Books like 'Hooking Up'
Readers who enjoyed Hooking Up by Tom Wolfe also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Collected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRaymond Carver’s spare dramas of loneliness, despair, and troubled relationships breathed new life into the American short story of the 1970s and ’80s. In collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Carver wrote with unflinching exactness about men and women enduring lives on the knife-edge of poverty and other deprivations...Categorized as:
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Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAll the story takes place in an old, dark, dusty sanatorium in a small town. Different people who suffers from different mental problems which are considered mad in society. It analyzes what goes under their surface and what made them the way they are... -
Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratings...Categorized as:
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The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse by Ayfer Tunç
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe novel opens in a provincial mental health hospital on the morning of the 14th February 2007 and comes to a cataclysmic end several hours later Lacklustre guest speaker (‘Love: Self-sacrifice? Or Self-preservation?’) Ülkü Birinci fails to impress the Medical Director, whose plans to write the history of the hospital are destined to remain stillborn... -
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The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHere are sixty-one stories that chronicle the lives of what has been called "the greatest generation." From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in "The Enormous Radio" to the surprising discoveries and common mysteries of suburbia in "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" and "The Swimmer," Cheever tells us everything we need to know about "the pain and sweetness of life...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction historical-fiction -
Life Goes On by Kelly Moore
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHappy go lucky Olivia McDill adores her fairy-tale life, married to the man of her dreams. It’s a love that should’ve lasted a lifetime…then in the blink of an eye, everything changed. She learns too quickly that life can be unfair, and she’s left trying to pick up the pieces and make sense of things on her own... -
A Treatise on Shelling Beans by Wiesław Myśliwski
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOur narrator, a retired musician, receives a visit from an enigmatic stranger who inspires him to share the story of his long and stormy life... -
The Essential Tales of Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOf the two hundred stories that Anton Chekhov wrote, the twenty stories that appear in this extraordinary collection were personally chosen by Richard Ford--an accomplished storyteller in his own right. Included are the familiar masterpieces--"The Kiss," "The Darling," and "The Lady with the Dog"--as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales such as "A Blunder," "Hush!," and "Champagne...Categorized as:
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Narcissistic Tendencies by Jennifer Peel
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPsychologist Kate Morgan loves her job evaluating clients for the matchmaking service Binary Search. That is, until the one and only Nicholas Wells becomes a client and the new face of the company... -
Night in Question by Tobias Wolff
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAuthor most recently of a stunningly clear-eyed memoir, This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff's new collection of short stories maintains a similar steady gaze on his fictional creations. The author steels himself with a fine sense of irony and an awareness of moral ambiguity against the unjust suffering that is part of life...Categorized as:
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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... -
What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhat Makes Sammy Run?Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick... -
Saint Richard Parker by Merlin Franco
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHis search for love and enlightenment across India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia...Ace businessman, writer, and investigative journalist Richard Parker loses his job when he exposes the vegetarian CEO of his newspaper as a beef exporter. Accused of misconduct and forced to dissolve his company, he retreats to his wretched little village... -
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis novel in verse about a group of California yuppies was one of the most highly praised books of 1986 and a bestseller on both coasts... -
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The Vegas Accident: An Age Gap Surprise Pregnancy Romance (Forbidden Temptations) by Sofia T Summers
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt’s hard to keep an accidental marriage a secret when you end up pregnant.Yes, we were stupid in Vegas.But the stupidity didn’t just end there.It continued after the trip was over and Luke became my temporary roommate.Luke… as in my brother’s best friend.As in my new husband.My accidental husband.Did I say baby daddy yet?Luke is way older than me.Basically, he’s everything he shouldn’t be... -
Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA pop-saturated epic novel about the second man on the moon, and the quiet thirty-year-old gardener who idolizes him. A story of unconventional psychiatry, the Faroe Islands, amateur boat building, and the journey across the space that divides us from other people: a journey as remote and dangerous as the trip to the moon itself... -
