Books like 'Elsewhere'
Readers who enjoyed Elsewhere by Richard Russo also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical psychological family humor coming-of-age
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Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty, David Roberts
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsRosie may seem quiet during the day, but at night she's a brilliant inventor of gizmos and gadgets who dreams of becoming a great engineer. When her great-great-aunt Rose (Rosie the Riveter) comes for a visit and mentions her one unfinished goal--to fly--Rosie sets to work building a contraption to make her aunt's dream come true... -
Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, D.J. Enright
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFirst published in 1919, Within a Budding Grove was awarded the Prix Goncourt, bringing the author immediate fame. In this second volume of In Search of Lost Time, the narrator turns from the childhood reminiscences of Swann’s Way to memories of his adolescence... -
Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratings2011 Retailers Choice Award winner!The first in an epic two-book saga by beloved author Francine Rivers, this sweeping story explores the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters over several generations. Near the turn of the 20th century, fiery Marta leaves Switzerland determined to find life on her own terms... -
A Season for Scandal by Laura Wood
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAn all-female detective agency righting wrongs at the end of the nineteenth century; infiltrating a scandalous upper class world straight out of Bridgerton and using their wit and bravery to unmask a villain... -
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Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAt the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage... -
Body and Soul by Frank Conroy
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the dim light of a basement apartment, six-year-old Claude Rawlings sits at an old white piano, picking out the sounds he has heard on the radio and shutting out the reality of his lonely world.The setting is 1940s New York, a city that is "long gone, replaced by another city of the same name... -
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsUpon its original publication in 1951, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was immediately embraced as one of the first serious works of fiction to help readers grapple with the human consequences of World War II... -
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... -
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor...Categorized as:
family coming-of-age romance historical-fiction fiction historical literary-fiction audiobook -
Taking Care by Joy Williams
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsStories deal with a young divorcee, a shared summer home, a troubled family, a wedding, childhood fears, the death of a pet, a lying child, and enlightenment...Categorized as:
family 20th-century adult anthologies female-author fiction historical literary-fiction -
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsMarcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century. But since its original prewar translation there has been no completely new version in English... -
What Happens at the Beach... by T.A. Williams
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFor the perfect summer romance…It’s finally time for Natalie Dryden to decide what she really wants! After ditching her sparkling engagement ring, and her ghastly fiancé, she jets off for the sun-kissed shores of Southern France – the only place that has ever truly felt like home... -
Tales and Sketches by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis Library of America volume offers what no reader has ever been able to find—an authoritative edition of all the tales and sketches of Nathaniel Hawthorne in a single comprehensive volume... -
Ancient Tillage by Raduan Nassar
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor André, a young man growing up on a farm in Brazil, life consists of “the earth, the wheat, the bread, our table, and our family.” He loves the land, fears his austere, pious father, who preaches from the head of the table as if from a pulpit, and loathes himself as he begins to harbor shameful feelings for his sister Ana... -
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All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsScarred by the senseless death of their son and baffled by the engulfing chaos of the 1960s, Allston and his wife, Ruth, have left the coast for a California retreat... -
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA young Swedish boy finds himself penniless and alone in California. He travels east in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great push to the west. Driven back over and over again on his journey through vast expanses, Håkan meets naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend... -
Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash by Tammy Pasterick
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt’s Pittsburgh, 1910—the golden age of steel in the land of opportunity. Eastern European immigrants Janos and Karina Kovac should be prospering, but their American dream is fading faster than the colors on the sun-drenched flag of their adopted country. Janos is exhausted from a decade of twelve-hour shifts, seven days per week, at the local mill...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction fiction 20th-century historical mental-illness disability psychological -
सुम्निमा [Sumnima] by Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, विश्वेश्वरप्रसाद कोइराला
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSumnima a famous Nepali novel by B P Koirala, a former Prime Minister of Nepal is about the painful complications that arise in a man-woman relationship. The story is about the powerful attraction that exists between a Brahmin boy and an ordinary girl... -
The Measure of Silence by Elizabeth Langston
