Books like 'Speed-The-Plow: A Play'
Readers who enjoyed Speed-The-Plow: A Play by David Mamet also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century drama classics realistic politics
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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... -
![The Complete Yes Prime Minister by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay]()
The Complete Yes Prime Minister by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPresented in the form of diaries, official documents, and letters, rather than simply transcribed scripts, this book is a companion to the successful BBC series, "Yes Prime Minister... -
![The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov]()
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSergei Dovlatov’s subtle, dark-edged humor and wry observations are in full force in The Suitcase as he examines eight objects—the items he brought with him in his luggage upon his emigration from the U.S.S.R... -
![The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck]()
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsCollected here for the first time in a deluxe paperback volume are six of John Steinbeck's most widely read and beloved novels... -
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![On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sábato]()
On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sábato
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSabato's dark, philosophical novel is woven around a violent crime committed by Alejandra, the daughter of a prominent Argentinian family. Alejandra's act entwines the lives of three men: her father, Fernanda Vidal, a man who believes himself hunted by a secret organization of the blind, her troubled lover, Martin, and Bruno, a writer who loved her mother... -
![The Flaw by Antonis Samarakis]()
The Flaw by Antonis Samarakis
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA man is seized from his afternoon drink at the Café Sport by two agents of the Regime - though what exactly he is suspected of we do not know, and neither, apparently, does he.What follows is a journey by car toward Special Branch headquarters, and the interrogation that undoubtedly awaits him there... -
![Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin]()
Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPart of the Penguin 60s series, issued to celebrate 60 years of Penguin books. This collects "Sonny's Blues", "The Rockpile" and "Previous Condition", all taken from Going to Meet the Man (Penguin, 1991)... -
![Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings]()
Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe one hundred and fifty-six poems here, arranged in twelve sections and introduced by E. E. Cummings's biographer, include his most popular poems, spanning his earliest creations, his vivacious linguistic acrobatics, up to his last valedictory sonnets. Also featured are thirteen drawings, oils, and watercolors by Cummings, most of them never before published... -
![A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin, Lydia Davis]()
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin, Lydia Davis
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin... -
![The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play by Wallace Stevens]()
The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play by Wallace Stevens
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA collection that all the major long poems and sequences, and every shorter poem of lasting value in Stevens' career. Edited by Holly Stevens, it includes some poems not printed in his earlier Collected Works...Categorized as:
classics drama 20th-century anthologies contemporary fiction industrial-era victorian -
![The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962 by William Carlos Williams]()
The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962 by William Carlos Williams
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratings'And when the second and final colume of Williams' 'Collected Poems' is published, it should become even more apparent that he is this century's major American poet... -
![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... -
![Novecento by Alessandro Baricco]()
Novecento by Alessandro Baricco
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe story was made into The Legend of 1900, a 1998 film starring Tim Roth. Told through the eyes of Novecento’s (the greatest pianist who ever played on the ocean) best friend, trumpeter Tim Tooney, Baricco’s virile text echoes heroic fables and great myths, whilst winking at the beautiful and terrible minutiae that makes up life... -
![Fool for Love and Other Plays by Sam Shepard]()
Fool for Love and Other Plays by Sam Shepard
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHere are eight of Pulitzer-prizewinning Sam Shepard's most stunning plays. This brilliant American dramatist creates what The New Yorker dubbed "Shepard Country"--a landscape of the imagination, a unique theatrical experience that captures our culture and consciouness, our fears and fantasies... -
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![Seven Plays by Sam Shepard]()
Seven Plays by Sam Shepard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIncludes "Buried Child", "Curse of the Starving Class" , "The Tooth of Crime", "La Turista" , "Savage Loge", and "True West". Brilliant, prolific, uniquely American, Pulitzer prizewinning playwright Sam Separd is a major voice in contemporary theatre. And here are seven of his very best. "One of the most original, prolific and gifted dramatists at work today... -
![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... -
![Fear by Stefan Zweig]()
Fear by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFinding her comfortable bourgeois existence as wife and mother predictable after eight years of marriage, Irene Wagner brings a little excitement into it by starting an affair with a rising young pianist. Her lover’s former mistress begins blackmailing her, threatening to give her secret away to her husband. Irene is soon in the grip of agonizing fear... -
![Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo]()
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRichard Russo's slyly funny and moving novel follows the unexpected operation of grace in a deadbeat town in upstate New York—and in the life of one of its unluckiest citizens, Sully, who has been doing the wrong thing triumphantly for fifty years... -
![The Collected Plays, Vol. 1 by Neil Simon]()
The Collected Plays, Vol. 1 by Neil Simon
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis first volume of The Collected Plays of Neil Simon contains the triumphs that put his unique brand of comic genius on the American stage, and made him the most successful playwright of his generation... -
![Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing / Superfudge by Judy Blume]()
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing / Superfudge by Judy Blume
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsACE 0330483633 (ISBN13: 9780330483636)Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge are the first two books about the adventures of the Hatcher family.Peter Hatcher's younger brother Fudge may only be little, but he's one BIG heap of trouble... -
![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... -
![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... -
![Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell]()
Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn its first two years of production, Dario Fo's controversial farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama... -
![In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff]()
In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAmong the characters you'll find in this collection of twelve stories by Tobias Wolff are a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life, a timid professor who, in the first genuine outburst of her life, pours out her opinions in spite of a protesting audience, a prudish loner who gives an obnoxious hitchhiker a ride, and an elderly couple on a golden anniversary cruise who endure the... -
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![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... -
![Los árboles mueren de pie by Alejandro Casona]()
Los árboles mueren de pie by Alejandro Casona
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAlejandro Casona plays with fantasy and reality in his plays. Here we are in play within the play, not in the Pirandellian way but as orchestrating elements of the vaudeville. This work offers a world of fantasy and characters who exemplify a moral idea. They intended to show the viewer the good, beautiful life in its most genuine, kind and wonderful expression... -
![The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry by Rita Dove]()
