Books like 'Peeling the Onion'
Readers who enjoyed Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century war classics ww2
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Hurry Up, Franklin by Paulette Bourgeois
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn this Franklin Classic Storybook, Franklin sets off to Bear's house for a birthday party, but it's far from a straightforward journey. Like most preschoolers, Franklin is a dawdler, slow even for a turtle. The trip becomes an opportunity to play leapfrog with Rabbit, slip and slide in the mud with Otter, and maybe even play hide-and-seek with Fox... -
![Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda]()
Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature, Pablo Neruda is regarded as the greatest Latin American poet of the twentieth century. This bilingual edition makes available a major selection of his poems, both in the original Spanish and impressively rendered into English by his most enduring translator, the poet Ben Belitt (Robert Creeley)... -
![The Inhabited Island by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
The Inhabited Island by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsWhen Maxim, a space explorer from Earth, accidentally discovers a planet inhabited by humanoids who destroy his spaceship, he thinks of himself as a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. But after his experiences in the planet's nightmarish military and mental health facilities, he begins to realize that his sojourn on this radioactive and war-scarred world will not be a walk in the park... -
![Collected Stories by Roald Dahl]()
Collected Stories by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe only hardcover edition of Roald Dahl’s stories for adults, the Collected Stories amply showcases his singular gifts as a fabulist and a born storyteller.Later known for his immortal children’s books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and The BFG, Dahl also had a genius for adult short fiction, which he wrote throughout his life... -
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![The Most Precious Thing by Rita Bradshaw]()
The Most Precious Thing by Rita Bradshaw
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIt's 1925 and when Renee McDarmount marries Walter Sutton, Carrie McDarmount is delighted, for the two families have always been close - the children are all similar in age and their fathers work together in the local pit. But an incident on the eve of the wedding leaves Carrie pregnant and desperately ashamed of the secret she now carries...Categorized as:
ww2 romance contemporary historical-fiction fiction womens-fiction young-adult 20th-century -
![The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates]()
The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRichard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate and accomplished writers of America's post-war generation...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary literary-fiction -
![The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz]()
The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNobel Laureate Octavio Paz is incontestably Latin America's foremost poet. The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz is a landmark bilingual gathering of all the poetry he has published in book form since 1952, the year of his premier long poem, Sunstone (Piedra de Sol)―here translated anew by Eliot Weinberger―made its appearance...Categorized as:
classics fiction anthologies 20th-century poc-mc contemporary literary-fiction literary -
![Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary]()
Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratings'Promise at Dawn' begins as the story of a mother's sacrifice. Alone and poor, she fights fiercely to give her son the very best. Gary chronicles his childhood with her in Russia, Poland, and on the French Riviera. And he recounts his adventurous life as a young man fighting for France in the Second World War... -
![The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Amichai, C.K. Williams]()
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Amichai, C.K. Williams
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsYehuda Amichai is Israel's most popular poet as well as a literary figure of international reputation. In this revised and expanded collection, renowned translators Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell have selected Amichai's most beloved and enduring poems, including forty new poems from his recent work... -
![The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play by Wallace Stevens]()
The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play by Wallace Stevens
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA collection that all the major long poems and sequences, and every shorter poem of lasting value in Stevens' career. Edited by Holly Stevens, it includes some poems not printed in his earlier Collected Works...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century anthologies contemporary drama fiction industrial-era victorian -
![What Work Is by Philip Levine]()
What Work Is by Philip Levine
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner of the National Book Award in 1991 “This collection amounts to a hymn of praise for all the workers of America. These proletarian heroes, with names like Lonnie, Loo, Sweet Pea, and Packy, work the furnaces, forges, slag heaps, assembly lines, and loading docks at places with unglamorous names like Brass Craft or Feinberg and Breslin’s First-Rate Plumbing and Plating...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary literary-fiction -
