Books like 'Playmaker'
Readers who enjoyed Playmaker by Thomas Keneally also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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The Fortress by Meša Selimović
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA novel on 18th century Sarajevo under Ottoman rule, featuring a soldier returned from the wars. A Muslim, he marries a Christian girl who supports him while he dabbles in politics, eventually leading a raid to rescue a friend from jail... -
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLively reminiscences of bandit warfare in the sertao, the still primitive Brazilian back country, told by a wise, retired outlaw chief. ~Worldcat.orgGrande Sertão: Veredas (Portuguese for "Great Backlands: Tracks"; English translation: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) is a novel published in 1956 by the Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
They Burn Thistles by Yaşar Kemal
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the story of a bitter war between the poor Turkish peasants of the Taurus Mountains and the Aghas who covet their land. Ali Safa is determined to take possession of the village of Vayvay but its inhabitants will not sell. Then one villager weakens, prepared to part with his land in return for the Agha's best stallion...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book fiction -
Żelazny kaganek by Димитър Талев
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsPowieść przedstawia losy macedońskiego rodu Głauszewów. Akcja powieści rozpoczyna się w połowie lat 30. XIX w. Stojan Głauszew, zabiwszy psa, który należał do lokalnego wielmoży tureckiego, w obawie przed jego gniewem decyduje się na ucieczkę ze wsi. Osiada w pobliskim mieście Prespa, gdzie poznaje Sułtanę, kobietę zaradną, silną i energiczną...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book drama -
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Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke, Mark Doty
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRilke is one of the most widely read poets of the 20th century. In his poetry, Rilke addresses the problems of death, God, and "destructive time," and attempts to overcome and transform these problems into an indestructive inner world...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical literary -
Το νούμερο 31328 by Ilias Venezis, Ηλίας Βενέζης
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTο Nούμερο 31328 είναι η ίδια η ταυτότητα του συγγραφέα, τότε που παιδί δεκαοκτώ χρόνων οδηγήθηκε από τους Tούρκους στα κάτεργα της Aνατολής. Tο βιβλίο είναι ένα συγκλονιστικό χρονικό «γραμμένο με αίμα», όπως επεσήμανε ο Bενέζης, προσθέτοντας: «Λέω για την καυτή ύλη, για τη σάρκα που στάζει το αίμα της και πλημμυρίζει τις σελίδες του»...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book fiction -
Πούσι by Nikos Kavvadias, Νίκος Καββαδίας
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsΤο Πούσι είναι η δεύτερη ποιητική συλλογή του Νίκου Καββαδία και εκδόθηκε για πρώτη φορά το 1947 από τον Α. Καραβία. Έκτοτε εκδόθηκε 4 φορές στις εκδ. Γαλαξίας (1961-1971), 16 φορές στις εκδ. Κέδρος (1975-1989) και, από τον Οκτώβριο 1989 μέχρι τον Δεκέμβριο 2000, 13 φορές στις εκδ. Άγρα... -
The Darkest Canyon: Book Two in A Holocaust Story Series by Roberta Kagan
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNazi Germany. Gretchen Schmidt has a secret life. She is in love with a married Jewish man. She is hiding him while his wife is posing as an Aryan woman. Her best friend Hilde, who unbeknownst to Gretchen is a sociopath, is working as a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp... -
Kinfolk by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsKinfolk is the story of a Chinese family. Dr. Liang moves to America in search of a better life, but his children long to return to China. Each responds to their new life in China differently, providing rich insight into the struggles between Eastern and Western culture, and the differences between generations...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics literary-fiction fiction historical family 20th-century politics -
Recollections of Things to Come by Elena Garro
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis remarkable first novel depicts life in the small Mexican town of Ixtepec during the grim days of the Revolution. The town tells its own story against a variegated background of political change, religious persecution, and social unrest. Miss Garro, who has also won a high reputation as a playwright, is a masterly storyteller...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book female-author fiction -
The Titan: by Theodore Dreiser
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIf there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it...Categorized as:
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The Settlers by Vilhelm Moberg
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsConsidered one of Sweden's greatest 20th-century writers, Vilhelm Moberg created Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson to portray the joys and tragedies of daily life for early Swedish pioneers in America. His consistently faithful depiction of these humble people's lives is a major strength of the Emigrant Novels...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book family -
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLibrarian note: Alternate cover edition of: 9780976395096Set on the eve of World War II, A Mind at Peace captures the anxieties of a Turkish family facing the difficult reality entrenched in the early republic, founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
Tütün by Dimitar Dimov, Димитър Димов
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsToplumcu gerçekçi akımın büyük ustalarından Dimitr Dimov`un yazdığı Tütün adlı bu dev romanda anlatılanlar, tütün dünyasının, Sarı Dünya`nın kişileri arasında geçer. Tütün yapraklarının işlediği atölyelerin tozlu, acı havasında çalışan, benizleri solmuş, ciğerleri çürümüş kalabalık bir insan topluluğu ve onların karşısında sömürgen bir avuç işbirlikçi...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book fiction -
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A Part of Speech by Joseph Brodsky, Иосиф Бродский
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA Part of Speech contains poems from the years 1965-1978, translated by various hands... -
Collected Short Stories: Volume 2 by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis final classic collection reveals Somerset Maugham's unique talent for exposing and exploring the bitter realities of human relationships in tales of love, infidelity, passion and prejudice. The stories range from "The Lotus Eater" where a man envisions a life of bliss in the Mediterranean, to the astringent tales of "The Outstation" and "The Back of Beyond" in Malaya and South East Asia...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratings'They Were Sisters is a compulsively readable but often harrowing novel by one of Persephone's best writers, who always manages to make the ordinary extraordinary,' writes Celia Brayfield. This, the second Dorothy Whipple novel we have republished as a Classic, is, like the others, apparently gentle but it has a very strong theme, in this case domestic violence...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction historical family female-author marriage -
