Books like 'Passing'
Readers who enjoyed Passing by Nella Larsen also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century psychological classics historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc university lgbtq urban
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Time Regained by Marcel Proust, D.J. Enright
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTime Regained, the final volume of In Search of Lost Time, begins in the bleak and uncertain years of World War I. Years later, after the war’s end, Proust’s narrator returns to Paris and reflects on time, reality, jealousy, artistic creation, and the raw material of literature—his past life...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg]()
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWoman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in the "Ozzie and Harriet" McCarthy era and coming out as a young butch lesbian in the pre-Stonewall gay drag bars of a blue-collar town...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction politics realistic social-commentary university -
![Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, D.J. Enright]()
Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, D.J. Enright
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFirst published in 1919, Within a Budding Grove was awarded the Prix Goncourt, bringing the author immediate fame. In this second volume of In Search of Lost Time, the narrator turns from the childhood reminiscences of Swann’s Way to memories of his adolescence...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century adult -
![The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante]()
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 42 ratings"Nothing quite like this has ever been published before," proclaimed The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance...Categorized as:
classics drama family female-mc friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction politics -
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![Animal Farm / 1984 by George Orwell]()
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... -
![Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry]()
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"This is a book about Heaven," says Jayber Crow, "but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell." It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber... -
![The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See]()
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen...Categorized as:
drama family female-mc friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc realistic -
![The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis]()
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsWhen she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape her surroundings, albeit fleetingly: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued...Categorized as:
classics drama family female-mc friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic -
![The Spook Who Sat by the Door by Sam Greenlee]()
The Spook Who Sat by the Door by Sam Greenlee
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA classic in the black literary tradition, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is both a comment on the civil rights problems in the United States in the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of black militancy.Dan Freeman, the spook who sat by the door, is enlisted in the CIA's elitist espionage program...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc politics realistic social-commentary urban -
![Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin]()
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAt the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage... -
![Body and Soul by Frank Conroy]()
Body and Soul by Frank Conroy
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the dim light of a basement apartment, six-year-old Claude Rawlings sits at an old white piano, picking out the sounds he has heard on the radio and shutting out the reality of his lonely world.The setting is 1940s New York, a city that is "long gone, replaced by another city of the same name...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic 20th-century book -
![A Daughter's Sorrow by Cathy Sharp]()
A Daughter's Sorrow by Cathy Sharp
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHeartache and hardship in London’s East End, from the bestselling author of The Orphans of Halfpenny StreetBridget has always been the one to take on the responsibility for looking after her family... -
![A History of Loneliness by John Boyne]()
A History of Loneliness by John Boyne
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPropelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full of hope and ambition. When he arrives at Clonliffe Seminary in the 1970s, it is a time in Ireland when priests are highly respected, and Odran believes that he is pledging his life to "the good."Forty years later, Odran's devotion is caught in revelations that shatter the Irish people's faith in the Catholic Church...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction realistic social-commentary 20th-century -
![Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey]()
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic university 20th-century -
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![The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro]()
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world postwar England...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc politics realistic -
![Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz]()
Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSugar Street is the third and concluding volume of the celebrated Cairo Trilogy, which brings the story of Al-Sayid Ahmad and his family up to the middle of the twentieth century.Aging and ill, the family patriarch surveys the world from his housewares's latticed balcony, as his long-suffering wife once did... -
![A Daughter’s Dream by Cathy Sharp]()
A Daughter’s Dream by Cathy Sharp
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHeartache and hardship in London’s East End, from the bestselling author of The Orphans of Halfpenny StreetAmy Robinson and her fiance Matthew are struggling to resist the temptations faced by a soon-to-be-wed couple. To avoid these, Matthew throws himself into a new job and she goes to work in an exclusive new dress shop, where she meets Mary Maitland...Categorized as:
historical-fiction female-mc family literary-fiction psychological romance 20th-century holidays -
![Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz]()
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis is a sweeping and evocative portrait of both a family and a country struggling to move toward independence in a society that has resisted change for centuries. Set against the backdrop of Britain's occupation of Egypt immediately after World War I, Palace Walk introduces us to the Al Jawad family... -
![Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor]()
Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom bestselling author Mary Ellen Taylor comes a story about profound loss, hard truths, and an overgrown greenhouse full of old secrets.Adrift in the wake of her father’s death, a failed marriage, and multiple miscarriages, Libby McKenzie feels truly alone. Though her new life as a wedding photographer provides a semblance of purpose, it’s also a distraction from her profound pain...Categorized as:
drama family female-mc friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult -
![Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor]()
Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe women of Brewster Place are "hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased". In their stories, Gloria Naylor has created a community of women that has touched thousands of readers across the country. Now the basis for a November 1988, ABC-TV, three-hour movie, starring Oprah Winfrey... -
![Swann's Way by Marcel Proust]()
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsMarcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century -
![Swann's Way by Marcel Proust]()
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsMarcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century -
![The Complete Stories of Truman Capote by Truman Capote]()
The Complete Stories of Truman Capote by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA landmark collection that brings together Truman Capote’s life’s work in the form he called his “great love,” The Complete Stories confirms Capote’s status as a master of the short story...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies -
![In His Father's Footsteps by Danielle Steel]()
In His Father's Footsteps by Danielle Steel
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this powerful novel, #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel tells the story of two World War II concentration camp survivors, the life they build together, and the son who faces struggles of his own as a first generation American determined to be his own person and achieve success. When U.S... -
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![A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean]()
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom its first magnificent sentence, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing," to the last, "I am haunted by waters," "A River Runs Through It" is an American classic...Categorized as:
classics drama family high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic 20th-century -
![The Promise by Chaim Potok]()
The Promise by Chaim Potok
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratings“A superb mirror of a place, a time, and a group of people who capture our immediate interest and hold it tightly.” — The Philadelphia InquirerYoung Reuven Malter is unsure of himself and his place in life. An unconventional scholar, he struggles for recognition from his teachers...Categorized as:
classics drama family friendship high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic -
![The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham]()
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBased on the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is W. Somerset Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction university 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Waves (Annotated) by Virginia Woolf, Molly Hite]()
The Waves (Annotated) by Virginia Woolf, Molly Hite
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece, standing with those few works of twentieth-century literature that have created unique forms of their own. In deeply poetic prose, Woolf traces the lives of six children from infancy to death who fleetingly unite around the unseen figure of a seventh child, Percival...Categorized as:
classics drama friendship historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century -
![The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien]()
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThis depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home...Categorized as:
classics drama friendship high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction politics realistic -
![The Cremator by Ladislav Fuks, Rajendra A. Chitnis]()
The Cremator by Ladislav Fuks, Rajendra A. Chitnis
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings“The devil’s neatest trick is to persuade us that he doesn’t exist.”—Giovanni Papini It is a maxim that both rings true in our contemporary world and pervades this tragicomic novel of anxiety and evil set amid the horrors of World War II...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult audiobook -
![The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok]()
The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTwenty years have passed for Asher Lev. He is a world-renowned artist living in France, still uncertain of his artistic direction. When his beloved uncle dies suddenly, Asher and his family rush back to Brooklyn--and into a world that Asher thought he had left behind forever...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic urban 20th-century book -
![The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf]()
The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of , is a powerfully eloquent tribute to the arduous demands of rural America, and of the tenacity of the human spirit.Colorado, January 1977. Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder...Categorized as:
classics drama family friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc realistic -
![Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose]()
Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA landmark American drama that inspired a classic film and a Broadway revival—featuring an introduction by David MametA blistering character study and an examination of the American melting pot and the judicial system that keeps it in check, Twelve Angry Men holds at its core a deeply patriotic faith in the U.S. legal system...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction politics realistic social-commentary -
![A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas, Imre Goldstein]()
A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas, Imre Goldstein
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis extraordinary magnum opus seems at first to be a confessional autobiographical novel in the grand manner, claiming and extending the legacy of Proust and Mann. But it is more: Peter Nadas has given us a superb contemporary psychological novel that comes to terms with the ghosts, corpses, and repressed nightmares of Europe's recent past...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
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![Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram]()
Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is a novel by the author of Hold Tight... -
![The Obscene Madame D by Hilda Hilst]()
The Obscene Madame D by Hilda Hilst
