Books like 'The Normal Heart'
Readers who enjoyed The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer & Joseph Papp also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century lgbtq drama classics historical-fiction university politics urban realistic
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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... -
![Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin]()
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsAn alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.Baldwin's haunting and controversial second novel is his most sustained treatment of sexuality, and a classic of gay literature... -
![Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg]()
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWoman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in the "Ozzie and Harriet" McCarthy era and coming out as a young butch lesbian in the pre-Stonewall gay drag bars of a blue-collar town...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq politics realistic social-commentary university 20th-century -
![The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai]()
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsA dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary ParisIn 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery... -
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![Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov]()
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsRichard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction realistic university 20th-century adult anthologies -
![The Last Leaf by O. Henry]()
The Last Leaf by O. Henry
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSue and Johnsy are two girlfriends who live together in New York City. When Johnsy becomes sick one winter, she makes up her mind to die when the last leaf falls from the ivy plant growing outside her window. Sue would do anything to help her friend get well, but she is a poor artist. As the winter wind blows and the rain falls, there seems no way to stop the last leaf from falling...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction realistic university 20th-century anthologies audiobook -
![The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde, Richard Allen Cave]()
The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde, Richard Allen Cave
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsCombining epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation, the works collected in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays are edited with an introduction, commentaries and notes by Richard Allen Cave in Penguin Classics... -
![My Voice Because of You, by Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén]()
My Voice Because of You, by Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEnglish, Spanish... -
![A Country Doctor’s Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov]()
A Country Doctor’s Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBrilliant stories that show the growth of a novelist's mind, and the raw material that fed the wild surrealism of Bulgakov's later fiction.With the ink still wet on his diploma, the twenty-five-year-old Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov was flung into the depths of rural Russia which, in 1916-17, was still largely unaffected by such novelties as the motor car, the telephone or electric light... -
![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... -
![Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories by Ghassan Kanafani]()
Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories by Ghassan Kanafani
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPolitics and the novel, Ghassan Kanafani once said, are an indivisible case. Fadl al-Naqib has reflected that Kanafani wrote the Palestinian story, then he was written by it. His narratives offer entry into the Palestinian experience of the conflict that has anguished the people of the Middle East for more than a century...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics classics university realistic fiction historical 20th-century -
![Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton]()
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA timeless classic of sleazy London life in the 1930s, a world of streets full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars... -
![Bent by Martin Sherman]()
Bent by Martin Sherman
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMartin Sherman's worldwide hit play Bent took London by storm in 1979 when it was first performed by the Royal Court Theatre, with Ian McKellen as Max (a character written with the actor in mind). The play itself caused an uproar. "It educated the world," Sherman explains. "People knew about how the Third Reich treated Jews and, to some extent, gypsies and political prisoners... -
![Collected Poems [Of] W. H. Auden by W.H. Auden, Edward Mendelson]()
Collected Poems [Of] W. H. Auden by W.H. Auden, Edward Mendelson
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBetween 1927 and his death in 1973, W. H. Auden endowed poetry in the English language with a new face. Or rather, with several faces, since his work ranged from the political to the religious, from the urbane to the pastoral, from the mandarin to the invigoratingly plain-spoken.This collection presents all the poems Auden wished to preserve, in the texts that received his final approval... -
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![The Citadel by A.J. Cronin]()
The Citadel by A.J. Cronin
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Citadel follows the life of Andrew Manson, a young and idealistic Scottish doctor, as he navigates the challenges of practicing medicine across interwar Wales and England. Based on A.J. Cronin’s own experiences as a physician, this book boldly confronts traditional medical ethics, and has been noted as one of the inspirations for the formation of the National Health Service... -
![Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg]()
Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom Stonewall Award winner Bill Konigsberg, a remarkable, funny, sexy, heartbreaking story of two teen boys finding each other in New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic.The first thing I noticed about C.J. Gorman was his plexiglass bra. So begins Destination Unknown. It's 1987 in New York City, and Micah is at a dance club, trying to pretend he's more out and outgoing than he really is... -
![Assassins by Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman]()
