Books like 'Clayhanger'
Readers who enjoyed Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century classics historical-fiction coming-of-age industrial-era victorian literary-fiction bildungsroman
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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... -
![Martin Eden by Jack London]()
Martin Eden by Jack London
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe semiautobiographical Martin Eden is the most vital and original character Jack London ever created. Set in San Francisco, this is the story of Martin Eden, an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame... -
![The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa]()
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 -
![Pather Panchali: Song of the Road by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay]()
Pather Panchali: Song of the Road by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPather Panchali deals with the life of the Roy family, consisting of Harihar, Sarbajaya, Apu and Durga, both in their ancestral village Nishchindipur in rural Bengal and later when they move to Varanasi in search of a better life, as well as the anguish and loss they face during their travels... -
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![Courage of the Shipyard Girls by Nancy Revell]()
Courage of the Shipyard Girls by Nancy Revell
Rated: 4.70 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSunderland, 1942: Polly's heart and her future are hanging in the balance… Polly’s sweetheart Tommy has been declared missing while serving overseas, and although there is no certainty that he is dead, there is no guarantee that he will return home. Now Polly needs her friends more than ever, and the other women welders are ready to rally around her while she waits for news... -
![Lady Constantine and the Sins of Lord Kilgore by Julie Johnstone]()
Lady Constantine and the Sins of Lord Kilgore by Julie Johnstone
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the game of love, even a rogue can come undone by his own wicked wager. Callum, the Marquess of Kilgore, long ago accepted that he was no saint. So when he’s offered a shameful bet—to seduce the lady some have dubbed the “Ice Queen” and recover the land he foolishly gambled away—he agrees...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction victorian 20th-century adult book fiction -
![Run with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams]()
Run with the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPorter Osborne Jr. is a precocious, sensitive, and rambunctious boy trying to make it through adolescence during the depression years. On a red-clay farm in Georgia he learns all there is to know about cotton chopping, hog killing, watermelon thumping, and mule handling. School provides a quick course in practical joking, schoolboy crushes, athletic glory, and clandestine sex...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century animals anthologies comedy -
![The Titan: by Theodore Dreiser]()
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:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book fiction -
![A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar]()
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 -
![Collected Short Stories: Volume 2 by W. Somerset Maugham]()
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 -
![The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, D.J. Enright]()
The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, D.J. Enright
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe "Guermantes Way," in this the third volume of In Search of Lost Time, refers to the path that leads to the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes's chateau near Combray... -
![Extinction by Thomas Bernhard]()
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe last work of fiction by one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Extinction is widely considered Thomas Bernhard’s magnum opus. Franz-Josef Murau—the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family—lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends... -
![Hatter's Castle by A.J. Cronin]()
Hatter's Castle by A.J. Cronin
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHatter's Castle (1931) is the first novel of author A. J. Cronin. The story is set in 1879, in the fictional town of Levenford, on the Firth of Clyde. The plot revolves around many characters and has many subplots, all of which relate to the life of the hatter, James Brodie, whose narcissism and cruelty gradually destroy his family and life...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction victorian 20th-century adult book -
![The Girl in the Photo by Catherine Hokin]()
The Girl in the Photo by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTheresienstadt Concentration Camp, 1944. ‘I have to go away, my darling. Please, be brave, stay alive, for me.’ Mama’s voice breaks. The little girl tries to stop the forbidden tears from falling, as the train takes her mother, and she is left alone…Berlin, six years later. Hanni Winter glows with pride as she shows her new husband around her first solo photography exhibition...Categorized as:
coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book female-mc fiction -
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![The Coal Miner's Daughter by Maggie Hope]()
The Coal Miner's Daughter by Maggie Hope
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA wealthy landlord’s son and a coal miner’s daughter . . . Growing up in poverty, one of six siblings, Hannah Armstrong never thought she’d know anything other than her little mining town. But then she falls for Timothy Durkin, a wealthy Oxford student. Following her heart, Hannah sacrifices everything she holds dear and follows her new husband to Oxford...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era victorian romance historical 20th-century fiction family -
![The Fields by Conrad Richter]()
The Fields by Conrad Richter
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsConrad Richter's trilogy of novels The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) trace the transformation of Ohio from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The Fields continues the saga of the Luckett family that began in The Trees...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure book epic -
![Madame by Antoni Libera]()
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 coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig]()
Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe central volume in Ivan Doig's acclaimed Montana trilogy, Dancing at the Rascal Fair is an authentic saga of the American experience at the turn of this century and a passionate, portrayal of the immigrants who dared to try new lives in the imposing Rocky Mountains... -
![Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy]()
