Books like 'The Prisoner'
Readers who enjoyed The Prisoner by Marcel Proust also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary romance 20th century classics literary-fiction lgbtq bildungsroman historical-fiction
-
My Sweet Orange Tree by José Mauro de Vasconcelos
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFifty years after its first publication, the multimillion-copy international bestseller is available again in English, sharing the heartbreaking tale of a gifted, mischievous, direly misunderstood boy growing up in Rio de Janeiro.When the precocious Zeze grows up, he wants to be a poet in a bow tie...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book children coming-of-age contemporary -
![100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda]()
100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAgainst the backdrop of Isla Negra - the sea and wind, the white sand with its scattering of delicate wild flowers, the hot sun and salty smells of the Pacific - the poet sets the poems in celebration of his love. The subject of that love is Matilde Urrutia de Neruda, the poet's 'beloved wife'... -
![Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado]()
Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLiving by their wits in the steamy slums of Bahia, a gang of orphans and runaways, led by fifteen-year-old "Bullet," spend their time stealing from Brazil's rich and privileged until public outcry demands their capture...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children -
![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)... -
-
![Barren Lives by Graciliano Ramos]()
Barren Lives by Graciliano Ramos
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA vivid chronicle of the solitary life of a peasant family in a harsh and unforgiving land, austerely told by a classic Brazilian writer... -
![Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry]()
Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAn Oscar-winning story of a memorable mother and her feisty daughter who find the courage and humor to live through life's hazards and to love each other as never before. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove created two characters who won the hearts of readers and moviegoers everywhere--Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher]()
Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsHer captivating bestseller of loss and the healing power of love now re-issued with a stunning new jacket look. Elfrida Phipps loves her new life in the pretty Hampshire village. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days include companionship as well as independence...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult aging audiobook book -
![The Truce by Mario Benedetti]()
The Truce by Mario Benedetti
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratings'Perhaps that moment had been exceptional, but still, I felt alive. That pressure on my chest means being alive.' Forty-nine, with a kind face, no serious ailments (apart from varicose veins on his ankles), a good salary, and three moody children, widowed accountant Martín Santomé is about to retire. He assumes he'll take up gardening, or the guitar, or whatever retired people generally do...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book coming-of-age -
![Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart]()
Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLoudmouthed, redheaded Cee Cee Bloom has her sights set on Hollywood. Bertie White, quiet and conservative, dreams of getting married and having children. In 1951, their childhood worlds collide in Atlantic City. Keeping in touch as pen pals, they reunite over the years ... always near the ocean...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book comedy contemporary -
![The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa]()
The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsRicardo Somocurcio is in love with a bad girl. He loves her as a teenager known as 'Lily' in Llama in 1950, when she arrives one summer out of the blue, claiming to be from Chile but vanishing the moment her claim is exposed as fiction...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century adult audiobook book -
![Letter from an Unknown Woman: The Fowler Snared by Stefan Zweig]()
Letter from an Unknown Woman: The Fowler Snared by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThis story of distorted passion and behaviour reveals the unrequited love of a woman for a man who cares so little for her that he fails to recognize her as she obsessively pursues him. Also included is The Fowler Snared, sharing a similar theme, only it is the man whose passion is unrequited...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
![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... -
![Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra by Jorge Amado]()
Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAt thirteen Tereza is sold by her aunt to a ranch owner who treats her like a piece of property, and sexually abuses her. When caught in bed with her lover she defends herself against the ranch owner’s violence with a knife and ends up in jail. Freed by a long-time admirer, she eventually ends up in a brothel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary drama -
![Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman]()
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 77 ratingsA New York Times BestsellerA USA Today BestsellerA Los Angeles Times BestsellerA Vulture Book Club PickAn Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our TimeAndré Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 21st-century age-gap angst -
-
![Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin]()
Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe collection consists of the best of his early works - Sukhodol, The Last Rendezvous, Apple Fragrance, The Gentleman from San Francisco - and stories written in his last years - Leka, Sunstroke, Shadowed Paths, and others. They may be called stories about love and about the unforgettable Russian landscape. For here, Bunin writes about himself, in the hushed stillness of the fields..Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren]()
