Books like 'Lost in the Funhouse'
Readers who enjoyed Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Collected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRaymond Carver’s spare dramas of loneliness, despair, and troubled relationships breathed new life into the American short story of the 1970s and ’80s. In collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Carver wrote with unflinching exactness about men and women enduring lives on the knife-edge of poverty and other deprivations... -
![Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBy the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the greatest practitioners of the American short story, a writer who had not only found his own voice but imprinted it in the imaginations of thousands of readers... -
![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 satire university 20th-century -
![The Complete Dramatic Works by Samuel Beckett]()
The Complete Dramatic Works by Samuel Beckett
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe present volume gathers all of Beckett's texts for theatre, from 1955 to 1984. It includes both the major dramatic works and the short and more compressed texts for the stage and for radio.'He believes in the cadence, the comma, the bite of word on reality, whatever else he believes; and his devotion to them, he makes clear, is a sufficient focus for the reader's attention...Categorized as:
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![The Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens]()
The Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis definitive poetry collection, originally published in 1954 to honor Stevens on his 75th birthday, contains:- "Harmonium"- "Ideas of Order"- "The Man With the Blue Guitar"- "Parts of the World"- "Transport Summer"- "The Auroras of Autumn"- "The...Categorized as:
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![Cathedral by Raymond Carver]()
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRaymond Carver’s third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. These twelve stories mark a turning point in Carver’s career and “overflow with the danger, excitement, mystery and possibility of life. . . . Carver is a writer of astonishing compassion and honesty. .Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult anthologies -
![What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski]()
What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCharles Bukowski's gamble in art was as prolific as it was audacious. The second in Black Sparrow's series of posthumous volumes of Bukowski's poetry takes us deeper into the raw, wild vein that extends from the early 1970s to the 1990s... -
![The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore]()
The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSince the publication of Self-Help, her first collection of stories, Lorrie Moore has been hailed as one of the greatest and most influential voices in American fiction...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction classics fiction contemporary female-author anthologies 20th-century -
![Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver]()
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life... -
![Noises Off by Michael Frayn]()
Noises Off by Michael Frayn
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNoises Off, the classic farce by the Tony Award—winning author of Copenhagen, is not one play but two: simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage “drama” that develops during Nothing On’s final rehearsal and tour... -
![All Fires the Fire by Julio Cortázar]()
All Fires the Fire by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsCortazar's stories are like small time pieces, where each polished part moves relentlessly on its own particular path, exercising a crucial and perpetual influence on the mechanism as a whole...Categorized as:
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![JR by William Gaddis]()
JR by William Gaddis
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJ R is the long-awaited novel from William Gaddis, author of The Recognitions, that tremendous book which, in the twenty years since its publication, has come to be acknowledged as an American masterpiece...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire 20th-century adult -
![Correction by Thomas Bernhard]()
Correction by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRoithamer, a character based on Wittgenstein, has committed suicide having been driven to madness by his own frightening powers of pure thought. We witness the gradual breakdown of a genius ceaselessly compelled to correct and refine his perceptions until the only logical conclusion is the negation of his own soul...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu]()
Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMircea Cartarescu, born in 1956, is one of Romania's leading novelists and poets...Categorized as:
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![Old Masters: A Comedy by Thomas Bernhard]()
Old Masters: A Comedy by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOld Masters (subtitled A Comedy) is a novel by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, which was first published in 1985. It tells of the life and opinions of Reger, a 'musical philosopher', through the voice of his acquaintance Atzbacher, a 'private academic'.The book is set in Vienna on one day around the year of its publication, 1985... -
![The Dream Songs by John Berryman]()
The Dream Songs by John Berryman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis edition combines The Dream Songs, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969 and contains all 385 songs. Of The Dream Songs, A. Alvarez wrote in The Observer, "A major achievement. He has written an elegy on his brilliant generation and, in the process, he has also written an elegy on himself... -
![The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante]()
The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHenry Molise, a 50 year old, successful writer, returns to the family home to help with the latest drama; his aging parents want to divorce. Henry's tyrannical, brick laying father, Nick, though weak and alcoholic, can still strike fear into the hearts of his sons. His mother, though ill and devout to her Catholicism, still has the power to comfort and confuse her children... -
