Books like 'Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away'
Readers who enjoyed Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away by Rebecca Goldstein also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological politics religion technology philosophical historical-fiction ancient-civilization classics humor
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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... -
![The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse by Ayfer Tunç]()
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... -
![Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin]()
Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRussian novelist Victor Pelevin is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most brilliant young writers at work today. His comic inventiveness and mind-bending talent prompted Time magazine to proclaim him a "psychedelic Nabokov for the cyber-age...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor philosophical politics religion satire spirituality -
![Claron by Katharine E. Hamilton]()
Claron by Katharine E. Hamilton
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTossing her belongings into a suitcase and escaping heartbreak seemed like the best idea for Rhea Conners. She’d simply travel across the ocean to visit her grandfather in Ireland and heal. Then she’d come back. Simple. But what she doesn’t expect is to find solace and healing in the form of the O’Rifcan family. One member in Claron...Categorized as:
humor religion spirituality romance contemporary fiction womens-fiction psychological -
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![True to You in Good Hope by Cindy Kirk]()
True to You in Good Hope by Cindy Kirk
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsShe can handle anything…except her sister marrying her exIn Good Hope, Piper sees herself as a woman totally in control. That control frays when her sister becomes engaged to her ex. Not only is she asked to be the maid of honor, her sister wants Piper to make her wedding dress!Piper thought she was doing the right thing, keeping the real reason for that long-ago split a secret from her family... -
![Tilly's Tuscan Teashop: A gorgeously uplifting summer read by Daisy James]()
Tilly's Tuscan Teashop: A gorgeously uplifting summer read by Daisy James
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWelcome to Tilly's Tuscan Teashop, the first book in a brand new series from the author of the Hummingbird Hotel and the Cornish Confetti Agency series.When photographer Natalie Nicholson’s beach hut studio – and everything she’s spent the last two years working on – is destroyed in a fire, she doesn’t think things can get any worse... -
![Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Hitchens]()
Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Hitchens
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsThe astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future--of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction philosophical politics satire technology 20th-century audiobook -
![What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies]()
What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsFrancis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small-town embalmer, an expert art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis's life were not always what they seemed... -
![Christmas at the Cornish Confetti Agency by Daisy James]()
Christmas at the Cornish Confetti Agency by Daisy James
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's Christmas at The Cornish Confetti Agency!When Lexie Harrington is asked to choreograph Phoebe and Sam’s Christmas-themed wedding, she can’t wait to create the perfect winter wonderland - elegantly dressed fir trees, glossy garlands of holly and mistletoe, baskets of yule logs and pine cones, and the mouth-watering fragrance of gingerbread, cinnamon sticks and warm mulled wine floating... -
![The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch]()
The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsHarry Mulisch's magnum opus, is a rich mosaic of twentieth-century trauma in which many themes—friendship, loyalty, family, art, technology, religion, fate, good, and evil—suffuse a suspenseful and resplendent narrative.The Discovery of Heaven begins with the meeting of Onno and Max, two complicated individuals whom fate has mysteriously and magically brought together...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor religion satire spirituality 20th-century action-adventure -
![Saint Richard Parker by Merlin Franco]()
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... -
![Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman]()
Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 48 ratingsTold with drama and insight, this novel begins when Dan, a world champion gymnast, meets his powerful 96-year-old mentor Socrates, an all-night gas station attendant. Guided by this wise old mentor, Dan learns new ways to see the world and live life to its fullest...Categorized as:
classics philosophical politics religion spirituality 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![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... -
![The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac, David Lodge]()
The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac, David Lodge
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe masterpiece of one of the greatest modern Catholic writersthe divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths. It is the unforgettable tale of the battle for one man's soul... -
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![The Instructions by Adam Levin]()
The Instructions by Adam Levin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBeginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor philosophical religion spirituality 21st-century adult anthologies -
![My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn]()
My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsAn extraordinary and startlingly original sequel to Ishmael "Enthralling, shocking, hope-filled, and utterly fearless, Daniel Quinn leads us deeper and deeper into the human heart, history, and spirit. In My Ishmael, Quinn strikes out into entirely new territory, posing questions that will rock you on your heels, and providing tantalizing possibilities for a truly new world vision... -
![No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn these four plays, Jean-Paul Sartre, the great existentialist novelist and philosopher, displays his mastery of drama. NO EXIT is an unforgettable portrayal of hell. THE FLIES is a modern reworking of the Electra-Orestes story. DIRTY HANDS is about a young intellectual torn between theory and praxis. THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is an attack on American racism... -
![The Joke by Milan Kundera]()
The Joke by Milan Kundera
