Books like 'The Trouble with Being Born'
Readers who enjoyed The Trouble with Being Born by Emil M. Cioran & Eugene Thacker also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
20th century psychological classics existentialism nihilism philosophical religion politics dark
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The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"There is a distinguished mind at work beneath the totally acceptable dullness of clerking. The mind is that of Pessoa. We must be given the chance to learn more about him...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical 20th-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
![Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]()
Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCancer Ward - a largely autobiographical account of a group of people who pass through the cancer wing of a provincial Soviet hospital in 1955, two years after Stalin's death - was hailed by Time as 'a literary event of the first magnitude' when it first appeared in 1966... -
![The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom]()
The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen sixteen-year-old Alfred Rosenberg is called into his headmaster’s office for anti-Semitic remarks he made during a school speech, he is forced, as punishment, to memorize passages about Spinoza from the autobiography of the German poet Goethe. Rosenberg is stunned to discover that Goethe, his idol, was a great admirer of the Jewish seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza... -
![Franz Kafka's The Castle (Dramatization) by David Fishelson, Aaron Leichter]()
Franz Kafka's The Castle (Dramatization) by David Fishelson, Aaron Leichter
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsNote - This is not the novel by Franz Kafka! For the novel see The... -
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![The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratings'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor--seemingly there for the men's solace--their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail... -
![The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot]()
The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper." 'The Hollow Men' is a poem by T. S. Eliot written in 1925, divided into five parts and consists of 98 lines. Eliot's New York Times obituary in 1965 identified the final four as "probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English"...Categorized as:
classics existentialism dark fiction 20th-century historical philosophy psychological -
![Crave by Sarah Kane]()
Crave by Sarah Kane
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in an unnamed city from which voices and images spring, Crave charts the disintegration of a human mind under the pressures of love, loss and desire.Produced by Paines Plough and Bright Ltd (Guy Chapman and Paul Spyker), Crave premiered at the Traverse Theatre for the 1998 Edinburgh Festival. It received its English premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London in September 1998... -
![Caligula by Albert Camus]()
Caligula by Albert Camus
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsa new adaptation of Camus' 1944 play by Scottish playwright David...Categorized as:
classics existentialism nihilism philosophical 20th-century adult ancient-civilization audiobook -
![The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir]()
The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThree long stories that draw the reader into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical politics 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
![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...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical politics religion 20th-century adult anthologies -
![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... -
![Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsNausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him... -
![La coscienza di Zeno. Senilità. Una vita by Italo Svevo]()
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![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 existentialism philosophical 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
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![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... -
![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... -
![Star by Yukio Mishima]()
Star by Yukio Mishima
Rated: 3.63 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAll eyes are upon Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract his attention—they would kill for a moment alone with him... -
![Identity by Milan Kundera]()
Identity by Milan Kundera
Rated: 3.69 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThere are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. This also happens with couples--indeed, above all with couples, because lovers fear more than anything else "losing sight" of that loved one...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical 20th-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
![Investigations of a Dog by Franz Kafka]()
Investigations of a Dog by Franz Kafka
Rated: 3.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"Investigations of a Dog" (German: "Forschungen eines Hundes") is a short story by Franz Kafka written in 1922. It was published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931). The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It appeared in The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1946)...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical 20th-century adult animals anthologies audiobook -
![Islam Between East and West by Alija Izetbegović]()
Islam Between East and West by Alija Izetbegović
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIslam between east and west is not a book of theology, it deal with dogmas, institutions and teachings of Islam with the aim of establishing the place of Islam in the general spectrum of ideas... -
![Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks]()
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks—writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual—writes about a new kind of education, educations as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal...Categorized as:
politics classics non-fiction feminism social-commentary philosophy audiobook psychological -
![... trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager by Viktor E. Frankl]()
... trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager by Viktor E. Frankl
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsDer 1945 niedergelegte Bericht »Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager« und die 1946 geschriebene dramatische Skizze »Synchronisation in Birkenwald«, die in diesem Band zusammengefaßt sind, wollen nicht Mitleid erregen oder Anklage erheben. Noch weniger geht es um die Situation des Grauens...Categorized as:
classics religion existentialism philosophical non-fiction psychological philosophy audiobook -
![The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin]()
The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"To great writers," Walter Benjamin once wrote, "finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they labor their entire lives...Categorized as:
classics philosophical politics 20th-century fiction non-fiction philosophy psychological -
![The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi]()
The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe author tries to understand the rationale behind Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen. Dismissing stereotyped images of brutal Nazi torturers and helpless victims, Levi draws extensively on his own experiences to delve into the minds and motives of oppressors and oppressed alike... -
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![A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes, Wayne Koestenbaum]()
A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes, Wayne Koestenbaum
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA Lover's Discourse, at its 1978 publication, was revolutionary: Roland Barthes made unprecedented use of the tools of structuralism to explore the whimsical phenomenon of love. Rich with references ranging from Goethe's Werther to Winnicott, from Plato to Proust, from Baudelaire to Schubert, A Lover's Discourse artfully draws a portrait in which every reader will find echoes of themselves... -
![Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki]()
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 31 ratings"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." So begins this most beloved of all American Zen books. Seldom has such a small handful of words provided a teaching as rich as has this famous opening line of Shunryu Suzuki's classic...Categorized as:
classics philosophical religion 20th-century audiobook mental-illness non-fiction personal-growth -
![Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein]()
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIncorporating significant editorial changes from earlier editions, the fourth edition of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is the definitive en face German-English version of the most important work of 20th-century philosophy The extensively revised English translation incorporates many hundreds of changes to Anscombe’s original translation Footnoted remarks in the earlier...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical 20th-century fiction non-fiction philosophy psychological -
![Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm]()
Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIf humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical politics religion 20th-century audiobook communism -
![At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell]()
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsParis, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking...Categorized as:
classics existentialism philosophical politics religion 20th-century 21st-century adult -
![Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises]()
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn Human Action, Mises starts from the ideas set forth in his Theory and History that all actions and decisions are based on human needs, wants, and desires and continues deeper and further to explain how studying this human action is not only a legitimate science (praxeology) but how that science is based on the foundation of free-market economics...
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