Books like 'Black Swans'
Readers who enjoyed Black Swans by Eve Babitz also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century classics literary-fiction season-summer historical-fiction season-autumn coming-of-age
-
Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLiving by their wits in the steamy slums of Bahia, a gang of orphans and runaways, led by fifteen-year-old "Bullet," spend their time stealing from Brazil's rich and privileged until public outcry demands their capture... -
![The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck]()
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 historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century anthologies contemporary drama fiction -
![The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever]()
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 historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates]()
The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRichard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate and accomplished writers of America's post-war generation...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
-
![The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz]()
The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNobel Laureate Octavio Paz is incontestably Latin America's foremost poet. The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz is a landmark bilingual gathering of all the poetry he has published in book form since 1952, the year of his premier long poem, Sunstone (Piedra de Sol)―here translated anew by Eliot Weinberger―made its appearance...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction anthologies 20th-century poc-mc contemporary literary -
![Selected Stories by Alice Munro]()
Selected Stories by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSpanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent collection brings together twenty-eight stories by a writer of unparalleled wit, generosity, and emotional power...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
![Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary]()
Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratings'Promise at Dawn' begins as the story of a mother's sacrifice. Alone and poor, she fights fiercely to give her son the very best. Gary chronicles his childhood with her in Russia, Poland, and on the French Riviera. And he recounts his adventurous life as a young man fighting for France in the Second World War...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver]()
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![What Work Is by Philip Levine]()
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 literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
![The Grapes of Wrath/The Moon is Down/Cannery Row/East of Eden/Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck]()
The Grapes of Wrath/The Moon is Down/Cannery Row/East of Eden/Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Grapes of Wrath / The Moon Is Down / Cannery Row / East of Eden / Of Mice and...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary drama -
![The Sweet Cheat Gone by Marcel Proust]()
The Sweet Cheat Gone by Marcel Proust
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLarge format paper back for easy reading...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook bildungsroman book -
![Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen]()
Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBeatles is the story of Kim Karlsen and his three buddies, Gunnar, Ola and Seb - and, yes, they occasionally like to think of themselves as the Fab Four. They were born in 1951, and the story starts with the first wave of Beatlemania in Norway, in the spring of 1965... -
![Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod]()
Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely, he has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years.A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary family -
![The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt]()
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHelen DeWitt's extraordinary debut, The Last Samurai, centers on the relationship between Sibylla, a single mother of precocious and rigorous intelligence, and her son, who, owing to his mother's singular attitude to education, develops into a prodigy of learning... -
-
![The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty]()
The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWith a preface written by the author especially for this edition, this is the complete collection of stories by Eudora Welty...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction season-summer 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![The Wild Iris by Louise Glück, Jonas Brun]()
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück, Jonas Brun
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWinner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Glück, a stunningly beautiful collection of poems that encompasses the natural, human, and spiritual realmsBound together by the universal themes of time and mortality and with clarity and sureness of craft, Louise Glück's poetry questions, explores, and finally celebrates the ordeal of being alive... -
![The Burning Plain and Other Stories by Juan Rulfo]()
The Burning Plain and Other Stories by Juan Rulfo
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsA major figure in the history of post-Revolutionary literature in Mexico, Juan Rulfo received international acclaim for his brilliant short novel Pedro Paramo (1955) and his collection of short stories El llano en llamas (1953), translated as a collection here in English for the first time...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary drama -
![The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa]()
The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSet among a community of cadets in a Lima military school, it is notable for its experimental and complex employment of multiple perspectives. The novel was so accurate in its portraiture of the academy that the academy's authorities burned one thousand copies and condemned the book as a plan by Ecuador to denigrate Peru... -
![Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra by Jorge Amado]()
Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAt thirteen Tereza is sold by her aunt to a ranch owner who treats her like a piece of property, and sexually abuses her. When caught in bed with her lover she defends herself against the ranch owner’s violence with a knife and ends up in jail. Freed by a long-time admirer, she eventually ends up in a brothel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary drama -
![What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg]()
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...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anti-hero book -
![Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel]()
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is always "earthquake weather" in Amy Hempel's California, a landscape where everything can change without warning. Traditional resources—home, parents, lovers, friends, even willpower—are not dependable. And so the characters in these short, compelling stories have learned to depend on small triumphs of wit, irony, and spirit...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction -
![The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia]()
The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the first appearance in English of a Mexican novelist of enormous talent. His brilliant novel is based on fact: the discovery in the yard of a small-town brothel of the corpses of six prostitutes...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary crime -
![Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin]()
Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe collection consists of the best of his early works - Sukhodol, The Last Rendezvous, Apple Fragrance, The Gentleman from San Francisco - and stories written in his last years - Leka, Sunstroke, Shadowed Paths, and others. They may be called stories about love and about the unforgettable Russian landscape. For here, Bunin writes about himself, in the hushed stillness of the fields..Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth]()
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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction -
-
![Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth]()
Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"The story of this migration is magnificent, informative, breathtaking and exotic". Los Angeles TimesMore than three million readers around the world have been touched by this conservation classic, the story of a solitary Eskimo curlew's last perilous migration and search for a mate. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a lost species...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult animals anthropomorphism book -
![Spring Magic by D.E. Stevenson]()
Spring Magic by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTwenty-five year old Frances Field wanted desperately to get away from her guardians' dull London townhouse. Unforeseen circumstances finally gave her the chance to escape. She decided for the first time in her life to go off on her own, to a quiet fishing village in Scotland...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics coming-of-age literary-fiction romance contemporary fiction war -
