Books like 'Father'
Readers who enjoyed Father by Elizabeth von Arnim also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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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... -
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLively reminiscences of bandit warfare in the sertao, the still primitive Brazilian back country, told by a wise, retired outlaw chief. ~Worldcat.orgGrande Sertão: Veredas (Portuguese for "Great Backlands: Tracks"; English translation: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) is a novel published in 1956 by the Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
Life With Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is old Bertie Wooster's habit to land in the soup from time to time. To get into a spot of bother. Circumstances, aided and abetted by Aunt Agatha, Aunt Dahlia, Bingo Little, Tuppy, Sippy and others, seem to conspire against him, and a frightful muddle ensues.Enter Jeeves, the source of all solace. Jeeves of the infinite sagacity...Categorized as:
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The Titan: by Theodore Dreiser
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIf there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
A Letter From Pearl Harbor by Anna Stuart
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNinety-eight-year-old Ginny McAllister’s last wish is for her granddaughter to complete a treasure hunt containing clues to her past. Clues that reveal her life as one of the first female pilots at Pearl Harbor, and a devastating World War Two secret...Categorized as:
female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction friendship -
Collected Short Stories: Volume 2 by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis final classic collection reveals Somerset Maugham's unique talent for exposing and exploring the bitter realities of human relationships in tales of love, infidelity, passion and prejudice. The stories range from "The Lotus Eater" where a man envisions a life of bliss in the Mediterranean, to the astringent tales of "The Outstation" and "The Back of Beyond" in Malaya and South East Asia...Categorized as:
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The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSince the publication of Self-Help, her first collection of stories, Lorrie Moore has been hailed as one of the greatest and most influential voices in American fiction...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction classics fiction contemporary female-author anthologies 20th-century -
Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy and middle class Chinese society in the Republican era. The title is taken from an old French proverb, "Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out"... -
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the final years of his prominent life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, and also produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces. The poignant 'The Lady with the Little Dog' and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage - its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment...Categorized as:
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Uncle Fred in the Springtime by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPongo Twistleton is in a state of financial embarrassment, again. Uncle Fred, meanwhile, has been asked by Lord Emsworth to foil a plot to steal the Empress, his prize pig. Along with Polly Pott (daughter of old Mustard), they form a deputation to Blandings Castle, bent on doing a "bit of good"...Categorized as:
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Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe best of Bukowski's novels, stories, and poems, this collection reads like an autobiography, relating the extraordinary story of his life and offering a sometimes harrowing, invariably exhilarating reading experience. A must for this counterculture idol's legion of fans...Categorized as:
classics female-mc literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
The Girl in the Photo by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTheresienstadt Concentration Camp, 1944. ‘I have to go away, my darling. Please, be brave, stay alive, for me.’ Mama’s voice breaks. The little girl tries to stop the forbidden tears from falling, as the train takes her mother, and she is left alone…Berlin, six years later. Hanni Winter glows with pride as she shows her new husband around her first solo photography exhibition...Categorized as:
female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book coming-of-age fiction -
Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhere does David belong? David Kirke’s childhood is sheltered, his nature is gentle and peaceable; he is no hero of romance but a human being with faults and failings which lead him into trouble when he adventures into the world to seek his fortune... -
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Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"Selected Stories of O. Henry," by O. Henry, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure anthologies comedy -
The Traveller's Daughter by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsROSA’S PAST IS HER PANDORA’S BOX, AND THE LID IS ABOUT TO BE LIFTED … ‘If you lie down with dogs you’ll rise with fleas’ – Irish Proverb Rosa Sorenson’s conversation was often peppered with sayings from her homeland. It was these conversational clangers that gave her daughter Kitty the only clue as to a childhood her mother refused to speak of...Categorized as:
female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book family fiction -
Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández by Antonio A. Gómez Yebra