Kam Sukhun Yusuf by Sabahattin Ali
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratings...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book drama -
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA timeless classic of sleazy London life in the 1930s, a world of streets full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars... -
Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy and middle class Chinese society in the Republican era. The title is taken from an old French proverb, "Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out"...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
Μικρό βιβλίο για μεγάλα όνειρα by Tasos Livaditis, Τάσος Λειβαδίτης
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsΝενικήκαμενΌραμα μεγάλο πάνω απ’ τους δρόμους, σα φύλλα τουφθινοπώρου σκόρπιζαν οι ζητωκραυγές.Η πόλη είχε χαθεί κάτω απ’ τα φώτα, τις σημαίες, τηβουή. Γιορτάζαμε τη νίκη.Όμως την ίδια ώρα κάποιος σηκώνεται μες στο σιωπηλόσπίτι, δεν ανάβει φως, ντύνεται και κάθεται στοσκοτάδι.Κανείς δεν μπορεί να τον βοηθήσει... -
Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth by Thomas Wolfe
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe sequel to Thomas Wolfe's remarkable first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, Of Time and the River is one of the great classics of American literature. The book chronicles the maturing of Wolfe's autobiographical character, Eugene Gant, in his desperate search for fulfillment, making his way from small-town North Carolina to the wider world of Harvard University, New York City, and Europe... -
High Wages by Dorothy Whipple
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHigh Wages (1930) was Dorothy Whipple's second novel. It is about a girl called Jane who gets a badly-paid job in a draper’s shop in the early years of the last century...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction 20th-century historical feminism season-winter -
Madame by Antoni Libera
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe comic "sentimental education" of a schoolboy who falls in love with his French teacher. Madame is an unexpected gem: a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity, which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book coming-of-age -
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The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century by M.H. Abrams, Stephen Greenblatt
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFirmly grounded by the hallmark strengths of all Norton Anthologies--thorough and helpful introductory matter, judicious annotation, complete texts wherever possible--The Norton Anthology of English Literature has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies drama fiction -
The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel by Isaac Babel
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFollowing the historic publication of Norton's The Complete Works of Isaac Babel in the fall of 2001, The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel appears as the most authoritative and complete edition of his fiction ever published in paperback...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
The Gift of the Magi and Other Short Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHere are sixteen of the best stories by one of America's most popular storytellers. For nearly a century, the work of O. Henry has delighted readers with its humor, irony and colorful, real-life settings. The writer's own life had more than a touch of color and irony...Categorized as:
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The Major Plays by Anton Chekhov, Rosamund Bartlett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnton ChekhovThe Major PlaysIvanov * The Sea Gull * Uncle Vanya * The Three Sisters * The Cherry Orchard“Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life,” Chekhov once declared. “For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time, their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies drama fiction -
Bless This House by Norah Lofts
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe fortunes of a beautiful Elizabethan house called Merravay, Built in Suffolk for a queen to sleep in then loved and hated through four centuries. Told in eight episodic narratives by a fascinating pageant of characters including -- a pirate, witch, bawd, rake, recluse, and lovers all of whom play a vital part in the house's history...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book early-modern fiction -
Collected Stories by Frank O'Connor
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe definitive collection of short stories by a master of the form and one of Ireland's most celebrated authorsThis indispensable volume contains the best of Frank O’Connor's short fiction. From “Guests of the Nation” to “The Mad Lomasneys” to “First Confession” to “My Oedipus Complex,” these tales of Ireland have touched generations of readers the world over and placed O'Connor alongside W. B...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
The Valley Of Decision by Marcia Davenport
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOn the eve of World War II writer Marcia Davenport, best known for her biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, spent several years in Pittsburgh, her imagination caught by the drama of American industry. In 1942, Charles Scribner’s sons published her Pittsburgh novel, The Valley of Decision... -
The Family Moskat by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe vanished way of life of Eastern European Jews in the early part of the twentieth century is the subject of this extraordinary novel. All the strata of this complex society were populated by powerfully individual personalities, and the whole community pulsated with life and vitality... -
Complete Short Stories by Graham Greene
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAffairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legends, dreams, fear, pity, and violence—this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical literary -
The Priory by Dorothy Whipple
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis 1939 country-house novel is set at Saunby Priory, a large house somewhere in England which has seen better times. We are shown the two Marwood girls, who are nearly grown-up, their father, the widower Major Marwood, and their aunt; then, as soon as their lives have been described, the Major proposes marriage to a woman much younger than himself - and many changes begin...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book family female-author -