![Reader’s Block by David Markson]()
Reader’s Block by David Markson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this spellbinding, utterly unconventional fiction, an aging author who is identified only as Reader contemplates the writing of a novel. As he does, other matters insistently crowd his mind - literary and cultural anecdotes, endless quotations attributed and not, scholarly curiosities - the residue of a lifetime's reading which is apparently all he has to show for his decades on earth...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction philosophy -
![Zenobia by Gellu Naum]()
Zenobia by Gellu Naum
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOne of the best-known novels by prolific Romanian avant-garde writer Gelu Naum, Zenobia is the evocation of the singular quest of a Surrealist knight-errant who strives to be true to the gentle demands of his lady in a landscape of snares, desolation, incipient madness, and material poverty magically interrupted by moments of extreme beauty... -
![Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire]()
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard, J. Nozipo Maraire evokes the moving story of a mother reaching out to her daughter to share the lessons life has taught her and bring the two closer than ever before...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction contemporary epistolary family 20th-century book -
![The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien]()
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book comedy contemporary -
![Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories by Grace Paley]()
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSeventeen stories written over the past fifteen years reveal the author's vision of human love and tragedy...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction -
![Selected Stories by Robert Walser, Susan Sontag]()
Selected Stories by Robert Walser, Susan Sontag
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
![Her Lover by Albert Cohen]()
Her Lover by Albert Cohen
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHandsome, worldly, and intelligent, Solal holds a position of enviable power in 1930s Geneva. But as Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, he has become bitterly disillusioned by international affairs and the self-serving people who surround him...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary dark-academia -
![Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe nine stories and one poem collected in this volume formed the basis for the astonishingly original film “Short Cuts” directed by Robert Altman. Collected altogether in this volume, these stories form a searing and indelible portrait of American innocence and loss...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
-
![Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes]()
Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOut running an errand, Valeria Cossati gives in to a sudden impulse - she buys a shiny black notebook. She starts keeping a diary in secret, recording her concerns about her daughter, fears her husband will discover her new habit and the constant churn of the domestic routine. With each entry Valeria plunges deeper into her interior life, uncovering profound dissatisfaction and restlessness...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics literary-fiction fiction feminism audiobook contemporary female-author -
![The Loser by Thomas Bernhard]()
The Loser by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThomas Bernhard was one of the most original writers of the twentieth century. His formal innovation ranks with Beckett and Kafka, his outrageously cantankerous voice recalls Dostoevsky, but his gift for lacerating, lyrical, provocative prose is incomparably his own...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary drama -
![Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard]()
Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is 1967. In separate wings of a Viennese hospital, two men lie bedridden. The narrator, Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of the celebrated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary death -
![El Camino by Miguel Delibes]()
El Camino by Miguel Delibes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsUpon entering the Royal Spanish Academy in 1975, Miguel Delibes delivered an address which reclaimed El Camino (1950) for the emerging Green movement...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book contemporary -
![The Proof by Ágota Kristóf]()
The Proof by Ágota Kristóf
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen his twin brother Claus escapes across the frontier, Lucas is left to face a bleak existence in a post-war totalitarian state, "doing what has to be done in order to live". But all those he encounters, like himself, suffer an inner loss which primes them for ultimate tragedy...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
![Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan]()
Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsComplete and Unabridged... -
![West of Rome by John Fante]()
West of Rome by John Fante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWest of Rome's two novellas, "My Dog Stupid" and "The Orgy," fulfill the promise of their rousing titles. The latter novella opens with virtuoso description: "His name was Frank Gagliano, and he did not believe in God. He was that most singular and startling craftsman of the building trade-a left-handed bricklayer... -
![Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Mulliner collectionIn the Angler's Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book comedy -
![Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips]()
Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPhillips writes stories that lay bare the suffering and joy of men and women who rarely register in our literature. Here are the abused and the abandoned, the violent and the passive, the impoverished and the disenfranchised who populate the small towns and rural byways of the country. A patron of the arts reserves his fondest feeling for the one man who wants it least...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author -
![A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow]()
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 historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century book contemporary fiction literary -
-
![A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing]()
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 Thirtieth Year: Stories by Ingeborg Bachmann]()
The Thirtieth Year: Stories by Ingeborg Bachmann
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis is collection of the stories written by a distinguished Austrian author who died in 1973. Reading these stories entails abandoning the terms of one's own comfort. The author's relentless vision demands that readers allows themselves to be hypnotised, taken over by her repetitive cadences and burning images of grief and loss...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction 20th-century contemporary female-author anthologies literary -
![The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life by Josef Škvorecký]()
The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life by Josef Škvorecký
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSix tales which trace the libidinous ardours of a young man in wartime Czechoslovakia. His fantasies obstinately refuse to become reality, and in a world of unyielding girls and ruthless Nazi invaders, jazz is his only solace. By the author of "The Bass Saxophone" and "The Engineer of Human Souls"...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas by Marguerite Duras]()
Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas by Marguerite Duras
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this volume of four short novels, Duras demonstrates her remarkable ability to create an emotional intensity and unity by focusing on the intimate details of the relationships among only a few cental characters: from the park bench couple in The Square (1955) to the double love triangle in 10:30 on a Summer Night (1960), each novel probes the depths and complexities of human emotion, of love... -
![The Collected Stories by Elizabeth Bowen]()
The Collected Stories by Elizabeth Bowen
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWidely known for her much-admired novels, including The Heat of the Day , The House in Paris , and The Death of the Heart , Elizabeth Bowen established herself in the front rank of the century's writers equally through her short fiction. This collection brings together seventy-nine magnificent stories written over the course of four decades... -
![Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet]()
Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThese three short novels are the first works to appear in English by a remarkable contemporary French author, Marie Redonnet. Born in Paris in 1947, Redonnet taught for a number of years in a suburban lycée before deciding to pursue a writing career full time...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
