books OriginalThe Soviet writer Andrey Platonov saw much of his work suppressed or censored in his lifetime. In recent decades, however, these lost works have reemerged, and the eerie poetry and poignant humanity of Platonov’s vision have become ever more clear... -
The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsMen had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge...Categorized as:
classics dystopia far-future literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRobert Sheckley was an eccentric master of the American short story, and his tales, whether set in dystopic cityscapes, ultramodern advertising agencies, or aboard spaceships lighting out for hostile planets, are among the most startlingly original of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies fiction -
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe story is set in a seemingly perfect global society. Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language and all ethnic groups have been eugenically merged into one race called “The Family.” The world is ruled by a central computer called UniComp that has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the earth in check...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century adult apocalyptic audiobook -
Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsONE BILLION YEARS FROM NOW . . .Mankind has reached the heights of civilization. Men live thousands of years in perfect freedom and leisure—their wants are attended to by ingenious machines—peace and culture flourish in ways undreamed of in our time. And yet ... mankind is dying...Categorized as:
classics dystopia far-future post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
The Snail on the Slope by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe Snail on the Slope takes place in two worlds. One is the Administration, an institution run by a surreal, Kafkaesque bureaucracy whose aim is to govern the forest below. The other is the Forest, a place of fear, weird creatures, primitive people and violence. Peretz, who works at the Administration, wants to visit the Forest... -
-
Flatland / Sphereland by Edwin A. Abbott, Dionijs Burger Jr.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFlatland : the classic speculation on life in four dimensions; Sphereland : a continuing speculation on an expanding...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century adult alternate-universe book fiction -
Warm Worlds and Otherwise by James Tiptree Jr.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsStories:All the Kinds of YesThe Milk of Paradise [1973 Locus Poll Award, Best Short Fiction (Place: 18)]And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost WaysThe Last Flight of Dr. Ain [nominated, 1969 Nebula Award]AmberjackThrough a Lass DarklyThe Girl Who Was Plugged In [winner, 1974 Hugo Award. Nominated, 1973 Nebula Award... -
Sultana's Dream: And Selections from The Secluded Ones by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Hanna Papanek
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSultana’s Dream, first published in 1905 in a Madras English newspaper, is a witty feminist utopia—a tale of reverse purdah that posits a world in which men are confined indoors and women have taken over the public sphere, ending a war nonviolently and restoring health and beauty to the world...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies female-author -
You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn the jungles of South America, on the ice fields of Alaska, the plains of the Midwest, and the streets of San Francisco, a fearsome battle rages. The insects are vying for world domination; the inventors of electricity stand in evil opposition. Bug , a young man, rebels against his own kind and joins forces with the insects... -
Earth by David Brin
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTIME IS RUNNING OUT Decades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth's core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year...Categorized as:
classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic -
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOne man has made it his mission to liberate the mental prisoners. to restore their freedom in a world run mad...Categorized as:
classics dystopia post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies cyberpunk
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.