Books like 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'
Readers who enjoyed Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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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:
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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... -
![Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan]()
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAn immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is a searing portrayal of war that has stunned and galvanized generations of readers... -
![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... -
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![The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989 by Samuel Beckett]()
The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989 by Samuel Beckett
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNobel prize winner Samuel Beckett is one of the most profoundly original writers of our century. He gives expression to the anguish and isolation of the individual consciousness with a purity and minimalism that have altered the shape of world literature...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
![The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig by Stefan Zweig]()
The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe collected stories of Stefan Zweig, one of the most popular writers of short fiction of the twentieth century This collection brings together twenty-three of Stefan Zweig's best-loved short stories. Written in his typically flowing and readable style, these tales are characterised by their pacing, their psychological insightfulness, and above all their pervading humanity...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction 20th-century anthologies psychological fantasy historical -
![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 literary-fiction university 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![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 high-school journalism literary-fiction politics university 20th-century action-adventure -
![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:
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![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 literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies female-author fiction -
![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... -
![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... -
![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:
classics literary-fiction politics high-school university north-america usa west-virginia -
![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 literary-fiction politics social-commentary 20th-century adult anthologies crime -
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![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 literary-fiction politics social-commentary university 20th-century abuse adult -
![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 high-school literary-fiction politics social-commentary university 20th-century audiobook -
![Vladimir Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962 by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Vladimir Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962 by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis Library of America volume is the second of three volumes that contain the most authoritative versions of the English works of the brilliant Russian émigré, Vladimir Nabokov.Lolita (1955), Nabokov’s single most famous work, is one of the most controversial and widely read books of its time...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction politics fiction humor 20th-century psychological historical -
![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... -
![The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter]()
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDespite the enormous success--both critical and popular--of her novel Ship of Fools, Katherine Anne Porter's reputation as one of America's most distinguished writers rest chiefly on her superb short stories. This volume brings together the collections Flowering Judas; Pale Horse, Pale Rider; and The Leaning Tower as well as four stories not available elsewhere in book form.Go little book..Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies female-author fiction -
![A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams]()
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play—reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams’ essay “The World I Live In...Categorized as:
classics high-school literary-fiction season-summer university 20th-century abuse audiobook -
![One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes]()
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt's a summer's day in 1946. The English village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rustling coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction season-summer 20th-century adult book female-author fiction -
![Splendor in the Grass by adapted from the screenplay by William Inge F. Andrew Leslie, William Inge]()
Splendor in the Grass by adapted from the screenplay by William Inge F. Andrew Leslie, William Inge
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsF. Andrew Leslie, adapted from the screenplay by William Inge, Inge, William, Leslie, F...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction social-commentary romance fiction drama historical-fiction family -
![One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, จักรแก้ว ตนุนาถ]()
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, จักรแก้ว ตนุนาถ
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsThe only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression... -
![The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSet in France during the days immediately before World War II, this is the story of Mathieu, a French professor of philosophy obsessed with the idea of freedom. Translated from the French by Eric Sutton... -
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![Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen]()
Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Quicksand and Passing are novels I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable."--Alice Walker"Discovering Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt... -
![Corregidora by Gayl Jones]()
Corregidora by Gayl Jones
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOne of The New Yorker's "The Best Books We Read in 2020" picks"Jones's great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them."--Anna Wiener, The New YorkerThe new edition of an American masterpiece, this is the harrowing story of Ursa Corregidora, a blues singer in the early 20th century forced to confront the inherited trauma of slavery...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction politics social-commentary university 20th-century abuse adult -
![The Conformist by Alberto Moravia]()
The Conformist by Alberto Moravia
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSecrecy and Silence are second nature to Marcello Clerici, the hero of The Conformist, a book which made Alberto Moravia one of the world's most read postwar writers. Clerici is a man with everything under control - a wife who loves him, colleagues who respect him, the hidden power that comes with his secret work for the Italian political police during the Mussolini years... -
![House Taken Over by Julio Cortázar]()
House Taken Over by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"Casa Tomada" (English: "House Taken Over") is a 1946 short story by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. It was originally published in Los anales de Buenos Aires, a literary magazine edited by Jorge Luis Borges, and later included in his volume of stories, Bestiario.It tells the story of a brother and sister living together in their ancestral home which is being "taken over" by unknown entities...Categorized as:
classics politics literary-fiction university fiction horror magical-realism fantasy -
![An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser]()
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 28 ratings'An American Tragedy' is the story of Clyde Griffiths, who spends his life in the desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream... -
![Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley]()
Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsWhen the novel Brave New World first appeared in 1932, its shocking analysis of a scientific dictatorship seemed a projection into the remote future. Here, in one of the most important and fascinating books of his career, Aldous Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy...Categorized as:
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![Passing by Nella Larsen]()
Passing by Nella Larsen
