Books like 'The Metaphysical Poets'
Readers who enjoyed The Metaphysical Poets by Helen Gardner also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire, Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsHere are the gods, goddesses, and legendary figures of ancient Greece--mighty Zeus, with his fistful of thunderbolts; gray-eyed Athena, goddess of wisdom; Helios, the sun; greedy King Midas--lavishly depicted by Caldecott winners Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire... -
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsAn alternate cover edition can be found here and hereA great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure...Categorized as:
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The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 83 ratingsAn alternate cover edition can be found here and hereA great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure...Categorized as:
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The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsMoscow, 1929: a city that has lost its way amid corruption and fear, inhabited by people who have abandoned their morals and forsaken spirituality. But when a mysterious stranger arrives in town with a bizarre entourage that includes a giant talking cat and a fanged assassin, all hell breaks loose...Categorized as:
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The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsAlternative cover for ISBN: 978-0-00-746123-3C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce is a classic Christian allegorical tale about a bus ride from hell to heaven. An extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment, Lewis’s revolutionary idea in the The Great Divorce is that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside...Categorized as:
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The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 78 ratingsThe story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior "tempter" named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as "the Patient".Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to Wormwood, the inexperienced tempter...Categorized as:
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The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 88 ratingsLibrarian note: An alternate cover for this edition can be found here: 2005.Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there...Categorized as:
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Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, two of C. S. Lewis's most important and enduring works, are now available in this stunning, collectible hardcover edition. The most popular of C. S. Lewis's works of non-fiction, Mere Christianity, has sold several million copies worldwide... -
The Screwtape letters & Screwtape proposes a toast by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsDedicated to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, this masterpiece of satire has entertained and enlightened millions of readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of the demon Screwtape. At once wildly comic and strikingly original, the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood shows C.S. Lewis at his darkest and most playful... -
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 100 ratingsPeter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy find their way through an old wardrobe into the world of Narnia. There, they unite with Aslan to fight the White Witch and save Narnia from perpetual Darkness...Categorized as:
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The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsOn the world called Hyperion the mysterious Time Tombs are opening and seven pilgrims risk their lives to petition the entity called the Shrike - a creature that may well control the fate of all mankind...Categorized as:
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The Moon Under Her Feet by Clysta Kinstler
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNarrative weaving the biblical account of Mary and Jesus, the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris, and the Sumerian story of Inanna and Dumuzi to create an exotic tale of a strong, sensual woman.From Publishers WeeklyThis feminist retelling of the conception, birth, life and death of Christ as narrated by Mary Magdalene may cause some uproar in Christian circles... -
Endymion by Dan Simmons, Guy Abadia
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe multiple-award-winning SF master returns to the universe that is his greatest success--the world of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion--to tell a story of love and memory, triumph and terror in a novel even more magnificent than its predecessors.Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest...Categorized as:
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Novels & Stories: The Lottery / The Haunting of Hill House / We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Other Stories and Sketches by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratings“The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable,” writes A. M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse...Categorized as:
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Tales from Ovid by Ovid
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWhen Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun's ground-breaking anthology After Ovid (also Faber) was published in 1995, Hughes's three contributions to the collective effort were nominated by most critics as outstanding...Categorized as:
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The Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by H. P. Lovecraft. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization. It references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures and invocations...Categorized as:
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A Confederate General from Big Sur / Dreaming of Babylon / The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsRichard Brautigan was the author of ten novels, including a contemporary classic, Trout Fishing in America, nine volumes of poetry, and a collection of stories.Here are three Brautigan novels--A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon and The Hawkline Monster--reissues in a one-volume omnibus edition...Categorized as:
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The Haunted Dolls' House by M.R. James
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEvil comes with many different faces. A macabre human drama is re-enacted in a Gothic dolls' house one night; a whistle awakens a force of unspeakable malevolence; an ancient curse is passed from person to person; a grisly crime is avenged from beyond the grave; the tomb of a Swedish count will not rest quietly . M. R...Categorized as:
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The Delicate Prey and Other Stories by Paul Bowles
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPaul Bowles once said that a story should remain taut throughout, like a piece of string. That tense, stretched tone is the key to this collection of 17 eerie tales by the author best known for The Sheltering Sky. The Delicate Prey is dedicated: "For my mother, who first read me the stories of Poe... -
The Day Boy and the Night Girl by George MacDonald
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Romance of Photogen and Nycteris I. Watho THERE was once a witch who desired to know everything. But the wiser a witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She cared for nothing in itself — only for knowing it. She was not naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her cruel...Categorized as:
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The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIt is the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and Publius Vergilius Maro, the poet of the Aeneid and Caesar's enchanter, has been summoned to the palace, where he will shortly die...Categorized as:
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The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsInspired by serial killer Harry Powers, "The Bluebeard of Quiet Dell," who was hung in 1932 for his murders of two widows and three children. This best-selling novel, first published in 1953 to wide acclaim by author Grubb, (who like Powers lived in Clarksburg, West Virginia), served as the basis for Charles Laughton's noir classic...Categorized as:
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The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsChava is a golem, a woman made of clay, able to hear the thoughts and longings of the people around her and compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a perpetually restless and free-spirited creature of fire, imprisoned in the shape of a man... -
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsrelates the adventures of Satan, the sinless nephew of the biblical Satan, in Eseldorf, an Austrian village in the year 1702. Twain wrote this version between November 1897 and September 1900. "Eseldorf" is German for "Assville" or "Donkeytown"...Categorized as:
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A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsIn this companion volume to A Wrinkle In Time (Newbery Award winner) and A Wind In The Door fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace and the unicorn Gaudior undertake a perilous journey through time in a desperate attempt to stop the destruction of the world by the mad dictator Madog Branzillo. They are not alone in their quest...Categorized as:
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Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsEarth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rule their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons, Lord of Light...Categorized as:
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The Martyr's Song by Ted Dekker
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsWhat would you die for?That's the question suddenly thrust upon a small band of women and children in Bosnia at the close of World War II. When a group of bitter soldiers stumble upon their peaceful village, they suddenly face an insidious evil...and the ultimate test.It is then, in the midst of chaos and pain that the Martyr's Song is first heard...Categorized as:
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Scepticism Inc by Bo Fowler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEdgar Malroy is the founder of a metaphysical betting shop. A weary atheist, Edgar challenges people to put their money where their mouths are about their faith. If someone really believes that the 16th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is the one true incarnation, or that God is love, or that his grandfather's spirit lives in a tree, Edgar reasons he should be willing to bet money on it... -
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier, Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJohn Collier's edgy, sardonic tales are works of rare wit, curious insight, and scary implication. They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl... -
The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen he found himself unable to find a publisher for his story, author Philip Van Doren Stern printed up copies of the “The Greatest Gift” and gave them out as Christmas cards in 1943. Eventually, the story came to the attention of director Frank Capra, who explained later, “It was the story I had been looking for all my life! A good man, ambitious... -
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil... -
In a Grove by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 23 ratings"In a Grove" (藪の中, Yabu no Naka?) is a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, first appearing in the January 1922 edition of the Japanese literature monthly Shinchō. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the basis for his award-winning movie Rashōmon...Categorized as:
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 81 ratingsNARNIA... the world of wicked dragons and magic spells, where the very best is brought out of even the worst people, where anything can happen (and most often does)... and where the adventure begins.The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries...Categorized as:
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Mules And Men by Zora Neale Hurston
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsMules and Men is a treasury of black America's folklore as collected by a famous storyteller and anthropologist who grew up hearing the songs and sermons, sayings and tall tales that have formed an oral history of the South since the time of slavery...Categorized as:
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Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsGenerations ago, humans fled to the cosmic anomaly known as Grass. But before humanity arrived, another species had already claimed Grass for its own. It too had developed a culture...... Now a deadly plague is spreading across the stars, leaving no planet untouched, save for Grass. But the secret of the planet's immunity hides a truth so shattering it could mean the end of life itself...Categorized as:
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsThis Newbery Award winner brings to life the witch hysteria of Puritan New England... -
The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWalter Wangerin's profound fantasy concerns a time when the sun turned around the earth and the animals could speak, when Chauntecleer the Rooster ruled over a more or less peaceful kingdom. What the animals did not know was that they were the Keepers of Wyrm, monster of evil long imprisoned beneath the earth ... and Wyrm, sub terra, was breaking free...Categorized as:
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Fairy & Folk Tales of Ireland by W.B. Yeats, Benedict Kiely
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTHE CLASSIC ONE-VOLUME INTRODUCTION TO IRELAND'S RICH FOLKLORE: WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS'S MAGICAL SELECTION OF TRADITIONAL IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland combines two books of Irish folklore collected and edited by William Butler Yeats -- Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, first published in 1888, and Irish Fairy Tales, published in 1892...Categorized as:
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I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé, Angela Y. Davis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Stunning... Maryse Condé's imaginative subversion of historical records forms a critique of contemporary American society and its ingrained racism and sexism." —THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBEAt the age of seven, Tituba watched as her mother was hanged for daring to wound a plantation owner who tried to rape her... -
The Tombs of Anak by Frank E. Peretti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen Jay and Lila Cooper enter the cave-tombs of Anak with their archaeologist father, they hope to find a co-worker who has unaccountably disappeared. Instead, they stumble onto a frightening religion and new mysteries that soon put them all in incredible danger. The third book of the Cooper Kids Adventures...Categorized as:
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Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMr Bickersdyke Walks behind the Bowler's Arm Considering what a prominent figure Mr John Bickersdyke was to be in Mike Jackson's life, it was only appropriate that he should make a dramatic entry into it. This he did by walking behind the bowler's arm when Mike had scored ninety-eight, causing him thereby to be clean bowled by a long-hop... -
The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNobel Prize laureate Anatole France's The Revolt of the Angels, often considered his most profound novel, tells the story of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice d'Esparvieu, who falls in love and joins the revolutionary movement of angels. Originally published in 1914... -
The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor readers of the The True Story of Maddie Bright, The Woman in the Green Dress and The Birdman's Wife comes this atmospheric and richly detailed Australian historical mystery from a bestselling Australian author.Maitland 1913. Miss Elizabeth Quinn is something of an institution in Maitland Town...Categorized as:
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The Sibyl by Pär Lagerkvist
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratings4 K- Blackstone Exclusive This Nobel Prize-winning author here explores the meaning of divine and human love, through the characters of a wandering Jew and a sibyl of Delphi. This is a remarkable book...Lagerkvist has written a disturbing and fearful fable about human and divine love, and about the glories and disasters of both...Categorized as:
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Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPatrick White's brilliant 1961 novel, set in an Australian suburb, intertwines four deeply different lives. An Aborigine artist, a Holocaust survivor, a beatific washerwoman, and a childlike heiress are each blessed—and stricken—with visionary experiences that may or may not allow them to transcend the machinations of their fellow men... -
The Swedish Cavalier by Leo Perutz, J. Maxwell Brownjohn
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsMuch admired by such disparate writers as Ian Fleming, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Graham Greene, Leo Perutz has won international recognition as a master storyteller and "a great modern writer" ( Philadelphia Inquirer)...Categorized as:
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Mythologies by W.B. Yeats
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBanshees and faeries, demons and curses, village ghosts and mystic poets work their Gaelic magic in this enthralling collection of supernatural tales from the pen of William Butler Yeats... -
The Goat Foot God by Dion Fortune
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe mediaeval mind of the man returned from the dead knew no half-lights or compromise in the doctrines of sin and hell. According to all the standards ofhis world, he had sold his soul to the Devil and an eternity of hell-fire awaited him.'She gazed back at him. The minutes were slipping away one after the other. A town clock chimed the hour... -
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIn the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the drug Can-D, which enables users to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z...Categorized as:
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The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 75 ratingsThis edition of Lewis's classic fantasy fiction is packaged specifically for adults. Complementing the look of the author's non-fiction books, and anticipating the forthcoming Narnia feature films, this edition contains an exclusive P.S. section about the history of the book, plus a round-up of the first six titles...Categorized as:
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