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The Girl in the Photograph by Lygia Fagundes Telles
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsComplex and hauntingly beautiful, Lygia Fagundes Telles's most acclaimed novel is a journey into the inner lives of three young women, each revealing her secrets and loves, each awaiting a destiny tied to the colorful and violent world of modern Brazil. Sensual and wealthy Lorena dreams of a tryst with a married man. Unhappy Lia burns with a frantic desire to free her imprisoned fiancé...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book female-author feminism -
The Book of Devices by İhsan Oktay Anar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"He had sought to be the agent of all forces and actions on the Earth, and thus, just as he had transformed iron ingot into a music box, so had he strived to transform the Earth and all it contained into a machine." Ihsan Oktay Anar's 1996 novella, "The Book of Devices," is a skeleton key to the ever-inventive author's fictional world set in the Ottoman times...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical fantasy -
Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis fine, somber novel, by the author of the widely acclaimed The Lost Steps, deals with the French Revolution, chiefly in the Caribbean...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult bildungsroman book fiction -
Climates by André Maurois
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWritten in 1928 by French biographer and novelist Andre Maurois, Climates became a best seller in France and all over Europe. The first 100,000 copies printed of its Russian translation sold out the day they appeared in Moscow bookstores... -
News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOne of the acknowledged masterpieces of Mexican literature, Fernando del Paso's News from the Empire is a powerful and encyclopedic novel of the tragic lives of Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, the short-lived Emperor and Empress of Mexico...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction historical 20th-century politics book adult -
Buddies by Ethan Mordden
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"What unites us, all of us, surely is brotherhood, a sense that our friendships are historic, designed to hold Stonewall together," muses on character in Ethan Mordden's Buddies. This need for friendship, for nonerotic affection, for buddies, shines forth as an American obsession from Moby-Dick through Of Mice and Men to The Sting...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
Poems of André Breton: A Bilingual Anthology by André Breton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAndre Breton (1896-1966) was the founder of Surrealism and a major leader of the avante-garde movement in France following World War I. This exceptional volume brings together the most comprehensive selection of poems by Breton available in the English language. Here, in a bilingual French-English format are 73 poems representing all styles and stages of the writer's career...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century fiction anthologies historical literary adult -
The Best Early Stories Of F. Scott Fitzgerald by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bryant Mangum
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEdited and with an Introduction by Bryant MangumForeword by Roxana RobinsonBenediction • Head and Shoulders • Bernice Bobs Her Hair • The Ice Palace • The Offshore Pirate • May Day • The Jelly Bean • The Diamond as Big as the Ritz • Winter Dreams • AbsolutionIn the euphoric months before and after the publication of This Side of Paradise, F...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical literary -
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Engineer of Human Souls is a labyrinthine comic novel that investigates the journey and plight of novelist Danny Smiricky, a Czech immigrant to Canada. As the novel begins, he is a professor of American literature at a college in Toronto...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book communism fiction -
The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA Dance to the Music of Time – his brilliant 12-novel sequence, which chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.The novels follow Nicholas Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool and others, as they negotiate the intellectual, cultural and social hurdles that stand between them and the “Acceptance World...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
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Old Herbaceous: A Novel of the Garden by Reginald Arkell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBack in print after fifty yearsOld Herbaceous is a classic British novel of the garden, with a title character as outsized and unforgettable as P. G. Wodehouse’s immortal butler, Jeeves...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
The Manor by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis novel portrays the difficulties encountered by traditionalist Jews coming to terms with the social changes that rocked Poland in the late 19th century. The central figure of the novel is Calman Jacoby, who stands between the old and the new, unable to embrace either whole-heartedly...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction historical 20th-century family book -
Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis is the third of Genet's prose works to be published in the United States, following Our Lady of the Flowers (1963) and The Thief's Journal (1964). It is, however, Genet's second novel, having been written in La Santé and Tourelles prisons in 1943, directly after Our Lady of the Flowers...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
Selected Short Stories by William Faulkner
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by William Faulkner—also available are Snopes, As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!William Faulkner was a master of the short story...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction gothic -
Personæ: The Shorter Poems by Ezra Pound
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIf James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound are often credited with creating literary modernism, it was Pound alone who offered (in Hugh Kenner's words) "the synergetic presence") to turn individual experiment into a global movement... -
The Luck of the Bodkins by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMonty Bodkin's wooing of Gertrude Butterwick on the R.M.S. Atlantic is not progressing as it should. And the cause of all the trouble is Miss Lotus Blossum, the brightest star in Hollywood's firmament. The easy camaraderie of Miss Blossom, coupled with the idea that Monty is the only person who can send the errant Ambrose back to her welcoming arms, is causing Mr Bodkin moments of acute distress...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book comedy
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