![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 -
![Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams]()
Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOpening with Professor Tomlinson's superbly clear and helpful introduction this selection reflects the most up-to-date Williams scholarship. In addition to including many more pieces, Tomlinson has organized the whole in chronological order...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pišťanek]()
Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pišťanek
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPeter Pišt'anek’s reputation is assured by Rivers of Babylon and by its hero, the most mesmerizing character of Slovak literature, Rácz, an idiot of genius, a psychopathic gangster. Rácz and Rivers of Babylon tell the story of a Central Europe, where criminals, intellectuals and ex-secret policemen have infiltrated a new ‘democracy’... -
![Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux]()
Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe main story is a love affair between Alaric Darconville, an English professor at a Virginia women's college, and one of his students, Isabel.The style relies on complex syntax and unusual words. The satire is broad, and uses southern culture cliches but is often very funny. Some of the names of the girls at the school, for example, are Mimsy Borogoves, Barbara Celarent, and Pengwynn Custiss... -
![The Complete Plays by Joe Orton]()
The Complete Plays by Joe Orton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history and was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward... -
![62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar]()
62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs one of the main characters, the intellectual Juan, puts it: to one person the City might appear as Paris, to another it might be where one goes upon getting out of bed in Barcelona; to another it might appear as a beer hall in Oslo...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![War All the Time by Charles Bukowski]()
War All the Time by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWar All the Time is a selection of poetry from the early 1980s. Charles Bukowski shows that he is still as pure as ever but he has evolved into a slightly happier man that has found some fame and love. These poems show how he grapples with his past and future colliding...Categorized as:
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![Elephant and Other Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Elephant and Other Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThese seven stories were the last that Carver wrote. Among them is Errand in which he imagines the death of Chekhov, a writer Carver hugely admired and to whose work his own was often compared...Categorized as:
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![Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMore than sixty stories, poems, and essays are included in this wide-ranging collection by the extravagantly versatile Raymond Carver. Two of the stories—later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love—are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver’s literary development... -
![The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty]()
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhite Boy Shuffle is Man Booker-winner Paul Beatty’s electrifying debut novel about teenage-surf-bum Gunnar Kaufman who is forced to wise up when his mother moves from suburban Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighbourhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a ‘divided, downtrodden people’...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age humor literary-fiction satire university 20th-century audiobook -
![Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme]()
Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis collection of pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces is a companion to Sixty Stories, Barthelme's earlier retrospective volume. Barthelme spotlights the idiosyncratic, haughty, sometimes downright ludicrous behavior of human beings, but it is style rather than content which takes precedence...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies -
![What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe]()
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIf Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had ever managed to collaborate, they might have produced this shamelessly entertaining novel, which introduces readers to what may be the most powerful family in England--and is certainly the vilest. A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire university 20th-century -
![The Gypsy Ballads of Federico Garcia Lorca by Federico García Lorca, Robert G. Harvard]()
The Gypsy Ballads of Federico Garcia Lorca by Federico García Lorca, Robert G. Harvard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTranslations of "Preciosa and the Wind""Walking Asleep," "The Moon, The Moon" "Fracas," "The Gypsy Nun" "Black Trouble" "St. Michael (Granada)""St. Gabriel (Seville)""Dead of Love""The Man Who Was Given a Summons""The Comical History of Pedro, Knight""Walking Asleep""The Unfaithful Married Woman""The Martyrdom of St... -
![Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan]()
Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsAn omnibus edition of three counterculture classics by Richard Brautigan that embody the spirit of the 1960s...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Best of Saki by Saki]()
The Best of Saki by Saki
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsThe short stories of Saki give brief but dazzling glimpses into the lives of the Edwardian rich; a class that virtually disappeared with the advent of the First World War. With delicious malice, Saki portrays the follies, eloquence, tradition and foibles of his characters... -
![Women and Men by Joseph McElroy]()
Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBeginning in childbirth and entered like a multiple dwelling in motion, Women and Men embraces and anatomizes the 1970s in New York from experiments in the chaotic relations between the sexes to the flux of the city itself...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus]()
Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsForty years ago I first linked up with Unguentine and we made love on twin-hulled catamarans, sails a-billow, bless the seas . . .So begins the courtship of a certain Unguentine to the woman we know only as “Mrs. Unguentine,” the chronicler of their sad, fantastical tale. For forty years, they sail the seas together, alone on a giant land-covered barge of their own devising...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary -
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![The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien]()
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs... -
![Selected Stories by Robert Walser, Susan Sontag]()
Selected Stories by Robert Walser, Susan Sontag
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![The Best American Short Stories of the Century by John Updike, Jean Toomer]()
The Best American Short Stories of the Century by John Updike, Jean Toomer
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSince the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature...Categorized as:
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![The Wine of Youth by John Fante]()
The Wine of Youth by John Fante
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsContains the stories in Dago Red, first published in 1940, together with seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father’s God... -
![Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe nine stories and one poem collected in this volume formed the basis for the astonishingly original film “Short Cuts” directed by Robert Altman. Collected altogether in this volume, these stories form a searing and indelible portrait of American innocence and loss...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction university 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 by Richard Brautigan]()
Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA collection of 62 very short stories set in 1960s California, particularly around the author's home town of San Francisco. Richard Brautigan is the author of "Willard & His Bowling Trophies", "Trout Fishing in America", "In Watermelon Sugar" & "A Confederate General From Big Sur"...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies -
![Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau]()
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe plot of Exercises in Style is simple: a man gets into an argument with another passenger on a bus. However, this anecdote is told 99 more times, each in a radically different style, as a sonnet, an opera, in slang, and with many more permutations. This virtuoso set of variations is a linguistic rust-remover, and a guide to literary forms...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult -
![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... -
![The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov]()
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native Russian and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career...Categorized as:
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![The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley]()
The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWith a sure and humorous touch, Grace Paley explores the "little disturbances" that lie behind our everyday lives. Whether writing about sexy little girls, loving and bickering couples, angry suburbanites, frustrated job-seekers, or Jewish children performing a Christmas play, she captures the loneliness, poignancy, and humor of human experience with matchless style... -
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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 -
![West of Rome by John Fante]()
West of Rome by John Fante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWest of Rome's two novellas, "My Dog Stupid" and "The Orgy," fulfill the promise of their rousing titles. The latter novella opens with virtuoso description: "His name was Frank Gagliano, and he did not believe in God. He was that most singular and startling craftsman of the building trade-a left-handed bricklayer... -
![Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Mulliner collectionIn the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest, Mr Mulliner tells his amazing tales, which hold his audience of drinkers (referred to only as Pints of Stout and Whiskies-and-Splash) in the palm of his expressive hand... -
![Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson, John Lanchester]()
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson, John Lanchester
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsChristie Malry is a simple man. His job in a bank puts him next to, but not in possession of, money. As a clerk he learns the principles of Double-Entry Bookkeeping and adapts them in his own dramatic fashion to settle his personal account with society...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism satire university 20th-century -
![Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips]()
Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPhillips writes stories that lay bare the suffering and joy of men and women who rarely register in our literature. Here are the abused and the abandoned, the violent and the passive, the impoverished and the disenfranchised who populate the small towns and rural byways of the country. A patron of the arts reserves his fondest feeling for the one man who wants it least... -
![Descent of Man by T. Coraghessan Boyle]()
Descent of Man by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn seventeen slices of life that defy the expected and launch us into the absurd, T.C. Boyle offers his unique view of the world. A primate-center researcher becomes romantically involved with a chimp; a Norse poet overcomes bard-block; collectors compete to snare the ancient Aztec beer can, Quetzacoatl Lite; and Lassie abandons Timmy for a randy coyote...
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