Assassins by Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEvoking a fraternity of political assassins and would-be assassins across a hundred years of our history, Sondheim and Weidman daringly examine success, failure and the questionable drive for power and celebrity in American society. "Dark, demented humor, as horrifying as it is hilarious... -
![The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century by M.H. Abrams, Stephen Greenblatt]()
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century by M.H. Abrams, Stephen Greenblatt
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFirmly grounded by the hallmark strengths of all Norton Anthologies--thorough and helpful introductory matter, judicious annotation, complete texts wherever possible--The Norton Anthology of English Literature has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones... -
![The Major Plays by Anton Chekhov, Rosamund Bartlett]()
The Major Plays by Anton Chekhov, Rosamund Bartlett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnton ChekhovThe Major PlaysIvanov * The Sea Gull * Uncle Vanya * The Three Sisters * The Cherry Orchard“Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life,” Chekhov once declared. “For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time, their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up... -
![O Homem Elefante by Bernard Pomerance]()
O Homem Elefante by Bernard Pomerance
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Elephant Man is based on the life of John Merrick, who lived in London during the latter part of the nineteenth century. A horribly deformed young man, who has been a freak attraction in traveling side shows, is found abandoned and helpless and is admitted for observation to Whitechapel, a prestigious London hospital... -
![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 realistic 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
![Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung]()
Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsCrystal Boys is the first Chinese novel on gay themes. A-qing, the adolescent hero, comes from an impoverished family. His father casts him out after learning that his son is gay. A-qing drifts into New Park, a gay hangout in Taipei, and begins his life as a hustler... -
![Love is Just a Word by Johannes Mario Simmel, Йоханес Марио Зимел]()
Love is Just a Word by Johannes Mario Simmel, Йоханес Марио Зимел
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is the story of Oliver and Verena, who fall in love and risk everything to keep each other.He is the son of a notorious German industrialist. She is the voluptuous, indiscreet wife of a wealthy and ruthless businessman.Apart they have been two lonely people. Half alive. Together, they are radiant... -
![Manto: Selected Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto]()
Manto: Selected Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings...Categorized as:
classics drama politics fiction anthologies literary-fiction 20th-century historical -
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![Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright]()
Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSet in the American Deep South, each of the powerful novellas collected here concerns an aspect of the lives of black people in the postslavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. Published in 1938, this was the first book from Wright, who would continue on to worldwide fame as the author of the novels Native Son and Black Boy...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction politics realistic social-commentary university 20th-century adult -
![Sunday In The Park With George: A Musical by Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine]()
Sunday In The Park With George: A Musical by Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsInspired by Georges Seurat's pointillist masterpiece Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Sondheim and Lapine's musical celebrates the art of creation and the creation of art... -
![The Essential Plays by Anton Chekhov]()
The Essential Plays by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBecause Chekhov’s plays convey the universally recognizable, sometimes comic, sometimes dramatic, frustrations of decent people trying to make sense of their lives, they remain as fresh and vigorous as when they were written a century ago... -
![All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren]()
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsMore than just a classic political novel, Warren’s tale of power and corruption in the Depression-era South is a sustained meditation on the unforeseen consequences of every human act, the vexing connectedness of all people and the possibility—it’s not much of one—of goodness in a sinful world...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction politics realistic university 20th-century audiobook -
![Maurice by E.M. Forster]()
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsMaurice is heartbroken over unrequited love, which opened his heart and mind to his own sexual identity. In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career... -
![Buddies by Ethan Mordden]()
Buddies by Ethan Mordden
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"What unites us, all of us, surely is brotherhood, a sense that our friendships are historic, designed to hold Stonewall together," muses on character in Ethan Mordden's Buddies. This need for friendship, for nonerotic affection, for buddies, shines forth as an American obsession from Moby-Dick through Of Mice and Men to The Sting... -
![The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor]()
The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsO'Connor's 1956 account of big-city politics, inspired by the career of longtime Boston Mayor James M. Curley, portrays its Irish-American political boss as a demagogue and a rogue who nonetheless deeply understands his constituents. The book was later made into a John Ford film staring Spencer Tracy... -
![Fiela's Child by Dalene Matthee]()
Fiela's Child by Dalene Matthee
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in nineteenth-century rural Africa, Fiela's Child tells the gripping story of Fiela Komoetie and a white, three-year old child, Benjamin, whom she finds crying on her doorstep. For nine years Fiela raises Benjamin as one of her own children. But when census takers discover Benjamin, they send him to an illiterate white family of woodcutters who claim him as their son... -
![Roman Fever (and Other Stories) by Edith Wharton]()
Roman Fever (and Other Stories) by Edith Wharton