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMiguel Hernández is, along with Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Federico García Lorca, one of the greatest Spanish poets of the twentieth century... -
Incidences by Daniil Kharms
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis wonderfully inventive collection of stories presents the writing of Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms at its vibrant, perplexing best. The book is composed of short miniatures: strange, funny, dream-like fragments ? many of which the author called ?incidents? ? that tend to feature accidents, falling, chance violence and sudden death... -
The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel by Isaac Babel
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFollowing the historic publication of Norton's The Complete Works of Isaac Babel in the fall of 2001, The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel appears as the most authoritative and complete edition of his fiction ever published in paperback...Categorized as:
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The Gift of the Magi and Other Short Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHere are sixteen of the best stories by one of America's most popular storytellers. For nearly a century, the work of O. Henry has delighted readers with its humor, irony and colorful, real-life settings. The writer's own life had more than a touch of color and irony...Categorized as:
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The Dream Songs by John Berryman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis edition combines The Dream Songs, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969 and contains all 385 songs. Of The Dream Songs, A. Alvarez wrote in The Observer, "A major achievement. He has written an elegy on his brilliant generation and, in the process, he has also written an elegy on himself... -
The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHenry Molise, a 50 year old, successful writer, returns to the family home to help with the latest drama; his aging parents want to divorce. Henry's tyrannical, brick laying father, Nick, though weak and alcoholic, can still strike fear into the hearts of his sons. His mother, though ill and devout to her Catholicism, still has the power to comfort and confuse her children... -
Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984 by Henri Michaux
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHenri Michaux defies common critical definition. Critics have compared his work to such diverse artists as Kafka, Goya, Swift, Klee, and Beckett. Allen Ginsberg called Michaux “genius,” and Jorge Luis Borges wrote that Michaux’s work “is without equal in the literature of our time... -
The Healers by Ayi Kwei Armah
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFiction. African Studies. THE HEALERS tells a story of the conflict and regeneration focused on replacing toxic ignorance with the healing knowledge of African unity...Categorized as:
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Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsO. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman...Categorized as:
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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:
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The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield by Katherine Mansfield
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWith an Introduction and Notes by Professor Stephen Arkin, San Francisco State University.Katherine Mansfield is widely regarded as a writer who helped create the modern short story. Born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1888, she came to London in 1903 to attend Queen's College and returned permanently in 1908...Categorized as:
classics female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies female-author -
Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMore than sixty stories, poems, and essays are included in this wide-ranging collection by the extravagantly versatile Raymond Carver. Two of the stories—later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love—are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver’s literary development... -
Full Moon by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen the moon is full at Blandings, strange things happen: among them the commissioning of a portrait of The Empress, twice in succession winner in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. What better choice of artist, in Lord Emsworth's opinion, than Landseer...Categorized as:
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Dumb Luck by Vũ Trọng Phụng, Peter Zinoman
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBanned in Vietnam until 1986, Dumb Luck--by the controversial and influential Vietnamese writer Vu Trong Phung--is a bitter satire of the rage for modernization in Vietnam during the late colonial era. First published in Hanoi during 1936, it follows the absurd and unexpected rise within colonial society of a street-smart vagabond named Red-haired Xuan... -
Novels 1930-1935: As I Lay Dying / Sanctuary / Light in August / Pylon by William Faulkner
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBetween 1930 and 1935, William Faulkner came into full possession of the genius and creativity that made him one of America’s finest writers of the twentieth century. The four novels in this Library of America collection display an astonishing range of characters and treatments in his Depression-era fiction... -
The Persephone Book of Short Stories by Susan Glaspell, Katherine Mansfield
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMost of these stories focus on the small, quiet or unspoken intricacies of human relationships rather than grand dramas. The use of metaphor is delicate and subtle; often the women are strong and capable and the men less so; shallow and selfish motives are exposed.The dates of these stories range from 1909 to 1986 and there are thirty in all... -