I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsArrested and imprisoned in a small Swiss town, a prisoner begins this book with an exclamation: "I'm not Stiller!" He claims that his name is Jim White, that he has been jailed under false charges and under the wrong identity...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrederick Exley's inimitable "fictional memoir" A Fan's Notes has assumed the status of a classic since its first publication in 1968. Mordantly and poignantly, Exley describes the profound failures of his life; professional, sexual, and personal... -
Rock Springs by Richard Ford
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn these ten stories, Ford mines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West--and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there. Rock Springs is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiseled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
Dreams from Bunker Hill by John Fante
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMy first collision with fame was hardly memorable. I was a busboy at Marx's Deli. The year was 1934. The place was Third and Hill, Los Angeles. I was twenty-one years old, living in a world bounded on the west by Bunker Hill, on the east by Los Angeles Street, on the south by Pershing Square, and on the north by Civic Center... -
One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe great Pirandello's (1867-1936) 1926 novel, previously published here in 1933 in another translation, synthesizes the themes and personalities that illuminate such dramas as Six Characters in Search of an Author... -
Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Auto-da-Fé" is the story of Peter Kien, a distinguished, reclusive sinologist living in Vienna between the wars. With masterly precision, Canetti reveals Kien's character, displaying the flawed personal relationships which ultimately lead to his destruction... -
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMolloy, the first of the three masterpieces which constitute Samuel Beckett’s famous trilogy, appeared in French in 1951, followed seven months later by Malone Dies (Malone meurt), and two years later by The Unnamable (L’Innommable). Few works of contemporary literature have been so universally acclaimed as central to their time and to our understanding of the human experience... -
Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn this haunting, bracing new collection, Dan Chaon shares stories of men, women, and children who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place. Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion... -
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In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIN THIS SUITE of five short pieces -- one of the unqualified literary masterpieces of the American 1960s -- William Gass finds five beautiful forms in which to explore the signature theme of his fiction: the solitary soul’s poignant, conflicted, and doomed pursuit of love and community...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary family fiction -
Woman Lit by Fireflies by Jim Harrison, Ray Porter
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAcross the odd contours of the American landscape-Jim Harrison's country--its natives search for that which isn't quite irretrievably lost, for the incandescent beneath the ordinary... -
Metamorphosis and The Judgment by Franz Kafka, Steven Berkoff
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsGregor Samsa is a man dedicated to industry, self-sacrifice, and survival. On waking one morning, he finds that he has been transformed into a gigantic insect. Being trapped in this alien body is a fate that he passively accepts, just as he accepts the fact of his inevitable death... -
A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOne of Doris Lessing's most important novels -- here beautifully repackaged This is the second volume in Doris Lessing's renowned quartet of novels tracing the life of Martha Quest from her childhood in Africa to an imagined post-nuclear Britain. A Proper Marriage sees twenty-something Martha beginning to realise that her marriage has been a terrible mistake... -
The Empathy Problem: It's never too late to change your life by Gavin Extence
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPerfect for fans of Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project and Gavin Extence's debut novel THE UNIVERSE VERSUS ALEX WOODS, comes a wild and witty, searing and true novel about life's ups and downs.Driven by money, power and success, Gabriel has worked ruthlessly to get to the very top of the banking game. He's not going to let the inconvenience of a terminal brain tumour get in his way... -
White Walls: Collected Stories by Tatyana Tolstaya
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTatyana Tolstaya's short stories — with their unpredictable fairy-tale plots, appealingly eccentric characters, and stylistic abundance and flair — established her in the 1980s as one of modern Russia's finest writers. Since then her work has been translated throughout the world. Edna O'Brien has called Tolstaya "an enchantress." Anita Desai has spoken of her work's "richness and ardent life...Categorized as:
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Scouting for the Reaper by Jacob M. Appel
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEach of the characters in Scouting for the Reaper faces an unanticipated challenge: transporting a truckload of penguins across the country, arranging a proper Jewish burial for the remains of Gregor Samsa, selling tombstones dressed as a Girl Scout. These stories explore the domestic and professional adventures of people in over their heads, while leavening their struggles with humor.Jacob M... -
Farewell to the Sea: A Novel of Cuba by Reinaldo Arenas
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this brilliant, apocalyptic vision of Castro's Cuba, we meet a young couple who leave the dreariness of Havana and spend six days at a small seaside retreat, where they hope to recapture the desire and carefree spirit that once united them... -