![The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962 by William Carlos Williams]()
The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962 by William Carlos Williams
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratings'And when the second and final colume of Williams' 'Collected Poems' is published, it should become even more apparent that he is this century's major American poet... -
![Collected Stories by William Faulkner]()
Collected Stories by William Faulkner
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratings“A Bear Hunt,” “A Rose for Emily,” “Two Soldiers,” “Victory,” “The Brooch,” “Beyond”—these are among the forty-two stories that make up this magisterial collection by the writer who stands at the pinnacle of modern American fiction... -
![Hourglass by Danilo Kiš]()
Hourglass by Danilo Kiš
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDanilo Kiš was one of the most artful and eloquent writers of postwar Europe. Of all his books, Hourglass, the account of the final months in one man's life before he is sent to a concentration camp, is considered to be his masterpiece... -
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![Far from Home by Anne Bennett]()
Far from Home by Anne Bennett
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA moving family drama of one young woman's fight to survive and to find a place to call home 1938: Sixteen-year-old Kate Monroe is living in Birmingham, far away from her family in Ireland. Her parents have always doted on her siblings, Sally and James, leaving no time for her. Kate harbours a dark secret, a deep longing for her cousin... -
![The Corsican Woman by Madge Swindells]()
The Corsican Woman by Madge Swindells
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSybilia turned as if sleepwalking and, trance-like, walked down the stone steps to the living room. She shuddered as she took the rifle from the peg on the wall, but after only a moment's hesitation, she loaded it and went outside. Sybilia Rocca is beautiful, gentle and intelligent... -
![Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung]()
Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsCrystal Boys is the first Chinese novel on gay themes. A-qing, the adolescent hero, comes from an impoverished family. His father casts him out after learning that his son is gay. A-qing drifts into New Park, a gay hangout in Taipei, and begins his life as a hustler... -
![Whisper on the Wind by Elizabeth Elgin]()
Whisper on the Wind by Elizabeth Elgin
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWorld War Two. For men, an era of terrible devastation, broken lives and perhaps a glimpse of heroism. But for many women, a time of opportunity, a new-found freedom, a challenge in a changing world... -
![Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda]()
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn engaging and accessible collection that includes some of the Nobel Prize winner's own favorite poems, with the English translations and original Spanish presented on facing pages."The Sea"A single entity, but no blood.A single caress, death or a rose.The sea comes in and puts our lives togetherand attacks alone and spreads itself and singsin nights and days and men and living creatures... -
![Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel]()
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is always "earthquake weather" in Amy Hempel's California, a landscape where everything can change without warning. Traditional resources—home, parents, lovers, friends, even willpower—are not dependable. And so the characters in these short, compelling stories have learned to depend on small triumphs of wit, irony, and spirit... -
![Амадока by Sofia Andrukhovych, Софія Андрухович]()
Амадока by Sofia Andrukhovych, Софія Андрухович
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsПонівечений до невпізнаваности в одній із гарячих точок на Сході України, герой роману «Амадока» тільки дивом залишився живим. Це сумнівна втіха, оскільки важкі травми призвели до повної втрати пам’яти: чоловік не пам’ятає ні свого імени, ні звідки походить, не пригадує жодної близької людини, жодного фрагмента свого попереднього життя... -
![If You Were the Only Girl by Anne Bennett]()
If You Were the Only Girl by Anne Bennett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA moving family drama of one young woman’s fight to survive, to find her long-lost relatives and to find a place to call home Bridgette has been hurt many times in her life. Her early years were blighted by her spoilt brother; her marriage ruined by World War Two. Now her mother is dying. And then comes a deathbed revelation – somewhere Bridgette has another family and a father... -
![Spring Magic by D.E. Stevenson]()
Spring Magic by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTwenty-five year old Frances Field wanted desperately to get away from her guardians' dull London townhouse. Unforeseen circumstances finally gave her the chance to escape. She decided for the first time in her life to go off on her own, to a quiet fishing village in Scotland... -
![The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry by Rita Dove]()
The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry by Rita Dove
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPenguin’s landmark poetry anthology, perfect for learning poems by heart in the age of ephemeral media Recipient of the Academy of American Poets' Wallace Stevens Award (Dove)Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate of the United States, introduces readers to the most significant and compelling poems of the past hundred years in The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century... -