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTwo sisters fulfilling their grandfather’s dying wish uncover decades of secrets in a powerful novel about family, truth, and forgiveness.Dallas, Dealey Plaza, 1963. Nineteen-year-old Mariah Byrne is following her dream of a career in photography. One moment she’s filled with joy and hope watching the president and Mrs. Kennedy drive past...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction fiction historical audiobook psychological drama female-mc -
Dina's Book by Herbjørg Wassmo
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOn the scale of Gone with the Wind and War and Peace, this grand, sweeping epic will enthrall readers just as Dina bewitches everyone she meets.Set in Norway in the mid-nineteenth century, Dina's Book presents an extraordinary heroine. Beautiful, eccentric, and tempestuous, Dina carries a terrible burden: at the age of five she accidentally causes her mother's death... -
The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMuch against his will, the Duke of Omnium consents to lead a coalition government. The Duchess quickly becomes a social figure of great power: with abounding and sometimes indiscriminate hospitality she strives to consolidate his support. Together they make their way to the centre of society and, like Phineas Finn before them, they find it hollow... -
The Missing Daughter by Emily Gunnis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the author of the runaway bestseller The Girl in the Letter comes a heartwrenching, twisting novel of betrayal, tragedy and a shocking family secret buried for decades.1960. Thirteen-year-old Rebecca lives in fear of her father’s temper. As a storm batters Seaview Cottage one night, she hears a visitor at the door and a violent argument ensues... -
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by John Dos Passos
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the novels that make up the U.S.A.trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—Dos Passos creates an unforgettable collective portrait of America, shot through with sardonic comedy and brilliant social observation. He interweaves the careers of his characters and the events of their time with a narrative verve and breathtaking technical skill that make U.S.A... -
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlternate-cover edition for ISBN 0865470561 / 9780865470569 can be found here The wife of a successful lawyer in 1930s Kansas City, India Bridge, tries to cope with her dissatisfaction with an easy, though empty, life.Before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique there was Mrs... -
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Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPossessing the Secret of Joy is the story of Tashi, a tribal African woman who lives much of her adult life in North America. As a young woman, a misguided loyalty to the customs of her people led her to voluntarily submit to the tsunga's knife and be genitally mutilated (pharoanoically circumcised)... -
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAugustus Melmotte is a foreign-born financier with a mysterious past. When he moves his business and his family to London, the city's upper crust begins buzzing with rumors about him, and a host of characters ultimately find their lives changed because of him. He sets out to woo rich and powerful investors by hosting a lavish party... -
The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsNEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLEROn a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard’s only daughter—one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island—has gone missing. Tending the warden’s greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously... -
Aesop's Fables by Aesop, Ann McGovern
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSixty-seven familiar and not so familiar fables from Aesop, including the tortoise and the hare, the frogs who wanted a king, the lion who fell in love, and the donkey who danced on the roof... -
What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA teenage girl breaks free from her father's world of isolation in this exhilarating novel of family, identity, and the power we have to shape our own destinies—from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me DisappearThe first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family north-america usa california montana fiction historical-fiction -
Vladimir Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962 by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis Library of America volume is the second of three volumes that contain the most authoritative versions of the English works of the brilliant Russian émigré, Vladimir Nabokov.Lolita (1955), Nabokov’s single most famous work, is one of the most controversial and widely read books of its time...Categorized as:
humor fiction classics literary-fiction 20th-century psychological politics historical -
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsRamsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family humor 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook bildungsroman -
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratings'What! to come here a stranger, a young, unknown, and unfriended stranger, and tell us, in the name of the bishop his master, that we are ignorant of our duties, old-fashioned, and useless!' Trollope's comic masterpiece of plotting and backstabbing opens as the Bishop of Barchester lies on his deathbed... -
In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier, Michaela Washburn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTwo young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind... -
Memoir from Antproof Case by Mark Helprin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn old American who lives in Brazil is writing his memoirs. An English teacher at the naval academy, he is married to a woman young enough to be his daughter and has a little son whom he loves. He sits in a mountain garden in Niterói, overlooking the ocean... -