On Love by Alain de Botton
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life" we are told at the outset of Alain de Botton's On Love, a hip, charming, and devastatingly witty rumination on the thrills and pitfalls of romantic love. The narrator is smitten by Chloe on a Paris-London flight, and by the time they've reached the luggage carousel, he knows he is in love... -
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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Autumn in Peking by Boris Vian
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBoris Vian was a jack of all trades - although unfortunately his name was Boris and "Boris of all trades" never took off as a turn of phrase. But nevertheless Vian was a great songwriter, playwright, singer, jazz critic and, of course novelist so it should have been Boris instead of Jack... -
The Woman with the Bouquet by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Alison Anderson
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn his new collection of stories, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, author of The Most Beautiful Book in the World, probes the paradox that the events that shape our lives are often the stuff of dreams, yet nonetheless true. Humor, tenderness, irony and exquisite writing have always been the hallmarks of Schmitt’s work. Here, he adds a pinch of philosophy...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe playwright and novelist Thomas Bernhard was one of the most widely translated and admired writers of his generation, winner of the three most coveted literary prizes in Germany. Gargoyles, one of his earliest novels, is a singular, surreal study of the nature of humanity. One morning a doctor and his son set out on daily rounds through the grim mountainous Austrian countryside... -
Sundog by Jim Harrison
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA “feisty, passionate novel” (Newsday) from a writer whose “storytelling instincts are nearly flawless” (The New York Times). The New York Times–bestselling author of thirty-nine books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry including Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Returning to Earth, Jim Harrison was one of our most beloved and acclaimed writers, adored by both readers and critics... -
The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNorman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan... -
Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWinner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award The hero of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, ten years after the events of Rabbit Redux, has come to enjoy considerable prosperity as the chief sales representative of Springer Motors, a Toyota agency in Brewer, Pennsylvania... -
Second Skin by John Hawkes, Jeffrey Eugenides
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"John Hawkes is an extraordinary writer. I have always admired his books. They should be more widely read...Categorized as:
literary-fiction classics fiction contemporary 20th-century postmodernism nautical psychological -
A Dark Stranger by Julien Gracq
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTwo lovers arrive at a seaside hotel in 1920's Brittany. The other guests soon become obsessed with the man, the equivocal unsettling Allan. One by one they realise who he is-that Death has come to spend the summer with them... -
The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“A kaleidoscopic, open-hearted, shamelessly polymathic storyteller, the kind who brings a blast of oxygen into the room... -
Don't Try This at Home by Angela Readman
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA girl repeatedly chops her boyfriend in half but, while her other half’ multiplies, she is still not satisfied. Love transforms a mother working down the chippie into Elvis. Clary’s father puts antlers on stuffed rabbits to make jackalopes, but when her mother walks out on them, Clary has to help her father if they are to survive...Categorized as:
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Museums & Women and Other Stories by John Updike
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis is John Updike’s largest and most various collection of short stories. Some, such as the title story, have the tone and personality of essays; others objectify the chimeras of middle-class existence; a number of vignettes reflect the face of America in the fictional microcosm of Tarbox; the longest story, a hallucinatory trip up the Nile, allegorizes our foreign policy... -
The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings'The same week our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut.' The greatest opening line in New Zealand literature opens this hilarious Gothic melodrama. Klynham is a sleepy little New Zealand town in which not a lot happens. But then one moonlit night the Scarecrow arrives, swilling brandies and looking for victims. Something sordid and even macrabre lies ahead...Categorized as:
classics humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure book comedy coming-of-age -
Spadework for a Palace by László Krasznahorkai
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSpadework for a Palace bears the subtitle “Entering the Madness of Others” and offers an epigraph: “Reality is no obstacle.” Indeed...Categorized as:
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The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrank Bascombe returns, with a new lease on life (and real estate), more acutely in thrall to life’s endless complexities than ever before. A holiday, and a novel, no reader will ever forget—at once hilarious, harrowing, surprising, and profound... -
Contempt by Alberto Moravia, Tim Parks
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsContempt is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous ~~ his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage...
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