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![The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 by Charles Bukowski]()
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Roominghouse Madrigals is a selection of poetry from Charles Bukowski's early work. It shows a slightly softer side to the beloved barfly.Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for fifty years... -
![A Man Asleep by Georges Perec]()
A Man Asleep by Georges Perec
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA Man Asleep (French: Un homme qui dort) is a 1967 novel by the French writer Georges Perec. It uses a second-person narrative, and follows a 25-year-old student, who one day decides to be indifferent about the world. A Man Asleep was adapted into a 1974 film, The Man Who Sleeps... -
![Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann]()
Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMalina invites the reader on a linguistic journey into a world stretched to the very limits of language with Wittgensteinian zeal and Joycean inventiveness, where Ingeborg Bachmann ventriloquizes—and in the process demolishes— Proust, Musil, and Balzac, while filtering everything through her own utterly singular idiom... -
![The Man Outside by Wolfgang Borchert, Kay Boyle]()
The Man Outside by Wolfgang Borchert, Kay Boyle
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWolfgang Borchert died in 1947––the twenty-six-year-old victim of a malaria-like fever contracted during World War II. This was just one day after the premier of his play, The Man Outside, which caused an immediate furor throughout his native Germany with its youthful, indeed revolutionary, vision against war and the dehumanizing effects of the police state... -
![Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsBroad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn... -
![Birdy by William Wharton]()
Birdy by William Wharton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not yet born" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Birdy is an inventive, hypnotic novel about friendship and family, dreaming and surviving, love and war, madness and beauty, and, above all, "birdness... -
![Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto]()
Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs the civil war rages in 1980s Mozambique, an old man and a young boy, refugees from the war, seek shelter in a burnt-out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem... -
![The Proof by Ágota Kristóf]()
The Proof by Ágota Kristóf
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen his twin brother Claus escapes across the frontier, Lucas is left to face a bleak existence in a post-war totalitarian state, "doing what has to be done in order to live". But all those he encounters, like himself, suffer an inner loss which primes them for ultimate tragedy... -
![The Tunnel by William H. Gass]()
The Tunnel by William H. Gass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThirty years in the making, William Gass's second novel first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, at which time it was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. The story of a middle aged professor who, upon completion of his massive historical study, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, finds himself writing a novel about his own life instead of the introduction to his magnum opus... -
![one man's destiny by Mikhail Sholokhov]()
one man's destiny by Mikhail Sholokhov
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThere is restraint and a trace of sadness in the way Mikhail Sholokov begins his story, as if to warn the reader that it is not an easy tale he has to tell. One postwar spring the author met a tall man with stooping shoulders and big rugged hands... -
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![The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid, Yishai Sarid]()
The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid, Yishai Sarid
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“A brilliant short novel that serves as a brave, sharp-toothed brief against letting the past devour the present” ( The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice), Yishai Sarid’s The Memory Monster is a harrowing parable of a young historian who becomes consumed by the memory of the Holocaust...Categorized as:
war ww2 fiction historical-fiction literary-fiction contemporary audiobook 21st-century -
![Sepharad: A Novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina]()
Sepharad: A Novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn “amazing” novel about the diaspora of Sephardic Jews amid the tumult of twentieth century history (The Washington Post Book World).From one of Spain’s most celebrated writers, this extraordinary blend of fiction, history, and memoir tells the story of the Sephardic diaspora through seventeen interlinked chapters...Categorized as:
war ww2 fiction historical-fiction literary-fiction religion contemporary male-author -
![Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross]()
Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe key literary figure in the pubs of post-war Fitzrovia, Maclaren-Ross pulled together his dispersed energies to write two great books: the posthumously published Memoirs of the Forties and this spectacular novel of the Depression, Of Love and Hunger - harsh, vivid, louche, and slangy, it deserves a permanent place alongside 'Coming Up for Air' and 'Hangover Square'... -
