Books like 'Memoirs'
Readers who enjoyed Memoirs by Pablo Neruda also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century classics politics
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Hurry Up, Franklin by Paulette Bourgeois
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn this Franklin Classic Storybook, Franklin sets off to Bear's house for a birthday party, but it's far from a straightforward journey. Like most preschoolers, Franklin is a dawdler, slow even for a turtle. The trip becomes an opportunity to play leapfrog with Rabbit, slip and slide in the mud with Otter, and maybe even play hide-and-seek with Fox... -
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 Compromise by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBased on Dovlatov's experiences as a journalist in the Soviet Republic of Estonia, this is an acidly comic picture of ludicrous bureaucratic ineptitude, which obviously still continues... -
Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature, Pablo Neruda is regarded as the greatest Latin American poet of the twentieth century. This bilingual edition makes available a major selection of his poems, both in the original Spanish and impressively rendered into English by his most enduring translator, the poet Ben Belitt (Robert Creeley)... -
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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 Inhabited Island by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsWhen Maxim, a space explorer from Earth, accidentally discovers a planet inhabited by humanoids who destroy his spaceship, he thinks of himself as a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. But after his experiences in the planet's nightmarish military and mental health facilities, he begins to realize that his sojourn on this radioactive and war-scarred world will not be a walk in the park... -
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...Categorized as:
classics politics 20th-century anthologies contemporary drama fiction historical-fiction -
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... -
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... -
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 20th-century anthologies contemporary drama fiction industrial-era victorian -
What Work Is by Philip Levine
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner of the National Book Award in 1991 “This collection amounts to a hymn of praise for all the workers of America. These proletarian heroes, with names like Lonnie, Loo, Sweet Pea, and Packy, work the furnaces, forges, slag heaps, assembly lines, and loading docks at places with unglamorous names like Brass Craft or Feinberg and Breslin’s First-Rate Plumbing and Plating...Categorized as:
classics 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary literary-fiction -
JR by William Gaddis
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJ R is the long-awaited novel from William Gaddis, author of The Recognitions, that tremendous book which, in the twenty years since its publication, has come to be acknowledged as an American masterpiece... -
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... -
Diving Into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratings"I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail." These provocative poems move with the power of Rich's distinctive voice... -
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On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleža
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDuring his long and distinguished career, the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleza (1893-1981) battled against many forms of tyranny. In On the Edge of Reason, his protagonist is a middle-aged lawyer whose life and career have been eminently respectable and respected. One evening, at a party attended by the local elite, he inadvertently blurts out an honest thought... -
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn engaging and accessible collection that includes some of the Nobel Prize winner's own favorite poems, with the English translations and original Spanish presented on facing pages."The Sea"A single entity, but no blood.A single caress, death or a rose.The sea comes in and puts our lives togetherand attacks alone and spreads itself and singsin nights and days and men and living creatures... -
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... -
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 Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Roominghouse Madrigals is a selection of poetry from Charles Bukowski's early work. It shows a slightly softer side to the beloved barfly.Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for fifty years... -
A Man Asleep by Georges Perec
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA Man Asleep (French: Un homme qui dort) is a 1967 novel by the French writer Georges Perec. It uses a second-person narrative, and follows a 25-year-old student, who one day decides to be indifferent about the world. A Man Asleep was adapted into a 1974 film, The Man Who Sleeps... -
Riotous Assembly by Tom Sharpe
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOffering all the qualities of his general bestselling fiction, this is Tom Sharpe's blazing satire of South African apartheid, companion to Indecent Exposure... -
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories by Alice Walker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn Alice Walker’s second story collection, women stand their ground in the midst of crisisThis collection builds on Alice Walker’s earlier work, the much-praised In Love & Trouble. But unlike her first collection of stories, the women in these tenderly wrought tales face their problems head on, proving powerful and self-possessed even when degraded by others—sometimes by those closest to them...Categorized as:
classics politics 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author female-mc -
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
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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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'... -
Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G. Coney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt was an alien planet - yet not too alien from Earth. It had its differences; its ice goblins, its curious furry lorrin, its thickening water, and its unearthly tides, but for a young man like Alika-Drove thinking of a vacation by the sea these oddities were the norm.But this vacation was different...Categorized as:
classics politics 20th-century action-adventure bildungsroman book coming-of-age contemporary -
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
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... -
Leaves of the Banyan Tree by Albert Wendt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn epic spanning three generations, Leaves of the Banyan Tree tells the story of a family and community in Western Samoa, exploring on a grand scale such universal themes as greed, corruption, colonialism, exploitation, and revenge. Winner of the 1980 New Zealand Wattie Book of the Year Award, it is considered a classic work of Pacific literature...Categorized as:
classics politics historical-fiction fiction literary-fiction 20th-century journey male-author -
Devil on the Cross by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis remarkable and symbolic novel centers on Wariinga's tragedy and uses it to tell a story of contemporary Kenya... -
Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten in Soviet Moscow in the 1920s—but considered too subversive even to show to a publisher—the seven tales included here attest to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s boundless imagination, black humor, and breathtaking irony: a man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling “everything you need for suicide”; an absentminded... -
Greasy Lake & Other Stories by T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, The Washington Post Book World says these masterful stories mark T. Coraghessan Boyle's development from "a prodigy's audacity to something that packs even more of a wallop: mature artistry...Categorized as:
classics politics 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 by Doris Lessing
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is the fourth instalment in the visionary novel cycle ‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’. The handsome, intelligent people of Planet 8 of the Canopean Empire know only an idyllic existence on their bountiful planet, its weather consistently nurturing, never harsh. They live long, purposeful, untroubled lives... -
The Flight of Icarus by Raymond Queneau
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn late 19th-century Paris, the writer Hubert is shocked to discover that Icarus, the protagonist of the new novel he's working on, has vanished. Looking for him among the manuscripts of his rivals does not solve the mystery, so a detective is hired to find the runaway character... -
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Vida by Marge Piercy
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOriginally published in 1979, this piece of revolutionary fiction is a bestselling author’s classic paean to the 1960s. At the center of the novel stands Vida Asch, who has lived underground for almost a decade... -
Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA major work by one of our theatre's most respected and celebrated writers, this award-winning examination of the dislocations of contemporary American society was produced with great success in both London and New York.The setting is a farmhouse in the American West, inhabited by a family who has enough to eat but not enough to satisfy the other hungers that bedevil them... -
Project for a Revolution in New York by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPart prophecy and part erotic fantasy, this classic tale of otherworldly depravity features New York itself or a foreigner's nightmare of New York as its true protagonist... -
Die Schule der Diktatoren by Erich Kästner
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsهذه مسرحيه، وإذا أردتم دقه الوصف فهى مأساه هزليه؛ انقلاب فاضل يزيح ديكتاتوريه فاسده من الطريق، ثم يقتلون المتمرد، وترسخ الديكتاتوريه الجديده أقدامها... -
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Side Effects by Woody Allen
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA humor classic by one of the funniest writers today, SIDE EFFECTS is a treat for all those who know his work and those just discovering how gifted he is. Included here are such classics as REMEMBERING NEEDLEMAN, THE KUGELMASS EPISODE, a new story called CONFESSIONS OF A BUGLAR, and more... -
The Counterlife by Philip Roth
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies. Wherever they may find themselves, the characters of The Counterlife are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate... -
Black Box by Amos Oz
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA powerful and tragicomic blend of politics and personal destiny, Black Box records in a series of letters the wrecked marriage of Ilana and Alex. Seven years of silence following their bitter divorce is broken when Ilana writes to Alex for help over their wayward and illiterate son, Boaz, and old emotional scars are reopened... -
Who Was David Weiser? by Paweł Huelle
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn Gdansk, three boys and a girl fall under the spell of a mysterious classmate, David Weiser. Weiser and thegirl vanish, leaving the three other boys to explain to the authorities. "Tender, beautifully written and puzzling" (New York Times Book Review). Translated by Michael Kandel. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book...Categorized as:
classics fiction contemporary mystery coming-of-age audiobook magical-realism 20th-century -
Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico by Javier Marías
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA gem of a Marías story: Elvis and his entourage abandon their translator in a seedy cantina full of enraged criminals.“It all happened because of Elvis Presley.” Elvis, down south of the border to film a movie, has insisted his producers hire a proper Spaniard so that he can pronounce his few lines in Spanish with a Castillian accent. But Ruibérriz has taken on much more than he bargained for...Categorized as:
classics fiction contemporary 20th-century anthologies literary-fiction literary adult -
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Seven Jewish Children: a play for Gaza by Caryl Churchill
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSubtitled "a play for Gaza" this is British playwright Caryl Churchill's response to the situation in Gaza in January of 2009. Structured as the text of seven statements parents might say to their children either in response to the events or attempting to explain them, they express regret, anger, intelligence, blind hatred, fear, and compassion... -
The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe, John Bester
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTwo brothers, Takashi and Mitsu, return from Tokyo to the village of their childhood. The selling of their family home leads them to an inescapable confrontation with their family history. Their attempt to escape the influence of the city ends in failure as they realize that its tentacles extend to everything in the countryside, including their own relationship... -
The Sunday of Life by Raymond Queneau
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Sunday of Life, the late Raymond Queneau's tenth novel, was first published in French by Gallimard in 1951 and is now appearing for the first time in this country. In the ingenuous ex-Private Valentin Bru, the central figure in The Sunday of Life, Queneau has created that oddity in modern fiction, the Hegelian naif... -
Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFirst produced in 1963 starring Alec Guinness and successfully revived to great acclaim on Broadway in 2009, this absurdist exploration of ego and mortality is set in the crumbling throne-room of the palace in an unnamed country where King Berenger the First has only the duration of the play to live... -
Brown Morning by Franck Pavloff
Rated: 3.84 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsYou are living a fine life. You read the newspaper and play cards with friends. Gradually—things start to change. You are told that brown is the only acceptable color: if you have a black dog, put it to sleep. Buy a brown one. Add "brown" at the end of each sentence. Books are being burned. But you don’t notice. People still go to cafes; you feel secure... -
Circle Game by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe appearance of Margaret Atwood's first major collection of poetry marked the beginning of a truly outstanding career in Canadian and international letters. The voice in these poems is as witty, vulnerable, direct, and incisive as we've come to know in later works, such as Power Politics, Bodily Harm, and Alias Grace...
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