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe English-language debut of one of Brazil’s leading writers of the twentieth centuryThe Obscene Madame D is the first work by acclaimed Brazilian author Hilda Hilst to be published in English. Radically irreverent and formally impious, this novel portrays an unyielding radical intelligence, a sixty-year-old woman who decides to live in the recess under the stairs... -
![The Ogre by Michel Tournier]()
The Ogre by Michel Tournier
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn international bestseller and winner of the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary award, The Ogre is a masterful tale of innocence, perversion, and obsession. It follows the passage of strange, gentle Abel Tiffauges from submissive schoolboy to "ogre" of the Nazi school at the castle of Kaltenborn, taking us deeper into the dark heart of fascism than any novel since The Tin Drum... -
![Roman Fever (and Other Stories) by Edith Wharton]()
Roman Fever (and Other Stories) by Edith Wharton
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Virago Modern Classic These stories - all powerful moral analyses - demonstrate the true professionalism of Edith Wharton...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic university 20th-century adult anthologies -
![Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb]()
Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOriginally written and slated for publication in 1939, this long-forgotten masterpiece was shelved by Random House when The Grapes of Wrath met with wide acclaim...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult audiobook -
![The Seven That Were Hanged by Leonid Andreyev]()
The Seven That Were Hanged by Leonid Andreyev
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSergey did not know that the colonel, having locked himself all the previous night in his little study, had deliberated upon this ritual with all his power. "We must not aggravate, but ease the last moments of our son," resolved the colonel firmly, and he carefully weighed every possible phase of the conversation, every act and movement that might take place on the following day...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction politics tragedy 20th-century adult -
![Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina]()
Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAnnadel, West Virginia, was a small town rich in coal, farms, and close-knit families, all destroyed when the coal company came in. It stole everything it hadn't bothered to buy -- land deeds, private homes, and ultimately, the souls of its men and women...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics literary-fiction politics high-school university family north-america -
![U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by John Dos Passos]()
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by John Dos Passos
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the novels that make up the U.S.A.trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—Dos Passos creates an unforgettable collective portrait of America, shot through with sardonic comedy and brilliant social observation. He interweaves the careers of his characters and the events of their time with a narrative verve and breathtaking technical skill that make U.S.A...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction politics social-commentary 20th-century adult -
![Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell]()
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlternate-cover edition for ISBN 0865470561 / 9780865470569 can be found here The wife of a successful lawyer in 1930s Kansas City, India Bridge, tries to cope with her dissatisfaction with an easy, though empty, life.Before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique there was Mrs...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction university 20th-century adult -
![Mephisto by Klaus Mann]()
Mephisto by Klaus Mann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsKlaus Mann - Thomas Mann’s son - wrote MEPHISTO while living in exile from the Germany of World War II. In it he captures the Isherwood-like atmosphere of Nazi Germany while telling a satiric story about the rise to power of one man - a thinly veiled caricature of his own brother-in-law...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction politics urban 20th-century -
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![The Ghost Road by Pat Barker]()
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn alternate cover edition can be found here.As World War I winds to a close, two men--Dr. William Rivers, a psychologist whose dedicated healing sends men back to the brutal front, and Billy Prior, a shell-shocked soldier determined to rejoin the final English offensive--are profounded affected by the events of the era. Winner of the 1995 Booker Prize...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction university 20th-century adult -
![Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker]()
Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPossessing the Secret of Joy is the story of Tashi, a tribal African woman who lives much of her adult life in North America. As a young woman, a misguided loyalty to the customs of her people led her to voluntarily submit to the tsunga's knife and be genitally mutilated (pharoanoically circumcised)...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc politics social-commentary university -
![Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford]()
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIn 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II...Categorized as:
classics drama family friendship high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc -
![Native Son by Richard Wright]()
Native Son by Richard Wright
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsWright's powerful and bestselling masterpiece reflects the poverty and hopelessness of life in inner-city America--and what it is to be black in America. "This new edition give us a Native Son in which the key line in the key scene is restored to the great good fortune of American letters".--Los Angeles Times...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc politics realistic -
![Regeneration by Pat Barker]()
Regeneration by Pat Barker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRegeneration, one in Pat Barker's series of novels confronting the psychological effects of World War I, focuses on treatment methods during the war and the story of a decorated English officer sent to a military hospital after publicly declaring he will no longer fight. Yet the novel is much more...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction politics university 20th-century -
![The Dead by James Joyce]()
The Dead by James Joyce
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOften cited as the best work of short fiction ever written, "The Dead" is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce...Categorized as:
classics drama family high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic university
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