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Forrest Gump by Winston Groom
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsMeet Forrest Gump, the lovable, herculean, and surprisingly savvy hero of this remarkable comic odyssey. After accidentally becoming the star of University of Alabama's football team, Forrest goes on to become a Vietnam War hero, a world-class Ping-Pong player, a villainous wrestler, and a business tycoon -- as he wonders with childlike wisdom at the insanity all around him...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family humor 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook bildungsroman -
Sacred Country by Rose Tremain
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAt the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world... -
Your Beautiful Lies by Louise Douglas
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe trouble with secrets is that they never stay secret for long…Annie Howarth is living an anxious life in an anxious town. Her mining community in South Yorkshire is feeling the pinch and tensions are running high. Then a murdered girl is found on the moors and the agitation in the community is pushed to a dangerous breaking point...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family mystery historical fiction historical-fiction thriller psychological -
Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright by Steven Millhauser
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEdwin Mullhouse, a novelist at 10, is mysteriously dead at 11. As a memorial, Edwin's bestfriend, Jeffrey Cartwright, decides that the life of this great American writer must be told. He follows Edwin's development from his preverbal first noises through his love for comic books to the fulfillment of his literary genius in the remarkable novel, Cartoons... -
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... -
Spirit of Lost Angels by Liza Perrat
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThey drowned Victoire's mother, claiming she was a witch. Then her father died beneath the wheels of a nobleman's carriage.Forced to leave her village, Victoire finds work in Paris. But domestic employment comes at a high price and the orphaned girl suffers gruesome abuse at the hands of a diabolical aristocracy... -
The Daughters of Foxcote Manor by Eve Chase
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsTHE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, "A captivating mystery: beautifully written, with a rich sense of place, a cast of memorable characters, and lots of deep, dark secrets."--Kate Morton, New York Times bestselling author of The Clockmaker's Daughter "Extraordinary...Absolutely her best yet."--Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs Three generations... -
The House on the Edge of the Cliff by Carol Drinkwater
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings*Available to pre-order now - Carol Drinkwater's epic story of enduring love and betrayal, from Paris in the 1960s, to the present day* No one else knows what happened that summer. Or so she believes . . . Grace first came to France a lifetime ago. Young and full of dreams of adventure, she met two very different men. She fell under the spell of one. The other fell under hers... -
Splendor in the Grass by adapted from the screenplay by William Inge F. Andrew Leslie, William Inge
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsF. Andrew Leslie, adapted from the screenplay by William Inge, Inge, William, Leslie, F...Categorized as:
family coming-of-age romance classics fiction drama literary-fiction historical-fiction -
Crazy by Linda Vigen Phillips
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLaura is a typical fifteen-year-old growing up in the 1960's, navigating her way through classes, friendships, and even a new romance. But she's carrying around a secret: her mother is suffering from a mental illness.No one in Laura's family will talk about her mother's past hospitalizations or increasingly erratic behavior, and Laura is confused and frightened...Categorized as:
family coming-of-age north-america usa oregon young-adult historical-fiction mental-illness -
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Middlemarch by George Eliot, Doreen Roberts
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsTaking place in the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Middlemarch explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships... -
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsFrom acclaimed author Ellen Marie Wiseman comes a vivid, daring novel about the devastating power of family secrets--beginning in the poignant, lurid world of a Depression-era traveling circus and coming full circle in the transformative 1950s. On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom... -
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis powerful novel of a nation in social and moral crisis was first published by New Directions in 1956. Set in the early postwar years, The Setting Sun probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society... -
Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves New York to accept the job of her dreams-working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director... -
The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde by Eve Chase
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFour sisters. One summer. A lifetime of secrets. When fifteen-year-old Margot and her three sisters arrive at Applecote Manor in June 1959, they expect a quiet English country summer. Instead, they find their aunt and uncle still reeling from the disappearance of their daughter, Audrey, five years before... -
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAround a mysterious death is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels. Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic, The Deptford Trilogy provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where 'the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished'...
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