Books like 'This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life'
Readers who enjoyed This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological spirituality personal-growth classics philosophical postmodernism religion social-commentary literary-fiction
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I Hid My Voice by Parinoush Saniee
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis is the story, based on fact, of a boy who couldn’t speak until the age of seven. Now twenty, he describes the events of his life.Four-year-old Shahaab has not started talking. The family doctor believes there is no cause for concern; nevertheless, Shahaab is ridiculed by others who call him "dumb... -
![Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace]()
Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratings...Categorized as:
literary-fiction classics university humor fiction mental-illness audiobook contemporary -
![Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, John Updike]()
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:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult -
![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...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism religion spirituality university -
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![Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman]()
Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThis is the second book in the Peaceful Warrior Saga. Neither a sequel nor prequel, this adventure takes place within the context of the original book, shedding new light on the path he was to travel, and would one day teach. After a period of training with the man he calls Socrates, Dan Millman is sent away by his old mentor to apply what he has learned to everyday life...Categorized as:
personal-growth religion spirituality action-adventure adult book contemporary fiction -
![Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar]()
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:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult anthologies -
![The Dalai Lama's Cat by David Michie]()
The Dalai Lama's Cat by David Michie
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratings“‘Oh! How adorable! I didn’t know you had a cat!’ she exclaimed.I am always surprised how many people make this observation. Why should His Holiness not have a cat?‘If only she could speak,’ continued the actress. ‘I’m sure she’d have such wisdom to share.’And so the seed was planted . . -
![The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn]()
The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsAn Adventure of the Mind and SpiritFather Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his superiors: Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in central Europe. His followers all him B, but his enemies say he’s something else: the Antichrist... -
![Saint Richard Parker by Merlin Franco]()
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... -
![The Instructions by Adam Levin]()
The Instructions by Adam Levin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBeginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism religion spirituality 21st-century adult -
![One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello]()
One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe great Pirandello's (1867-1936) 1926 novel, previously published here in 1933 in another translation, synthesizes the themes and personalities that illuminate such dramas as Six Characters in Search of an Author... -
![Pastoralia by George Saunders]()
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsWith this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination.The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity-and our humanity-in a startling new light... -
![No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn these four plays, Jean-Paul Sartre, the great existentialist novelist and philosopher, displays his mastery of drama. NO EXIT is an unforgettable portrayal of hell. THE FLIES is a modern reworking of the Electra-Orestes story. DIRTY HANDS is about a young intellectual torn between theory and praxis. THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is an attack on American racism... -
![Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti]()
Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Auto-da-Fé" is the story of Peter Kien, a distinguished, reclusive sinologist living in Vienna between the wars. With masterly precision, Canetti reveals Kien's character, displaying the flawed personal relationships which ultimately lead to his destruction... -
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![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 -
![The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano]()
The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“A Dante/Beckett reduction of human struggle to its lowest common denominator.”— Michael Mirolla, author of The Formal Logic of Emotion and Berlin“One of the most original and thought-provoking stories I have ever read...true literary art...Not a word is wasted in this masterpiece. Yes, I call it that... -
![The Last Novel by David Markson]()
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:
literary-fiction postmodernism university philosophical fiction contemporary psychological death -
![Ishmael by Daniel Quinn]()
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsWinner of the 1992 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, "Ishmael" is a unique and captivating novel that has earned a large and passionate following among readers and critics worldwide... -
![On Love by Alain de Botton]()
On Love by Alain de Botton
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life" we are told at the outset of Alain de Botton's On Love, a hip, charming, and devastatingly witty rumination on the thrills and pitfalls of romantic love. The narrator is smitten by Chloe on a Paris-London flight, and by the time they've reached the luggage carousel, he knows he is in love...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction personal-growth philosophical 20th-century adult audiobook -
![The Floating Opera and The End of the Road by John Barth]()
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...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult -
![The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov]()
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:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Autumn in Peking by Boris Vian]()
Autumn in Peking by Boris Vian
