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Recommendations based on The Assaultby Harry Mulisch
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The Discovery of Heaven
by Harry Mulisch
An epic tale of three men's search for a divine stone, testing the boundaries of faith and science.
An angel -like being is ordered to return to Heaven the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments . The divine being, however, cannot himself travel to Earth, and on several occasions in the book ... (Wikipedia)
Stoner
by John Williams
An academic's life of quiet desperation, finding solace in literature.
William Stoner is born on a small farm in 1891. After high school, the county agent advises he go to agriculture school. Stoner enrolls in the University of Missouri , where all agriculture students ... (Wikipedia)
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
A Franciscan friar investigates a series of murders in a medieval monastery, uncovering a sinister plot.
In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
The Plot Against America
by Philip Roth
An alternate history of America, where a fascist president rises to power.
The novel is told from the point of view of Roth as a child growing up in Newark, New Jersey , as the younger son of Herman and Bess Roth. It begins with aviation hero Charles Lindbergh , who is ... (Wikipedia)
The Trial
by Franz Kafka
A man is arrested and put on trial for a crime that remains unclear throughout the novel.
On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K., the chief cashier of a bank, is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. Josef is not ... (Wikipedia)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by David Mitchell
An epic tale of love and adventure set in an 18th century Japanese trading port.
The novel begins in the summer of 1799 at the Dutch East India Company trading post Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki . It tells the story of a Dutch trader's love for a Japanese midwife who is ... (Wikipedia)
Chess Story
by Stefan Zweig
A chess master's attempt to regain his lost skill, and the psychological battle he faces.
The narrator opens the story on a passenger liner traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the Nazis , Dr B, a securities expert hiding ... (Wikipedia)
The Death of Ivan Ilych
by Leo Tolstoy
A man's journey of self-reflection in the face of death, confronting mortality and the meaning of life.
Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a ... (Wikipedia)
Nobody's Boy
by Hector Malot
A young boy's journey of survival, relying on his own resourcefulness to make his way in the world.
A compelling story in which orphaned Remi gets hired out to a traveling street entertainer when his foster parents fall on hard times. Going from village to village with its act, ‘nobody’s boy’ has ... (Goodreads)
Those Who Save Us
by Jenna Blum
A woman's journey of self-discovery, uncovering the secrets of her mother's past.
For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier ... (Barnes & Noble)
A Month in the Country
by J.L. Carr
A man's journey of personal and spiritual redemption, set in rural England during WWI.
In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby where he is to restore a recently ... (Goodreads)
Herzog
by Saul Bellow
A man's existential journey to make sense of his life and relationships.
Herzog is set in 1964 in the United States, and is about the midlife crisis of a Jewish man named Moses E. Herzog. At the age of forty-seven, , he is just emerging from his second divorce, this one ... (Wikipedia)
City of Masks
by Mary Hoffman
A young actor travels to a mysterious city where he discovers a world of secrets and intrigue.
Lucien is seriously ill but his life is transformed when an old Italian notebook gives him the power to become a stravagante, a time traveller with access to 16th century Italy. He wakes up in ... (Goodreads)
Butcher's Crossing
by John Williams
An adventure tale of a young man in the American West, searching for a place to belong.
William Andrews, a Harvard student in the early 1870s, , is not happy with the mundanities of everyday life. After becoming inspired by the poetry and philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, , he decides ... (Wikipedia)
Foucault's Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
A humorous and wild historical conspiracy thriller set across Europe.
A man named Casaubon , is hiding in the Musée des Arts et Métiers after closing. He believes that a secret society has kidnapped his friend Jacopo Belbo and are now after him, and will meet in the ... (Wikipedia)
The Portable Dorothy Parker
by Dorothy Parker
A collection of witty, satirical, and candid stories and poems.
This collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors. ... (Goodreads)
Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
A historical fiction about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry ... (Goodreads)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
Two cousins create a comic book superhero and find success and adventure in 1940s New York.
The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City , where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman. With the help of his ... (Wikipedia)
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
by Jonas Jonasson
An adventurous old man escapes a nursing home for an unexpected journey of self-discovery.
Allan Karlsson is about to celebrate his hundredth birthday, and his retirement home in Malmköping is planning to throw a party. Allan is not interested. Instead, he climbs out the window and ... (Wikipedia)
Memoirs of Hadrian
by Marguerite Yourcenar
Reflections of the Roman Emperor Hadrian on his life, death and the nature of existence.
Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, Memoirs of Hadrian has received international acclaim since its first publication in France in 1951. In it, Marguerite ... (Barnes & Noble)
Baudolino
by Umberto Eco
A medieval tale of adventure, deception and the search for truth.
In the year of 1204, Baudolino of Alessandria enters Constantinople , unaware of the Fourth Crusade that has thrown the city into chaos. In the confusion, he meets Niketas Choniates and saves his ... (Wikipedia)
The Third Policeman
by Flann O'Brien
A bizarre yet darkly funny tale of a man's descent into a surreal world of mischievous creatures and strange events.
The Third Policeman is set in rural Ireland and is narrated by a dedicated amateur scholar of de Selby , a scientist and philosopher. , The narrator, whose name we never learn, is orphaned at a young ... (Wikipedia)
The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink
A man's journey of understanding, uncovering a dark secret from his past.
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of ... (Goodreads)
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
by Selma Lagerlöf
A young boy's journey of self-discovery, as he explores the Swedish wilderness.
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909 — the first woman to be so honored — Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) was a gifted storyteller whose writings were often tinged with the ... (Goodreads)
South of the Border, West of the Sun
by Haruki Murakami
A married man's reflections on a once-in-a-lifetime love affair, and his struggle to reconcile the past with the present.
Alternate cover edition, here,. Growing up in the suburbs of post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. ... (Goodreads)
The Death of Bunny Munro
by Nick Cave
Bunny Munro, a sex-addicted salesman, takes his young son on a road trip after his wife's suicide. Darkly humorous and disturbing.
Set adrift by his wife's sudden death and struggling to keep a grip on reality, Bunny Munro does the only thing he can think of - with his young son in tow, he hits the road. An epic chronicle of one ... (Goodreads)
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
A journey into the depths of the human psyche, exploring the darkness of colonialism.
Aboard the Nellie , anchored in the River Thames near Gravesend , Charles Marlow tells his fellow sailors how he became captain of a river steamboat for an ivory trading company. As a child, Marlow ... (Wikipedia)
The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss
A journey through a web of intertwining stories, searching for the meaning of love.
Approximately 70 years before the present, the 10-year-old Polish-Jewish Leopold (Leo) Gursky falls in love with his neighbor Alma Mereminski. The two begin a relationship that develops over the ... (Wikipedia)
