Books like 'Dorian'
Readers who enjoyed Dorian by Will Self also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Someone Who Isn’t Me by Geoff Rickly
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsGeoff Rickly’s debut novel Someone Who Isn’t Me is a feverish journey through the psyche of someone who no longer recognizes himself. When Geoff hears that a drug called ibogaine might be able to save him from his heroin addiction, he goes to a clinic in Mexico to confront the darkest and most destructive versions of himself...Categorized as:
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Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratings...Categorized as:
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Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, John Updike
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsThe only available collection that brings together all of Kafka's storiesthose published during his lifetime and those released after his death...Categorized as:
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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:
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A Treatise on Shelling Beans by Wiesław Myśliwski
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOur narrator, a retired musician, receives a visit from an enigmatic stranger who inspires him to share the story of his long and stormy life...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
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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:
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Erasure by Percival Everett
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Thelonious (Monk) Ellison has never allowed race to define his identity. But as both a writer and an African American, he is offended and angered by the success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days... -
The Other Son by Nick Alexander, Imogen Church
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the outside, Alice’s marriage looks successful. It’s true that Ken was never her first choice, but four decades in, she’s learned to tolerate him. Their two sons have chosen their own paths, Tim as a successful banker and Matt a carefree globetrotter she can’t keep up with... -
The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"‘I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.’ If you read this story out loud, please use the following voices:Me: as a child, high-pitched, forgettable; as a woman, the same.The boy who will grow into a man, and be my spouse: robust with his own good fortune.My father: Like your father, or the man you wish was your father... -
The London Flat: Second Chances by Juliet Gauvin
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWHAT READERS ARE SAYING: “YES! A spectacular sequel to The Irish Cottage…even better than the first book.” Elizabeth Lara has just finished her tour of Ireland. She’s moved on to London, but the dashing Connor Bannon isn’t far from her thoughts as she searches for Mags’ lost love...Categorized as:
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Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams . . . A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer's victim . .Categorized as:
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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:
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Saint Richard Parker by Merlin Franco
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHis search for love and enlightenment across India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia...Ace businessman, writer, and investigative journalist Richard Parker loses his job when he exposes the vegetarian CEO of his newspaper as a beef exporter. Accused of misconduct and forced to dissolve his company, he retreats to his wretched little village... -
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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...Categorized as:
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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... -
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, determined to persist in the routines of his daily life...Categorized as:
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Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsPublished two weeks after his seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest. But more: it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue... -
Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom acclaimed author Jeanne Thornton, an epic, singular look at fandom, creativity, longing, and trans identityGala, a young trans woman, works at a hostel in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She is obsessed with the Get Happies, the quintessential 1960s Californian band, helmed by its resident genius, B—-...Categorized as:
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The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories by Nella Larsen, Marita Golden
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA light-skinned beauty who spends years passing for white finds herself dangerously drawn to an old friend's Harlem neighborhood. A restless young mulatto tries desperately to find a comfortable place in a world in which she sees herself as a perpetual outsider. A mother's confrontation with tragedy tests her loyalty to her race...Categorized as:
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Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEric-Emmanuel Schmitt is the author of three luminous collections of short stories published by Europa Editions, including the bestselling Most Beautiful Book in the World, and one novel, Three Women in a Mirror... -
Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA pop-saturated epic novel about the second man on the moon, and the quiet thirty-year-old gardener who idolizes him. A story of unconventional psychiatry, the Faroe Islands, amateur boat building, and the journey across the space that divides us from other people: a journey as remote and dangerous as the trip to the moon itself... -
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsFrom the creator and executive producer of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love--the best and worst thing in the universeWritten with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg's stories will make readers laugh, weep, and shiver in uncomfortably delicious... -
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:
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Open Secrets: Stories by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn these eight tales, Munro evokes the devastating power of old love suddenly recollected. She tells of vanished schoolgirls and indentured frontier brides and an eccentric recluse who, in the course of one surpassingly odd dinner party, inadvertently lands herself a wealthy suitor from exotic Australia...Categorized as:
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The Last Novel by David Markson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn recent novels, which have been called "hypnotic," "stunning," and "exhilarating," David Markson has created his own personal genre. In this new work, The Last Novel, an elderly author (referred to only as "Novelist") announces that since this will be his final effort, he has "carte blanche to do anything he damned well pleases...Categorized as:
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Guide by Dennis Cooper
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsChris is a young porn star who wants to experience death at someone else's hand; Mason has lurid fantasies about members of British pop bands; Sniffles is a teenage runaway whose need for love outweighs his attachment to life... -
Pregnant with My Roommate's Dad by Sofia T. Summers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDaily schedule:Wake upPartyCrush on the roommate’s dadRepeatI have one word for this messed up life of mine.Disaster.My best friend literally lives with me.And I drool over her dad right in front of her eyes.She trusts me too much to notice it.And I love him too much to stop.He adores my curves.He nurtures the crazy side of me.And now… Now he’s also put a baby in me...Categorized as:
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Farewell to the Sea: A Novel of Cuba by Reinaldo Arenas
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this brilliant, apocalyptic vision of Castro's Cuba, we meet a young couple who leave the dreariness of Havana and spend six days at a small seaside retreat, where they hope to recapture the desire and carefree spirit that once united them... -
War Against the Animals by Paul Russell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCameron Barnes, formerly of New York City, lives in a small town in upstate New York. After having nearly succumbed to AIDS, he's recently regained a measure of his health but his long-term lover has moved away, and Cameron faces the daunting prospect of learning how to live with the idea of a future in mind again... -
Off-Limits Coach Daddy: Taboo Adults Explicit Sex Story: Rough Erotic Dark, Older Man Younger Woman Short Novels by Izzie Vee
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA one-night stand.All she wanted was her V-card gone.Not to be claimed as his... -
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSometimes they talk all night long. In the still darkness of their cell, Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the film he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens. Valentin believes in the just cause which makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love which makes all else endurable... -
The Floating Opera and The End of the Road by John Barth
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Floating Opera and The End Of The Road are John Barth's first two novels. Their relationship to each other is evident not only in their ribald subject matter but in the eccentric characters and bitterly humorous tone of the narratives. Both concern strange, consuming love triangles and the destructive effect of an overactive intellect on the emotions... -
The Women's Room by Marilyn French
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe bestselling feminist novel that awakened both women and men, The Women's Room follows the transformation of Mira Ward and her circle as the women's movement begins to have an impact on their lives...Categorized as:
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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magical literary detective story - subtle, intricate, leading to a tantalizing climax - about the mysterious life of a famous writer...Categorized as:
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You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn his bestselling and lavishly praised first book of stories, Adam Haslett explores lives that appear shuttered by loss and discovers entire worlds hidden inside them. The impact is at once harrowing and thrilling.An elderly inventor, burning with manic creativity, tries to reconcile with his estranged gay son...Categorized as:
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Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader...Categorized as:
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Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWake In Fright was first published in 1961 and the film version, The Outback, starring Donald Pleasance was released in 1971. Both the book and the film have achieved a cult status as the Australian answer to US and UK novels and films of 1960s youthful alienation...Categorized as:
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Sundog by Jim Harrison
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA “feisty, passionate novel” (Newsday) from a writer whose “storytelling instincts are nearly flawless” (The New York Times). The New York Times–bestselling author of thirty-nine books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry including Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Returning to Earth, Jim Harrison was one of our most beloved and acclaimed writers, adored by both readers and critics...Categorized as:
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God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsSecond only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr...Categorized as:
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The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLike a surreal and highly caffeinated version of The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies... -
The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories by Carson McCullers
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers’s best stories, including her beloved novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose café serves as the town’s gathering place...Categorized as:
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The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe "breathtakingly brilliant" novel by the author of Infinite Jest (New York Times) is a deeply compelling and satisfying story, as hilarious and fearless and original as anything Wallace ever wrote. The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace... -
The Clouds by Juan José Saer
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"Saer is one of the best writers of today in any language."—Ricardo Piglia"What Saer presents marvelously is the experience of reality, and the characters' attempts to write their own narratives within its excess... -
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Scarred Souls by Nick Kove
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCan two scarred souls make each other whole? Damian I’ve never given thoughts to any relationship with anyone. All I want is to start medical school and keep full focus on my education. At least, that’s what I used to want. Meeting Josh one rainy night changes everything... -
The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas by Yan Lianke
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOver the last decade, Yan Lianke has been continually heralded as one of the "best contemporary Chinese writers" (The Independent) and "one of the country's fiercest satirists" (The Guardian). Among many awards and honors, he has been twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize and he was awarded the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize for his impressive body of work... -
Despair by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratings'A work of rapture - jolting, hilarious and incredibly racy' Martin Amis, The TimesSelf-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with Felix, a man he believes to be his double, reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature...Categorized as:
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The Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratings**Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature**The characters who populate an Alice Munro story live and breathe. Passions hopelessly conceived, affections betrayed, marriages made and broken: the joys, fears, loves and awakenings of women echo throughout these twelve unforgettable stories, laying bare the unexceptional and yet inescapable pain of human contact...Categorized as:
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The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is Ireland in the early 1990s. Helen, her mother, Lily, and her grandmother, Dora have come together to tend to Helen's brother, Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With Declan's two friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other...Categorized as:
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A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA New York Times Editors' Choice Named a Best Book of 2018 by Bookforum, Nylon, Esquire, and Vulture"This artful and autumnal novel, published in high summer, is a gift to those who wish to receive it."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Hilarious, heartbreaking . . . A Terrible Country may be one of the best books you'll read this year...
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