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Virago Modern Classic These stories - all powerful moral analyses - demonstrate the true professionalism of Edith Wharton...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction realistic university 20th-century adult anthologies female-author -
![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... -
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![Caucasia by Danzy Senna]()
Caucasia by Danzy Senna
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Caucasia—Danzy Senna's extraordinary debut novel and national bestseller—Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq politics realistic social-commentary university -
![The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols]()
The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsJoe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction politics realistic social-commentary 20th-century adult -
![Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin]()
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsGo Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction lgbtq politics realistic social-commentary university -
![The Custom Of The Country by Edith Wharton]()
The Custom Of The Country by Edith Wharton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 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 drama historical-fiction realistic social-commentary university urban 20th-century -
![The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood]()
The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFirst published in 1935 and 1939, the two related novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin, which make up The Berlin Stories are recognized today as classics of modern fiction... -
![Ardh Al Burtuqal Al Hazin: Short Stories in Arabic by غسان كنفاني, Ghassan Kanafani]()
Ardh Al Burtuqal Al Hazin: Short Stories in Arabic by غسان كنفاني, Ghassan Kanafani
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsGhassan Kanafani is an Arab Palestinian writer and fighter. In this literal Arab genri several short stories are included. These stories were written in the 1960's at Kuwait and Bairut-Lebanon, and reflect nostalgia for the home land, Palestine... -
![Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai]()
Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA marvelous first novel, about growing up gay in Sri Lanka...from a brilliant new writer whose next book cannot arrive here quickly enough (Kirkus Reviews)... -
![Broken April by Ismail Kadare]()
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the moment that Gjorg's brother is killed by a neighbour, his own life is forfeit: for the code of Kanun requires Gjorg to kill his brother's murderer and then in turn be hunted down. After shooting his brother's killer, young Gjorg is entitled to thirty days' grace - not enough to see out the month of April.Then a visiting honeymoon couple cross the path of the fugitive...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction politics realistic 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright]()
The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA major literary event: an explosive, previously unpublished novel from the 1940s by the legendary author of Native Son and Black Boy. Fred Daniels, a black man, is picked up randomly by the police after a brutal murder in a Chicago neighborhood and taken to the local precinct where he is tortured until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics social-commentary university politics urban fiction literary-fiction -
![Like People in History by Felice Picano]()
Like People in History by Felice Picano
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTraces forty years in the life of two gay men who share a madcap but enduring relationship and a passion for a handsome Vietnam veteran, against the backdrop of gay urban culture from the fifties up to the present... -
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![A Bright Room Called Day by Tony Kushner]()
A Bright Room Called Day by Tony Kushner
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“One of the things that makes Kushner such a vibrant writer is the way he luxuriates in exuberance and sorrow, emotions that these intense Berliners have in spades. His intellectual characters are tremendously passionate and expressive, so it's hard not to care about what they care about, and what happens to them.” –Washington Post“A juggernaut of a play... -
![Famine by Liam O'Flaherty]()
Famine by Liam O'Flaherty
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSet in the period of the Great Famine of the 1840s, Famine is the story of three generations of the Kilmartin family. It is a masterly historical novel, rich in language, character, and plot--a panoramic story of passion, tragedy, and resilience... -
![The Fancy Dancer by Patricia Nell Warren]()
The Fancy Dancer by Patricia Nell Warren
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTom Meeker is a handsome rookie priest stranded in a dying rural parish. Vidal Stump is a proud, gay half-breed with a criminal record and unlawful desires. Father Meeker must choose between his sacred vows and his secret attraction to this Fancy Dancer who lures him into forbidden love... -
![Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood]()
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHere, meine Damen und Herren, is Chrisopther Isherwood's brilliant farewell to a city which was not only buildings, streets and people, but was also a state of mind which will never come again.In linked short stories, he says goodbye to Sally Bowles, to Fraulein Schroeder, to pranksters, perverts, political manipulators; to the very, very guilty and to the dwindling band of innocents... -
![Petersburg by Andrei Bely, Olga Matich]()
Petersburg by Andrei Bely, Olga Matich
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTaking place over a short, turbulent period in 1905, 'Petersburg' is a colourful evocation of Russia's capital—a kaleidoscope of images and impressions, an eastern window on the west, a symbol of the ambiguities and paradoxes of the Russian character...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction urban politics university fiction 20th-century literary-fiction -
![Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson]()
Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHerald Loomis turns up at a boardinghouse to look for his missing wife...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction social-commentary university 20th-century adult anthologies
![Collected Poems [Of] W. H. Auden by W.H. Auden, Edward Mendelson](https://48f-1.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/books/small/624b32d9a97f8a995d8d2c2b.jpg)
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