![Judge on Trial by Ivan Klíma]()
Judge on Trial by Ivan Klíma
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn epic novel about those who stayed in Prague after 1968. When middle-aged judge Adam Kindl is asked not only to try a double murder case but is also expected to find the accused guilty, it is his own shattered faith in the political system that is put on trial... -
![Three Corvettes by Nicholas Monsarrat]()
Three Corvettes by Nicholas Monsarrat
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNicholas Monsarrat, unquestionably the best writer on sea warfare during World War II, saw the horror firsthand as a frigate captain in the British Navy. In dramatic, vivid language, this unforgettable collection records the terrible years between 1940 and 1943... -
![Guarded by Angela Correll]()
Guarded by Angela Correll
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFormer New York City flight attendant Annie Taylor is adjusting to farm life when her grandmother threatens to tear down the old stone house, unable to finance a restoration after the summer fire. Annie's boyfriend Jake has severed his corporate life in Cincinnati and is jumping headlong into sustainable farming on the land next door... -
![Listy miłości by Maria Nurowska]()
Listy miłości by Maria Nurowska
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCzy zatajanie prawdy i podwójne życie nie kłócą się z prawdziwą miłością? Losy bohaterki Nurowskiej są niezwykle powikłane. Nastoletnia Żydówka Elżbieta Elsner, by uchronić siebie i ojca od śmierci głodowej w getcie, decyduje się na prostytucję. Jeden z klientów domu publicznego, wysoki rangą esesman, załatwia jej kenkartę i organizuje ucieczkę na aryjską stronę... -
![Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham]()
Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEarth and High Heaven. This 288-page hardcover was published in 1944 by J. B. Lippincott (1st edition)... -
![Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis by Philip Larkin]()
Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis by Philip Larkin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor the first time, Faber publish a selection from the poetry of Philip Larkin. Drawing on Larkin's four collections and on his uncollected poems. Chosen by Martin Amis... -
![The Clown by Heinrich Böll]()
The Clown by Heinrich Böll
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAcclaimed entertainer Hans Schnier collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won’t marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life—the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards... -
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![The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories by Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer]()
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories by Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThe collected fiction of "one of the most original imaginations in modern Europe" (Cynthia Ozick) Bruno Schulz's untimely death at the hands of a Nazi stands as one of the great losses to modern literature. During his lifetime, his work found little critical regard, but word of his remarkable talents gradually won him an international readership... -
![The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue]()
The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAlternative cover edition here.The Hunting Gun, set in the period immediately following WWII, follows the consequences of a tragic love affair among well-to-do people in an exclusive suburb of the great commercial cities of Osaka and Kobe. Told from the viewpoints of three different women, this is a story of the psychological impact of illicit love... -
![The Land at the End of the World by António Lobo Antunes]()
The Land at the End of the World by António Lobo Antunes
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsConsidered to be António Lobo Antunes's masterpiece, The Land at the End of the World--now in a new and fully restored translation by acclaimed translator Margaret Jull Costa--recounts the anguished tale of a Portuguese medic haunted by memories of war, who, like the Ancient Mariner, will tell his tale to anyone who listens... -
![Greasy Lake & Other Stories by T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle]()
Greasy Lake & Other Stories by T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, The Washington Post Book World says these masterful stories mark T. Coraghessan Boyle's development from "a prodigy's audacity to something that packs even more of a wallop: mature artistry... -
![A Cornish Stranger by Liz Fenwick]()
A Cornish Stranger by Liz Fenwick
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThere's an old Cornish saying: 'Save a stranger from the sea, he'll turn your enemy...'When her reclusive grandmother becomes too frail to live alone, Gabriella Blythe moves into the remote waterside cabin on Frenchman's Creek which has been her grandmother's home for decades... -
![The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 by Doris Lessing]()
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 by Doris Lessing
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is the fourth instalment in the visionary novel cycle ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’. The handsome, intelligent people of Planet 8 of the Canopean Empire know only an idyllic existence on their bountiful planet, its weather consistently nurturing, never harsh. They live long, purposeful, untroubled lives...
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