The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFirst published in 1974, The Front Runner raced to international acclaim - the first novel about gay love to become popular with mainstream. In 1975, coach Harlan Brown is hiding from his past at an obscure New York college, after he was fired from Penn State University on suspicion of being gay. A tough, lonely ex-Marine of 39, Harlan has never allowed himself to love another man...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century age-gap angst athlete -
![If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson]()
If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBoth Elisha (Ellie) and Jeremiah (Miah) attend Percy Academy, a private school where neither quite fits in. Ellie is wrestling with family demons, and Miah is one of the few African American students. The two of them find each other, and fall in love -- but they are hesitant to share their newfound happiness with their friends and families, who will not understand...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book coming-of-age -
![Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsPublished two weeks after his seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest. But more: it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![Ask the Dust by John Fante]()
Ask the Dust by John Fante
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAsk the Dust is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young Italian-American writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to survive, he perseveres until, at last, his first novel is published. But the bright light of success is extinguished when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears . . -
![Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden]()
Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 33 ratings"If you don't put that ring on this minute, I'm going to take it back," Annie whispered in my ear. She leaned back, looking at me, her hands still on my shoulders, her eyes shining softly at me and snow falling, melting, on her nose. "Buon Natale," she whispered, "amore mio.""Merry Christmas, my love," I answered...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book coming-of-age -
![Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts]()
Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsTalk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change... -
![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...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics literary-fiction bildungsroman romance contemporary fiction war -
![Putting on the Ritz by Joe Keenan]()
-
![Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins]()
Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNineteen-year-old Harold Chasen is obsessed with death. He fakes suicides to shock his self-obsessed mother, drives a customized Jaguar hearse, and attends funerals of complete strangers. Seventy-nine-year-old Maude Chardin, on the other hand, adores life...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century book comedy coming-of-age contemporary -
-
![Betty Blue by Philippe Djian]()
Betty Blue by Philippe Djian
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis is a full-fledged lovers' tragedy between a drifter-turned-writer and the fatally flawed Betty, his muse and obsessive promoter... -
![Her Lover by Albert Cohen]()
Her Lover by Albert Cohen
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHandsome, worldly, and intelligent, Solal holds a position of enviable power in 1930s Geneva. But as Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, he has become bitterly disillusioned by international affairs and the self-serving people who surround him...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary dark-academia -
![A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays by Tennessee Williams]()
A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays by Tennessee Williams
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTennessee Williams’s sensuous, atmospheric plays transformed the American stage with their passion, exoticism and vibrant characters who rage against their personal demons and the modern world... -
![São Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos]()
São Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPaulo Honório is a sometime field hand who has kicked and clawed and schemed his way to prosperity, becoming master of the decrepit estate São Bernardo, where once upon a time he toiled. He is ruthless in his exploitation of his fellow man, but when he makes a match with a fine young woman, he is surprised to discover that this latest acquisition, as he sees it, may be somewhat harder to handle... -
![Către frumusețe by David Foenkinos, Daniel Nicolescu]()
Către frumusețe by David Foenkinos, Daniel Nicolescu
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings„Dacă nu ar părea tocit de atâta folosire, aș fi ales drept motto al romanului meu acest adagiu al lui Dostoievski: «Frumusețea va salva lumea»“, mărturisea David Foenkinos într-un interviu... -
![Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories by Alice Munro]()
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the her tenth collection (the title story of which is the basis for the new film Hateship Loveship), Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and conjuring up characters as thorny and contradictory as people we know ourselves.A tough-minded housekeeper jettisons the habits of a lifetime because of a teenager’s practical joke...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson]()
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWritten on the Body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book... -
![Evening Class by Maeve Binchy]()
Evening Class by Maeve Binchy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAmong the many evening classes starting all over Dublin is an 'Introduction to Italian'. On the surface it could be just one of hundreds in which some students will succeed and some will fall along the way. the hopes and dreams of so many people are tied up in the twice weekly lessons...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book contemporary drama -
![Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx]()
Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAnnie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, "Brokeback Mountain" is her masterpiece. Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult angst -
![Tin Man by Sarah Winman]()
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA novel celebrating love in all of its forms and the little moments that make up the life of an autoworker in a small working-class town.This is almost a love story. But it's not as simple as that...Categorized as:
historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century audiobook book coming-of-age -
-
![Doctors by Erich Segal]()
Doctors by Erich Segal
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWriting with all the passion of "Love Story" and power of "The Class," Erich Segal sweeps us into the lives of the Harvard Medical School's class of 1962. His stunning novel reveals the making of doctors--what makes them tick, scheme, hurt . . . and love... -
![Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado]()
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt surprises no one that the charming but wayward Vadinho dos Guimaraes–a gambler notorious for never winning—dies during Carnival. His long suffering widow Dona Flor devotes herself to her cooking school and her friends, who urge her to remarry. She is soon drawn to a kind pharmacist who is everything Vadinho was not, and is altogether happy to marry him...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
![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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
![Closer (Methuen Modern Plays) by Patrick Marber]()
Closer (Methuen Modern Plays) by Patrick Marber
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Closer, Patrick Marber has created a brilliant exploration into the brutal anatomy of modern romance, where a quartet of strangers meet, fall in love, and become caught up in a web of sexual desire and betrayal... -
![To the Wedding by John Berger]()
To the Wedding by John Berger
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWith the sensuous eye and profound sense of history that have made him one of the most acclaimed living novelists, John Berger, author of G., tells the story of a wedding that takes place in a Europe that is approaching the end of the century, a place where everything has changed - and not even the certainties of love are exempt... -
![Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan]()
Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsComplete and Unabridged... -
![A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow]()
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAll about love, lust, and loneliness, the book introduces Vic Brown, a young working-class Yorkshireman. Vic is attracted to the beautiful but demanding Ingrid, and as their relationship grows and changes, he comes to terms the hard way with adult life and what it really means to love...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century book contemporary fiction literary -
![An Explanation of the Birds by António Lobo Antunes, Richard Zenith]()
An Explanation of the Birds by António Lobo Antunes, Richard Zenith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRui S., a political historian, is unable to accept the circumstances of his life: his mother's death from cancer, his estrangement from his family, his rejection by his first wife and children, his political vacillations and his ambigious feelings for his second wife... -
![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)... -
![Only the Strong: An American Novel by Jabari Asim]()
Only the Strong: An American Novel by Jabari Asim
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsJabari Asim’s debut novel returns readers to Gateway City, the fictional Midwestern city first explored in his acclaimed short story collection, Taste of Honey. Against a 1970s backdrop of rapid social and political change, Only the Strong portrays the challenges and rewards of love in a quintessential American community where heartbreak and violence are seldom far away...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction contemporary poc-mc audiobook poc-author 20th-century -
-
![The Broken Wings by Kahlil Gibran, جبران خليل جبران]()
The Broken Wings by Kahlil Gibran, جبران خليل جبران
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis is the exquisitely tender story of love that beats desperately against the taboos of Oriental tradition. With great sensitivity, Gibran describes his passion as a youth for Selma Karamy, the girl of Beirut who first unfolded to him the secrets of love. But it is a love that is doomed by a social convention which forces Selma into marriage with another man...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary -
![He, She and It by Marge Piercy]()
He, She and It by Marge Piercy
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up... -
![Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran]()
Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOne of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past -- and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult book coming-of-age -
![The Abortion by Richard Brautigan]()
The Abortion by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA reclusive young man works in a San Francisco library for unpublishable books. Life's losers, an astonishing number of whom seem to be writers, can bring their manuscripts to the library, where they will be welcomed, registered and shelved. They will not be read, but they will be cherished. In comes Vida, with her manuscript. Her book is about her gorgeous body, in which she feels uncomfortable...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book comedy -
![The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt]()
The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDavid Leavitt's extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss. Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary drama
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