The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry by Rita Dove
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPenguin’s landmark poetry anthology, perfect for learning poems by heart in the age of ephemeral media Recipient of the Academy of American Poets' Wallace Stevens Award (Dove)Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former Poet Laureate of the United States, introduces readers to the most significant and compelling poems of the past hundred years in The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century... -
![The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh]()
The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative aging mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific... -
![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... -
![Girl by Jamaica Kincaid]()
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry;..." Girl, a short story by Jamaica Kincaid, was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker and subsequently included in the short story collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983... -
![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... -
![Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates]()
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRichard Yates's unflinchingly realistic stories explore loneliness, but they don't neglect failure, cruelty, and heartbreak. Most of the stories feature men who have been disappointed, somehow, by their inability to go on and fulfill the promise of their youth... -
![No Exit and the Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
No Exit and the Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn these two 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... -
![The Runaway Jury by John Grisham]()
The Runaway Jury by John Grisham
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsEvery jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered... -
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![Open Secrets: Stories by Alice Munro]()
Open Secrets: Stories by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn these eight tales, Munro evokes the devastating power of old love suddenly recollected. She tells of vanished schoolgirls and indentured frontier brides and an eccentric recluse who, in the course of one surpassingly odd dinner party, inadvertently lands herself a wealthy suitor from exotic Australia... -
![Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham]()
Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Flesh and Blood, Michael Cunningham takes us on a masterful journey through four generations of the Stassos family as he examines the dynamics of a family struggling to "come of age" in the 20th century... -
![The Second Form at St. Clare's by Enid Blyton]()
The Second Form at St. Clare's by Enid Blyton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe first term of the second form turns out to be an eventful one, with new girls Gladys and Mirabel revealing unsuspected talents for acting and music, while Elsie, the form's unpopular Head Girl, learns to be less spiteful...Categorized as:
classics drama realistic 20th-century action-adventure boarding-school book children -
![A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill]()
A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEugene O’Neill’s last completed play, A Moon for the Misbegotten is a sequel to his autobiographical Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Moon picks up eleven years after the events described in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, as Jim Tyrone (based on O’Neill’s older brother Jamie) grasps at a last chance at love under the full moonlight... -
![Full of Life by John Fante]()
Full of Life by John Fante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe narrator is an Italian-American writer living in Los Angeles with his pregnant wife, Joyce. As the novel follows the course of Joyce's pregnancy, John deals with Joyce's shifting emotional moods, her growing interest in Roman Catholicism (from which John himself has fallen away), and termite infestation in the house... -
![The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares]()
The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAinielle is a village high in the Spanish Pyrenees. Its houses are mostly deserted ruins and have been for years... -
![one man's destiny by Mikhail Sholokhov]()
one man's destiny by Mikhail Sholokhov
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThere is restraint and a trace of sadness in the way Mikhail Sholokov begins his story, as if to warn the reader that it is not an easy tale he has to tell. One postwar spring the author met a tall man with stooping shoulders and big rugged hands... -
![People from Bloomington by Budi Darma, Intan Paramaditha]()
People from Bloomington by Budi Darma, Intan Paramaditha
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn eerie, alienating, yet comic and profoundly sympathetic short story collection about Americans in America by one of Indonesia's most prominent writers, now in an English translation for its fortieth anniversary, with a foreword by Intan ParamadithaA Penguin Classic In these seven stories of The People from Bloomington our peculiar narrators find themselves in the most peculiar of... -
![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 politics 20th-century book contemporary fiction historical-fiction literary -
![The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch]()
The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA story about love and friendship and Marxism Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends “commissioned” one of their number to write a political book. Time passes and opinions change. “Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?” Rose Curtland asks. “The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history,” Jenkin Riderhood suggests... -
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![Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas by Marguerite Duras]()
Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas by Marguerite Duras
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this volume of four short novels, Duras demonstrates her remarkable ability to create an emotional intensity and unity by focusing on the intimate details of the relationships among only a few cental characters: from the park bench couple in The Square (1955) to the double love triangle in 10:30 on a Summer Night (1960), each novel probes the depths and complexities of human emotion, of love...Categorized as:
classics realistic 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction -
![Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross]()
Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe key literary figure in the pubs of post-war Fitzrovia, Maclaren-Ross pulled together his dispersed energies to write two great books: the posthumously published Memoirs of the Forties and this spectacular novel of the Depression, Of Love and Hunger - harsh, vivid, louche, and slangy, it deserves a permanent place alongside 'Coming Up for Air' and 'Hangover Square'... -
![Largo Desolato by Václav Havel]()
Largo Desolato by Václav Havel
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA biting drama by the famed playwright and statesman at his creative and ironic best. Vaclav Havel gives us the comically absurd and seemingly autobiographical account of Professor Leopold Nettes, a revered but reluctant revolutionary whose most recent book has irked the totalitarian government in power. The authorities demand a retraction; his friends and fans clamor for heroic defiance... -
![Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis by Philip Larkin]()
Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis by Philip Larkin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor the first time, Faber publish a selection from the poetry of Philip Larkin. Drawing on Larkin's four collections and on his uncollected poems. Chosen by Martin Amis... -
![The Clown by Heinrich Böll]()
The Clown by Heinrich Böll
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAcclaimed entertainer Hans Schnier collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won’t marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life—the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards... -
![Rabbit at Rest by John Updike]()
Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWinner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In John Updike's fourth and final novel about ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the hero has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild. His son and daughter-in-law are acting erratically, his wife Janice wants to work, and Rabbit is searching his soul, looking for reasons to live...
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