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe authoritative version of the brilliant first novel by the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. A great novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried, in a completely revised translation that is nothing less than the restoration of a classic... -
![The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano]()
The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“A Dante/Beckett reduction of human struggle to its lowest common denominator.”— Michael Mirolla, author of The Formal Logic of Emotion and Berlin“One of the most original and thought-provoking stories I have ever read...true literary art...Not a word is wasted in this masterpiece. Yes, I call it that... -
![Words Unspoken by Elizabeth Musser]()
Words Unspoken by Elizabeth Musser
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLissa Randall's future was bright with academic promise until the tragic accident that took her mother's life--and brought her own plans to a screeching halt. Eighteen months later Lissa is still unable to get back behind the wheel.Ev McAllistair's driving school looks like Lissa's best hope for getting her life back on the road again...Categorized as:
historical-fiction religion spirituality romance christian fiction contemporary psychological -
![The Clown by Heinrich Böll]()
The Clown by Heinrich Böll
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAcclaimed entertainer Hans Schnier collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won’t marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life—the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards... -
![The Second Coming by Walker Percy]()
The Second Coming by Walker Percy
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWill Barrett (also the hero of Percy's The Last Gentleman) is a lonely widower suffering from a depression so severe that he decides he doesn't want to continue living. But then he meets Allison, a mental hospital escapee making a new life for herself in a greenhouse... -
![A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch, Peter Reed]()
A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch, Peter Reed
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction philosophical religion spirituality 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard]()
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... -
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![The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann]()
The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSince the publication of his first book in 1987, William T. Vollmann has established himself as one of the most fascinating and unconventional literary figures on the scene today... -
![Meg's Confession by Sierra Donovan]()
Meg's Confession by Sierra Donovan
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMeg Reilly is a pregnant widow who ducks into a confessional to spill her deepest, darkest secrets. Trouble is, the man on the other side of the booth isn't a priest. Craig Stovall is the owner of a local construction business--he's just there to repair the confessional. But when Meg starts talking, he's too surprised and tongue-tied to stop her until he hears too much... -
![The Clouds by Juan José Saer]()
The Clouds by Juan José Saer
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"Saer is one of the best writers of today in any language."—Ricardo Piglia"What Saer presents marvelously is the experience of reality, and the characters' attempts to write their own narratives within its excess... -
![The Jericho Deception: A Novel by Jeffrey Small]()
The Jericho Deception: A Novel by Jeffrey Small
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAt the intersection of science and spirituality lies the human mind.The Jericho Deception is a psychological adventure into the interplay of mind and spirit, science and religion, mystery and mysticism...Categorized as:
spirituality historical-fiction religion politics fiction thriller suspense psychological -
![The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas by Yan Lianke]()
The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas by Yan Lianke
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOver the last decade, Yan Lianke has been continually heralded as one of the "best contemporary Chinese writers" (The Independent) and "one of the country's fiercest satirists" (The Guardian). Among many awards and honors, he has been twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize and he was awarded the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize for his impressive body of work...Categorized as:
historical-fiction satire humor fiction magical-realism contemporary journey season-winter -
![The Bell by Iris Murdoch]()
The Bell by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor philosophical religion satire spirituality 20th-century -
![A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen]()
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA New York Times Editors' Choice Named a Best Book of 2018 by Bookforum, Nylon, Esquire, and Vulture"This artful and autumnal novel, published in high summer, is a gift to those who wish to receive it."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Hilarious, heartbreaking . . . A Terrible Country may be one of the best books you'll read this year... -
![Bon Bons to Yoga Pants by Katie Cross]()
Bon Bons to Yoga Pants by Katie Cross
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLexie Greene has always had such a pretty face. Unfortunately, that's where it seemed to stop. She's grown up hearing her Mother constantly remind her that she needs to lose weight. And twenty-two-year-old Lexie knows she's overweight. With her younger sister's wedding on the horizon and a crush to stalk on Facebook, Lexie's had enough... -
![The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch]()
The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIris Murdoch's richly peopled novel revolves round a happily married couple, Kate and Octavian, and the friends of all ages attached to their household in Dorset. The novel deals with love in its two aspects, the self-gratifying and the impersonal; - The Nice And The Good - as they are embodied in a fascinating array of paired characters... -
![The Assistant by Bernard Malamud]()
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBernard Malamud’s second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who “wants better” for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant... -
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![Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho]()
Like the Flowing River by Paulo Coelho
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA breathtaking collection of reflections from one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho. In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Paulo Coelho, the author of 'The Alchemist', offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, traveling and the nature of good and evil... -
![The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch]()