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBoris Vian was a jack of all trades - although unfortunately his name was Boris and "Boris of all trades" never took off as a turn of phrase. But nevertheless Vian was a great songwriter, playwright, singer, jazz critic and, of course novelist so it should have been Boris instead of Jack... -
![The Second Coming by Walker Percy]()
The Second Coming by Walker Percy
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWill Barrett (also the hero of Percy's The Last Gentleman) is a lonely widower suffering from a depression so severe that he decides he doesn't want to continue living. But then he meets Allison, a mental hospital escapee making a new life for herself in a greenhouse...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult book -
![A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch, Peter Reed]()
A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch, Peter Reed
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult audiobook -
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![The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq]()
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHaving made his name with an exhibition of photographs of Michelin roadmaps – beautiful works that won praise from every corner of the art world – Jed Martin is now emerging from a ten-year hiatus. And he has had some good news...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century 21st-century adult -
![The Clouds by Juan José Saer]()
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... -
![Second Skin by John Hawkes, Jeffrey Eugenides]()
Second Skin by John Hawkes, Jeffrey Eugenides
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"John Hawkes is an extraordinary writer. I have always admired his books. They should be more widely read...Categorized as:
literary-fiction classics postmodernism philosophical fiction contemporary 20th-century nautical -
![Bon Bons to Yoga Pants by Katie Cross]()
Bon Bons to Yoga Pants by Katie Cross
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLexie Greene has always had such a pretty face. Unfortunately, that's where it seemed to stop. She's grown up hearing her Mother constantly remind her that she needs to lose weight. And twenty-two-year-old Lexie knows she's overweight. With her younger sister's wedding on the horizon and a crush to stalk on Facebook, Lexie's had enough... -
![Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho]()
Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA breathtaking collection of reflections from one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho. In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Paulo Coelho, the author of 'The Alchemist', offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, traveling and the nature of good and evil...Categorized as:
personal-growth philosophical religion spirituality adult audiobook book contemporary -
![Vanishing Point by David Markson]()
Vanishing Point by David Markson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn the literary world, there is little that can match the excitement of opening a new book by David Markson. From Wittgenstein’s Mistress to Reader’s Block to Springer’s Progress to This Is Not a Novel, he has delighted and amazed readers for decades...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism spirituality 21st-century adult book -
![The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch]()
The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA sly, witty, and beautifully orchestrated tale about the difficulty of being good Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: he has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Consumed with guilt, Edward experiences a debilitating crisis of conscience...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor]()
Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe characters in Praying Drunk speak in tongues, torture their classmates, fall in love, hunt for immortality, abandon their children, keep machetes beneath passenger seats, and collect porcelain figurines...Categorized as:
literary-fiction religion spirituality 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary family -
![Down by the River by Edna O'Brien]()
Down by the River by Edna O'Brien
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSet in her native Ireland, Edna O'Brien's newest novel explores the dark and torturous aspects of family ties. As Mary, the young heroine, tries first to conceal and then to escape her father's fateful attention, she finds herself driven into an emotional Styx... -
![The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker]()
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlthough most of the action of The Mezzanine occurs on the escalator of an office building, where its narrator is returning to work after buying shoelaces, this startlingly inventive and witty novel takes us farther than most fiction written today. It lends to milk cartons the associative richness of Marcel Proust's madeleines... -
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![Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace]()
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn his startling and singular new short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Venturing inside minds and landscapes that are at once recognisable and utterly strange, these stories reaffirm Wallace's reputation as one of his generation's pre-eminent talents, expanding our ides and pleasures fiction can afford...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult -
![Agapē Agape by William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi]()
Agapē Agape by William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWilliam Gaddis published four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes for a book about the mechanization of the arts, told by way of a social history of the player piano in America...Categorized as:
classics postmodernism literary-fiction humor philosophical fiction 20th-century 21st-century -
![The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story by Richard Bach]()
The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story by Richard Bach
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMore than one year on the New York Times bestseller list! Richard Bach's timeless and uplifting classic of hope and love"We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and love!""The opposite of loneliness,...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction personal-growth philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century -
![Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus, Orhan Pamuk]()
Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus, Orhan Pamuk
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom a variety of masterfully rendered perspectives, these six stories depict people at painful odds with the world around them. A wife can only surrender to a desert night by betraying her husband. An artist struggles to honor his own aspirations as well as society's expectations of him. A missionary brutally converted to the worship of a tribal fetish is left with but an echo of his identity...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical university 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![Compass by Mathias Énard]()
Compass by Mathias Énard
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life: his ongoing fascination with the Middle East and his numerous travels to Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, and Tehran, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians,... -
![The End of the Road by John Barth]()
The End of the Road by John Barth
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIts first-person protagonist, Jacob Horner, suffers from nihilistic paralysis: an inability to choose a course of action. As part of a schedule of unorthodox therapies, Horner's nameless Doctor has him take a teaching job at a local teachers college... -
![Being There by Jerzy Kosiński]()
Being There by Jerzy Kosiński
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsJerzy Kosinski’s clever parable of a naive man thrust into the modern world is more pointed now than ever.Chance, the enigmatic gardener, becomes Chauncey Gardiner after getting hit by a limo belonging to a Wall Street tycoon. The whirlwind that follows brings Chance to his new status of political policy advisor and possible vice presidential candidate... -
![Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig]()
Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsIn this best-selling new book, his first in seventeen years, Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, takes us on a poignant and passionate journey as mysterious and compelling as his first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in...Categorized as:
classics personal-growth philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult book -
![Steps by Jerzy Kosiński]()
Steps by Jerzy Kosiński
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWinner of the National Book Award for FictionFrom the esteemed author of the classics The Painted Bird and Being There comes this award-winning novel about one man's sexual and sensual experiences, the fabric from which his life has been woven.Jerzy Kosinski's classic vision of moral and sexual estrangement brilliantly captures the disturbing undercurrents of modern politics and culture...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Eleanor, or, The Rejection of the Progress of Love by Anna Moschovakis]()
Eleanor, or, The Rejection of the Progress of Love by Anna Moschovakis
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA novel about a woman writing a novel about a woman who writes — The Rejection of the Progress of Love is a sexy, earthy, bracingly intelligent examination of the vicissitudes of grief, ambition, aging, information overload, compassion fatigue, and a data-centric understanding of self; the relative merits of giving up or giving in; the seductive myth of progress; and the condition of being a... -
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![Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, Giorgio Manganelli]()
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, Giorgio Manganelli
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsThis masterpiece of science (and mathematical) fiction is a delightfully unique and highly entertaining satire that has charmed readers for more than 100 years. The work of English clergyman, educator and Shakespearean scholar Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926), it describes the journeys of A. Square [sic – ed...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical religion social-commentary spirituality university -
![How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers]()
How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"Another""What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust""The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water""On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home""Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance""She Waits, Seething, Blooming""Quiet""Your Mother and I""Naveed""Notes for a...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century 21st-century adult -
![The Following Story by Cees Nooteboom]()
The Following Story by Cees Nooteboom
Rated: 3.64 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHerman Mussert went to bed last night in Amsterdam and wakes in Lisbon in a hotel room where he slept with another man’s wife more than twenty years ago. Winner of the European Literary Prize for Best Novel, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Translated by Ina Rilke... -
![Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal]()
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal
Rated: 3.64 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis ebullient, gallivanting novel encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic's best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their part in the bawdy reminiscences of Hrabal's cobbler as he charms an audience of young beauties... -
![The Magic Kingdom by Stanley Elkin, Rick Moody]()
The Magic Kingdom by Stanley Elkin, Rick Moody
Rated: 3.57 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsBrimming with Elkin's comic brilliance and singular wordplay, The Magic Kingdom tells the story of Eddy Bale, who, determined to learn from the ghastly experience of his son's long, drawn-out death, decides to raise enough money to take seven terminally ill children to Disney World in order to give them a dream vacation before they die...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism social-commentary 20th-century adult book -
![Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland]()
Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPregnant and secretly married, Cheryl Anway scribbles what becomes her last will and testament on a school binder shortly before a rampaging trio of misfit classmates gun her down in a high school cafeteria. Overrun with paranoia, teenage angst, and religious zeal in the massacre's wake, this sleepy suburban neighborhood declares its saints, brands its demons, and moves on...
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