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFirst published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The Modern Library is proud to present Passing — an electrifying story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York—together with a new Introduction by the Obie Award- winning playwright and novelist Ntozake Shange...Categorized as:
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![Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler]()
Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA young woman is contacted by her mother, begging her to save her father from debtor's jail by visiting an elderly acquaintance in order to borrow money. This novel shows how the demands of her family force Else into the realization that everything has a price and morality has a most brittle veneer... -
![Group Portrait with Lady by Heinrich Böll]()
Group Portrait with Lady by Heinrich Böll
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Boll, an inventive & sardonic portrayal of the effects of the Nazi period on a group of ordinary people. Weaving together the stories of a diverse array of characters, Boll explores the often bizarre & always very human courses chosen by people attempting to survive in a world marked by political madness, absurdity & destruction... -
![Amongst Women by John McGahern]()
Amongst Women by John McGahern
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMoran is an old Republican whose life was forever transformed by his days of glory as a guerilla leader in the War of Independence. Now, in old age, living out in the country, Moran is still fighting - with his family, his friends, even himself - in a poignant struggle to come to terms with the past... -
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![Swann in Love by Marcel Proust]()
Swann in Love by Marcel Proust
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe newest translation of the classic of French literature From the text: But at the age Swann was approaching, where one is already a little disillusioned and where he knows to be content at being in love simply for the pleasure of it, without demanding too much in return, this coming together of two hearts, if it is no longer, as it was in one's youth, the goal that love, by necessity, tends... -
![American Pastoral by Philip Roth]()
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsPulitzer Prize Winner (1998)In American Pastoral, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all the twentieth century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction politics social-commentary university 20th-century adult anthologies -
![The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles]()
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Rated: 3.87 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe scene is the village of Lyme Regis on Dorset's Lyme Bay..."the largest bite from the underside of England's out-stretched southwestern leg... -
![The Counterfeiters by André Gide]()
The Counterfeiters by André Gide
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsOriginally published in 1925, this book became known for the frank sexuality of its contents and its account of middle class French morality. The themes of the book explore the problem of morals, the problem of society and the problems facing writers. An appendix to this edition (Vintage, 1973) contains excerpts from the Gide's notebooks which he kept while writing this book... -
![Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow]()
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsPublished in 1975, Ragtime changed our very concept of what a novel could be. An extraordinary tapestry, Ragtime captures the spirit of America in the era between the turn of the century & the First World War. The story opens in 1906 in New Rochelle, NY, at the home of an affluent American family...Categorized as:
classics high-school literary-fiction politics university 20th-century alternate-history audiobook -
![Severin's Journey into the Dark: A Prague Ghost Story by Paul Leppin]()
Severin's Journey into the Dark: A Prague Ghost Story by Paul Leppin
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLeppin was the truly chosen bard of the painfully disappearing old Prague, its infamous side streets and debauched nights ... a poet of eternal disillusionment, he was at once a servant of the devil and an adorer of the Madonna.– Max BrodLeppin once wrote: “Prague remains my deepest experience... -
![Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley]()
Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
Rated: 3.87 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction season-summer social-commentary 20th-century adult book british-isles -
![The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence]()
The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsBut he became a partner. And when the Leger was coming on, Paul was "sure" about Lively Spark, which was a quite inconsiderable horse. The boy insisted on putting a thousand on the horse, Bassett went for five hundred, and Oscar Cresswell two hundred. Lively Spark came in first, and the betting had been ten to one against him. Paul had made ten thousand...Categorized as:
classics high-school literary-fiction university 20th-century anthologies audiobook drama -
![Small Lives by Pierre Michon]()
Small Lives by Pierre Michon
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsExplores the act of writing through the intimate portraits of eight interconnected individuals in the author's native village of Creuse. In this evocative poetic narrative the quest to breathe life into the stories of these individuals becomes an exploration of the author's own voice... -
![The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans]()
The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDuring the German occupation of Holland, tobacconist Henri Osewoudt is visited by Dorbeck. Dorbeck is Osewoudt's spitting image in reverse. Henri is blond and beardless, with a high voice; Dorbeck is dark-haired, and his voice deep.Dorbeck gives Osewoudt a series of dangerous assignments: helping British agents and eliminating traitors. But the assassinations get out of hand..Categorized as:
classics high-school literary-fiction university 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
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![Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote]()
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPublished when Truman Capote was only twenty-three years old, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a literary touchstone of the mid-twentieth century. In this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to live with the father who abandoned him at birth...Categorized as:
classics high-school literary-fiction season-summer university 20th-century adult anthologies -
![1934: A Novel by Alberto Moravia]()
1934: A Novel by Alberto Moravia
Rated: 3.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMoravia's political fable about an Italian anti-Fascist and the frightened, suicide-seeking German girl he encounters on a boat to Capri--the setting of Moravia's Il disprezzo from 1954--was welcomed as one of his finest novels...Categorized as:
classics politics fiction 20th-century historical historical-fiction psychological book -
![Quartet by Jean Rhys]()
Quartet by Jean Rhys
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe story of a woman on the edge caught in the stranglehold between her lover and his wife. When her husband is released from prison, the situation explodes... -
![The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen]()
The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOne of Elizabeth Bowen’s most artful and psychologically acute novels, The House in Paris is a timeless masterpiece of nuance and construction, and represents the very best of Bowen’s celebrated work. When eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers’ well-appointed house in Paris, she is prepared to spend her day between trains looked after by an old friend of her grandmother’s...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction season-summer university 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone by Tennessee Williams]()
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone by Tennessee Williams
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe story of a wealthy, fiftyish American widow, recently a famous stage beauty, but now "drifting." The novel opens soon after her husband's death and her retirement from the theatre, as Mrs. Stone tries to adjust to her aimless new life in Rome. She is adjusting, too, to aging ("The knowledge that her beauty was lost had come upon her recently and it was still occasionally forgotten... -
![The Aguero Sisters (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Cristina García]()
The Aguero Sisters (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Cristina García
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen Cristina García's first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, was published in 1992, The New York Times called the author "a magical new writer...completely original...
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