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe concluding volume of the Border trilogy. In this magnificent new novel, the National Book Award-winning author of All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing fashions a darkly beautiful elegy for the American frontier. It is 1952 and John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands in New Mexico, not far from the proving grounds of Alamogordo and the cities of El Paso and Juarez... -
![Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco]()
Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis landmark novella—one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times—offers a child’s-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in “the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction coming-of-age literary-fiction romance fiction 20th-century drama -
![Ambitious Love by Rosie Harris]()
Ambitious Love by Rosie Harris
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFern Jenkins' life is changed forever when her brother is killed in action and her father dies in a mining explosion. Turned out of their home by the ruthless pit owner, Fern and her mother Wynne are forced to seek a new life in Cardiff. Whilst Wynne finds work in a factory, Fern attends the local school... -
![The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan by W.S. Gilbert]()
The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan by W.S. Gilbert
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom Trial by Jury to The Pirates of Penzance: the complete librettos of all fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Gilbert's verses for Sullivan's music are the most fastidiously turned and inventively rhymed in all lyric comedy. As the Savoy Operas enter their second century on a swell of renewed popularity, Gilbert's reputation as the supreme wordsmith of light opera remains secure... -
![Collected Stories by Frank O'Connor]()
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 -
![Rape of the Fair Country: The Mortymer Trilogy Book One by Alexander Cordell]()
Rape of the Fair Country: The Mortymer Trilogy Book One by Alexander Cordell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe first volume in Alexander Cordell's classic trilogy of mid-nineteenth century Wales...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era victorian 20th-century adult book british-isles -
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![Precious Bane by Mary Webb]()
Precious Bane by Mary Webb
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThis scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction victorian 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Cinders to Satin by Fern Michaels]()
Cinders to Satin by Fern Michaels
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the bestselling historical romance writer Fern Michaels, author of TEXAS RICH and TEXAS HEAT, comes this exciting saga of Callie James, a brave immigrant girl from squalid Dublin, who battles her way through the hard world of late nineteenth century New York on a passion-filled, bittersweet journey to make her dreams of passion and success come true...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era victorian 20th-century action-adventure book fiction historical -
![Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier]()
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:
bildungsroman classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction -
![A World for Julius by Alfredo Bryce Echenique]()
A World for Julius by Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJulius was born in a mansion on Salaverry Avenue, directly across from the old San Felipe Hippodrome. Life-size Disney characters and cowboy movie heroes romp across the walls of his nursery. Out in the carriage house, his great-grandfather’s ornate, moldering carriage takes him on imaginary adventures...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book drama -
![Complete Verse by Rudyard Kipling]()
Complete Verse by Rudyard Kipling
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWitty, profound, wildly funny, acerbic and occasionally savage, Rudyard Kipling's poems continue to delight readers of all ages. Included are both the familiar favorites and Kipling's lesser-known works. This is the only complete collection of Kipling's poems available in paperback...Categorized as:
classics industrial-era victorian literary-fiction fiction 20th-century colonization anthologies -
![The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep by Juliet Butler]()
The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep by Juliet Butler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBased on a true story, The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep is a tale of survival and self-determination, innocence and lies.‘We’re waiting. I squeeze my eyes shut and dig my fingers into Masha’s neck where I’m holding her. She digs hers into mine. The curtains slowly open. I can’t see anything because the spotlight is on us, bright as anything and blinding me, but I can hear the gasp go up...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book disability -
![Deceived by Desire by Marie Force]()
Deceived by Desire by Marie Force
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author Marie Force comes a glittering tale of star-crossed romance set amid the lavish mansions and decadent lifestyles of early 20th century Newport, Rhode Island...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction victorian 20th-century adult book epic -
![The Manor by Isaac Bashevis Singer]()
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 -
![Green Days by the River by Michael Anthony]()
Green Days by the River by Michael Anthony
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA novel about a boy on the edge of adult responsibilities, this is the story of Shell - a Trinidadian boy wtho moves to a new village and meets two girls...Categorized as:
literary-fiction coming-of-age classics bildungsroman fiction young-adult high-school poc-author -
![Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker]()
Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor this Bison Books edition, James Welch, the acclaimed author of Winter in the Blood (1986) and other novels, introduces Mildred Walker's vivid heroine, Ellen Webb, who lives in the dryland wheat country of central Montana during the early 1940s. He writes, "It is a story about growing up, becoming a woman, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, within the space of a year and a half... -
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![Where the Air Is Clear by Carlos Fuentes]()
Where the Air Is Clear by Carlos Fuentes
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Where the Air Is Clear," Carlos Fuentes's first novel, is an unsparing portrayal of Mexico City's upper class. Departing from a traditional linear narrative, Fuentes overlays Mexican myths onto contemporary settings, showing that even the rich and powerful must succumb to the indomitable spirit of Mexico, which undermines all institutions and shapes all destinies...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
![Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare, Arshi Pipa]()
Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare, Arshi Pipa
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMasterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city... -
![Tandia by Bryce Courtenay]()
Tandia by Bryce Courtenay
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTandia sat waiting anxiously for the fight to begin between the man she loved the most in the world and the man she hated the most in the world.Tandia is a child of Africa: half Indian, half African, beautiful and intelligent, she is only sixteen when she is first brutalised by the police. Her fear of the white man leads her to join the black resistance movement, where she trains as a terrorist... -
![Reunion by Fred Uhlman]()
Reunion by Fred Uhlman
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA daring novella about the loss of innocence in pre-war Germany.Reunion is the story of intense and innocent devotion between two young men growing up in "the soft, serene, bluish hills of Swabia," and the sinister (but all too mundane) forces that end both their friendship and their childhood.The year is 1932... -
![The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry]()
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis is one of McMurtry's most memorable novels - the basis for the film of the same name. Set in a small, dusty Texas town, it introduces Jacy, Duane and Sonny, teenagers stumbling towards adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love... -
![Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante]()
Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn a small Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea there lives a boy as innocent as a seabird. Arturo's mother is dead; his father away. Black-clad women care for him, give him the freedom to come and go as he likes. Then the father returns with a new wife, Nunziata, a girl barely older than Arturo. At first hatred and contempt are all the boy feels for his stepmother... -
![The Trees by Conrad Richter]()
The Trees by Conrad Richter
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Trees is a moving novel of the beginning of the American trek to the west. Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the land west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River was an unbroken sea of trees. Beneath them the forest trails were dark, silent, and lonely, brightened only by a few lost beams of sunlight... -
![The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories by Ivan Bunin]()
The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories by Ivan Bunin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe first story in this book "The Gentleman from San Francisco" is translated by D. H. Lawrence and S. S. Koteliansky. Owing to a mistake Mr. Lawrence's name has been omitted from the title-page. The three other stories are translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
![The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett]()
The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Shuttle, is about American heiresses marrying English aristocrats; by extension it is about the effect of American energy, dynamism and affluence on an effete and impoverished English ruling class. Sir Nigel Anstruthers crosses the Atlantic to look for a rich wife and returns with the daughter of an American millionaire, Rosalie Vanderpoel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction victorian 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder, Christopher Buckley]()
Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder, Christopher Buckley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe last of Thornton Wilder’s works published during his lifetime, Theophilus North is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventures of Wilder’s twin brother who died at birth. This edition features an updated afterword from Wilder’s nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating material about the novelist, story and setting... -
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![The Vivisector by Patrick White]()
The Vivisector by Patrick White
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHurtle Duffield, a painter, coldly dissects the weaknesses of any and all who enter his circle. His sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion, the passionate illusions of the women who love him - all are used as fodder for his art...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction -
![One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard]()
One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTranslated from the Welsh Philip Mitchell. This book was originally published in 1961 and is considered a modern Welsh literary masterpiece. The story is about a compassionate young boy coming of age in a small North Welsh village... -
![The Swedish Cavalier by Leo Perutz, J. Maxwell Brownjohn]()
The Swedish Cavalier by Leo Perutz, J. Maxwell Brownjohn
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsMuch admired by such disparate writers as Ian Fleming, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Graham Greene, Leo Perutz has won international recognition as a master storyteller and "a great modern writer" ( Philadelphia Inquirer)...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era literary-fiction victorian 20th-century adult book -
![Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories / Letting Go by Philip Roth]()
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories / Letting Go by Philip Roth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"The title novella, Goodbye, Columbus, the story of a summer romance between a poor young man from Newark and a rich Radcliffe co-ed, is both a tightly wrought tale of youthful desire and a satiric gem that takes aim at the comfortable affluence of the postwar boom...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction bildungsroman fiction 20th-century anthologies historical literary -
![The Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor]()
The Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the grand master of the American short story, these fourteen tales of domestic life in the South during the thirties and forties explore that extraordinary world of manners, expectations and unspoken understanding. The reader is drawn as if by magnetic force into a world rendered in breathtaking, painterly detail...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
![The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley]()
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWhen one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation...
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