Babbitt & Main Street: Two Classic American Books by Sinclair Lewis
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings• Two of American author Sinclair Lewis' novels are in this Kindle eBook: Babbitt & Main Street Babbitt (1922) Babbitt is at its heart a satire of American society. It was an immediate hit and helped Babbitt win the Nobel Prize in literature. Main Street Another satire, this time involving small town life in America...Categorized as:
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Sam the Sudden by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsNot-so-fresh off the tramp steamer from America, Sam Shotter settles in the sleepy suburb of Valley Fields. His pastoral peace is short-lived, however, when Soapy Molloy, Dolly the Dip, and Chimp Twist arrive on the scene looking for two million dollars they seem to have mislaid in the vicinity...Categorized as:
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The Casuarina Tree by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA collection of six stories—including the acclaimed “The Outstation”—by the renowned twentieth-century author of the classic Of Human Bondage. Set in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s, these stories portray the lives of the English living abroad and the clashes that occur with the native Malaysians—and among themselves...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction romantic-love fiction 20th-century historical anthologies literary -
Something Fishy by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA butler named Keggs who, having overheard the planning of a scheme, later decides to try and make money out of his knowledge. This title features Percy Pilbeam, the unscrupulous head of the Argus Detective Agency, who first appeared in "Bill the Conqueror" (1924) and was in several other Wodehouse books, including a visit to Blandings Castle in "Summer Lightning" (1929)... -
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... -
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Engineer of Human Souls is a labyrinthine comic novel that investigates the journey and plight of novelist Danny Smiricky, a Czech immigrant to Canada. As the novel begins, he is a professor of American literature at a college in Toronto...Categorized as:
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Old Herbaceous: A Novel of the Garden by Reginald Arkell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBack in print after fifty yearsOld Herbaceous is a classic British novel of the garden, with a title character as outsized and unforgettable as P. G. Wodehouse’s immortal butler, Jeeves... -
The Manor by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis novel portrays the difficulties encountered by traditionalist Jews coming to terms with the social changes that rocked Poland in the late 19th century. The central figure of the novel is Calman Jacoby, who stands between the old and the new, unable to embrace either whole-heartedly...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction historical 20th-century family book -
Quick Service by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen imperious American widow Beatice Chavender eats a forkful of inferior ham at her sister's country home near London, it affects the lives of everyone around her--her sister, her brother-in-law, her sister's butler, her sister's poor relation Sally, Sally's fiance Lord Holbeton, and, most of all, Mrs. Chavender's own one-time fiance, "Ham King" J.B...Categorized as:
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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... -
The Luck of the Bodkins by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMonty Bodkin's wooing of Gertrude Butterwick on the R.M.S. Atlantic is not progressing as it should. And the cause of all the trouble is Miss Lotus Blossum, the brightest star in Hollywood's firmament. The easy camaraderie of Miss Blossom, coupled with the idea that Monty is the only person who can send the errant Ambrose back to her welcoming arms, is causing Mr Bodkin moments of acute distress...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
The Wine of Youth by John Fante
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsContains the stories in Dago Red, first published in 1940, together with seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father’s God... -
Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJennie Gerhardt was Theodore Dreiser's second novel and his first true commercial success. Today it is generally regarded as one of his three best novels, along with Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. But the text of Jennie Gerhardt heretofore known to readers is quite different from the text as Dreiser originally wrote it...Categorized as:
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Call If You Need Me by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen he died in August 1988, Raymond Carver had just published what were thought to be his last stories in the collection entitled Elephant and his own collection of stories, Where I'm Calling from... -
The Master Jeweler by Weina Dai Randel
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Night Angels comes the epic story of a brilliant young woman’s dangerous rise to fame in the perilous world of jewelry in 1920s Shanghai―and the power of love and friendship.Harbin, China, 1925...Categorized as:
historical-fiction romantic-love female-mc fiction historical poc-mc audiobook 20th-century -
Pygmalion and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPygmalion and Three Other Plays, by George Bernard Shaw, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies comedy
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