The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA sly, witty, and beautifully orchestrated tale about the difficulty of being good Edward Baltram is overwhelmed with guilt. His nasty little prank has gone horribly wrong: he has fed his closest friend a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug and the young man has fallen out of a window to his death. Consumed with guilt, Edward experiences a debilitating crisis of conscience... -
![Agapē Agape by William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi]()
Agapē Agape by William Gaddis, Joseph Tabbi
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWilliam Gaddis published four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes for a book about the mechanization of the arts, told by way of a social history of the player piano in America...Categorized as:
classics technology humor philosophical fiction 20th-century 21st-century postmodernism -
![The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel]()
The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsShulman, a chubby, middle-aged stationery-store owner from New Jersey, has always claimed that he's been gaining and losing the same thirty-five pounds since junior high-and that if you added all of that discarded weight together, he had lost an entire person. Another Shulman. A Shulman he never really cared for. A Shulman he'd always tried to lose by dieting and exercising... -
![A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L'Engle]()
A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L'Engle
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMadeleine L'Engle's first adult novel in four years -- now in paperback! With 23,000 copies sold since May 1996, this "haunting domestic drama" (Publishers Weekly) examines the powers of faith and mercy in one family's confrontation with a legacy of evil...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction religion spirituality book christian contemporary family -
![Compass by Mathias Énard]()
Compass by Mathias Énard
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life: his ongoing fascination with the Middle East and his numerous travels to Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, and Tehran, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians,...Categorized as:
historical-fiction religion spirituality 21st-century adult book contemporary fiction -
![The End of the Road by John Barth]()
The End of the Road by John Barth
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIts first-person protagonist, Jacob Horner, suffers from nihilistic paralysis: an inability to choose a course of action. As part of a schedule of unorthodox therapies, Horner's nameless Doctor has him take a teaching job at a local teachers college... -
![Carnality by Lina Wolff]()
Carnality by Lina Wolff
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this latest novel from the award-winning author of The Polyglot Lovers, a writer searching for inspiration in Spain goes on a darkly comic, delightfully absurd journey through an underground society.Awarded a three-month stipend to travel and work, a Swedish writer flies to Madrid, where in a bar she meets a man with an extraordinary story to tell... -
![Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig]()
Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsIn this best-selling new book, his first in seventeen years, Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, takes us on a poignant and passionate journey as mysterious and compelling as his first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in... -
![Adrift on the Nile by Naguib Mahfouz]()
Adrift on the Nile by Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA stunning novel by the widest-read Arab writer currently published in the U.S. The age of Nasser has ushered in enormous social change, and most of the middle-aged and middle-class sons and daughters of the old bourgeoisie find themselves trying to recreate the cozy, enchanted world they so dearly miss. One night, however, art and reality collide--with unforeseen circumstances... -
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![God Is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.]()
God Is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom a mind-blowing new talent, an audacious novel that imagines the world after God takes human form and diesWhen God descends to Earth as a Dinka woman from Sudan and subsequently dies in the Darfur desert, the result is a world both bizarrely new yet eerily familiar... -
![Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz]()
Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsIn this bitterly funny novel by the renowned Polish author Witold Gombrowicz. a writer finds himself tossed into a chaotic world of schoolboys by a diabolical professor who wishes to reduce him to childishness. Originally published in Poland in 1937. Ferdydurke became an instant literary sensation and catapulted the young author to fame. Deemed scandalous and subversive by Nazis. Stalinists... -
![The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq]()
The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsA worldwide phenomenon and the most important French novelist since Albert Camus, Michel Houellebecq now delivers his magnum opus–a tale of our present circumstances told from the future, when humanity as we know it has vanished... -
![Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo]()
Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo
Rated: 3.77 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLong hailed as a seminal work of modernism in the tradition of Joyce and Kafka, and now available in a supple new English translation, Italo Svevo’s charming and splendidly idiosyncratic novel conducts readers deep into one hilariously hyperactive and endlessly self-deluding mind... -
![Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, Giorgio Manganelli]()
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, Giorgio Manganelli
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsThis masterpiece of science (and mathematical) fiction is a delightfully unique and highly entertaining satire that has charmed readers for more than 100 years. The work of English clergyman, educator and Shakespearean scholar Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926), it describes the journeys of A. Square [sic – ed... -
![The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole]()
The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole
Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Neon Bible tells the story of David, a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. David's voice is perfectly calibrated, disarmingly funny, sad, shrewd, gathering force from page to page with an emotional directness that never lapses into sentimentality...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction religion satire spirituality 20th-century book coming-of-age
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