Recommendations based on Look Who's Backby Timur Vermes

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog

    by Muriel Barbery
    A story of two unlikely outcasts who find solace and comfort in each other's company.

    The story revolves mainly around the characters of Renée Michel and Paloma Josse, residents of an upper-middle class Left Bank apartment building at 7 Rue de Grenelle – one of the most elegant ... (Wikipedia)

  2. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

    by Rachel Joyce
    An elderly man's unexpected quest of faith, discovering the power of hope and love.

    Harold Fry, 65, has cut the lawn outside his home at Kingsbridge on the south coast of Devon when he receives a letter. A colleague of twenty years ago, Queenie Hennessy, has cancer and is in a ... (Wikipedia)

  3. The Dice Man

    by Luke Rhinehart
    A man discovers the power of randomness and uses it to make his life decisions.

    As stated at the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy user site: ... (Wikipedia)

  4. The Dead Zone

    by Stephen King
    A man awakens from a coma with supernatural powers, and must grapple with the consequences.

    As a child in 1953, Johnny Smith falls unconscious while ice-skating, then mumbles a prophetic warning to an adult who later suffers an accident. In an unconnected incident, a young, emotionally ... (Wikipedia)

  5. 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)

  6. The Master and Margarita

    by Mikhail Bulgakov
    A fantastical, satirical examination of Soviet life, intersecting with the supernatural.

    The novel has two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds as Professor Woland . He is accompanied by Koroviev, a grotesquely-dressed valet; Behemoth , ... (Wikipedia)

  7. 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)

  8. Touch

    by Claire North
    Kepler can jump into other people's bodies, living their lives for them. But when she jumps into a killer's body, she must race against time to stop them.

    Kepler had never meant to die this way — viciously beaten to death by a stinking vagrant in a dark back alley. But when reaching out to the murderer for salvation in those last dying moments, a ... (Goodreads)

  9. The Radleys

    by Matt Haig
    A family of abstaining vampires living in suburban England struggle to keep their true identities hidden from their neighbors.

    The Radleys are an everyday family who juggle dysfunctional lives. Except, as Peter and Helen Radley know but their children have yet to find out, the Radleys happen to be a family of abstaining ... (Goodreads)

  10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

    by Milan Kundera
    A story of love and loss in a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia.

    In The Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and ... (Goodreads)

  11. Rosemary's Baby

    by Ira Levin
    A woman's descent into darkness as she is unknowingly forced to carry a child of the Devil.

    The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young married woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Waiting for the Barbarians

    by J.M. Coetzee
    A magistrate's moral crisis when faced with the abuse of power by the oppressive Empire.

    The story is narrated in the first person by the unnamed magistrate of a settlement that exists on the territorial frontier of "The Empire". The Magistrate's rather peaceful existence comes to an end ... (Wikipedia)

  13. The Sellout

    by Paul Beatty
    An outrageous satire of race and civil rights in modern America.

    The novel concerns a narrator, referred to by his childhood nickname "Bonbon" or his last name, "Me," who attempts to reintroduce segregation and keep a slave named Hominy in Dickens, his Los Angeles ... (Wikipedia)

  14. Every Man Dies Alone

    by Hans Fallada
    A man and his wife struggle to resist Nazi oppression in 1940s Berlin.

    Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword ... (Goodreads)

  15. The Color of Magic

    by Terry Pratchett
    A comedic fantasy adventure full of humor, absurdities, and unexpected turns.

    The story takes place on the Discworld, a planet-sized flat disc carried through space on the backs of four gargantuan elephants – Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen – who themselves stand on ... (Wikipedia)

  16. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

    by Winifred Watson
    An unemployed governess embarks on a day of transformation in 1930s London.

    Set in London just prior to World War II , the film is about a middle-aged, straitlaced vicar 's daughter and governess Guinevere Pettigrew ( Frances McDormand ), who has been fired from her fourth ... (Wikipedia)

  17. Roadside Picnic

    by Arkady Strugatsky
    Two scientists explore a mysterious, abandoned alien landscape to uncover secrets.

    The novel is set in a post-visitation world where there are now six zones known on Earth that are full of unexplained phenomena and where strange happenings have briefly occurred, assumed to have ... (Wikipedia)

  18. The Day of the Triffids

    by John Wyndham
    A post-apocalyptic world overrun by carnivorous plants, exploring themes of survival and morality.

    In 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having ... (Goodreads)

  19. A Game of Thrones / A Clash of Kings

    by George R.R. Martin
    Epic fantasy saga of rivalries, politics, and war set in a mythical kingdom.

    A Clash of Kings depicts the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros in civil war , while the Night's Watch mounts a reconnaissance to investigate the mysterious people known as wildlings . Meanwhile, Daenerys ... (Wikipedia)

  20. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

    by Robin Sloan
    A young man's exploration of an unusual bookstore, unlocking a world of secrets.

    The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay ... (Goodreads)

  21. The Librarian of Auschwitz

    by Antonio Iturbe
    Based on a true story, a young girl in Auschwitz risks her life to protect and share books with fellow prisoners.

    Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust. Fourteen-year-old ... (Barnes & Noble)

  22. Capital

    by John Lanchester
    An exploration of the lives of a group of characters in London, revealing the dark side of modern capitalism.

    Celebrated novelist John Lanchester (author of The Debt to Pleasure ) returns with an epic novel that captures the obsessions of our time. It’s 2008 and things are falling apart: Bear Stearns and ... (Goodreads)

  23. Winter of the World

    by Ken Follett
    Epic saga of war, family, and love during the tumultuous times of the 20th century.

    The story follows characters from Germany , Britain , the United States and the Soviet Union , who become linked by events leading to World War II , and continues through the war and its immediate ... (Wikipedia)

  24. The Spinoza Problem

    by Irvin D. Yalom
    A fictionalized account of philosopher Baruch Spinoza's life and the impact his ideas had on two different men in different times.

    A haunting portrait of Arthur Rosenberg, one of Nazism's chief architects, and his obsession with one of history's most influential Jewish thinkers In The Spinoza Problem , Irvin Yalom spins fact and ... (Barnes & Noble)

  25. When Nietzsche Wept

    by Irvin D. Yalom
    Exploration of the relationship between a doctor and his patient, a tormented philosopher.

    From the acclaimed author of Love's Executioner and Schopenhauer’s Couch , comes a “fascinating…shrewd intellectual thriller” ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ) about pioneering Viennese psychoanalyst ... (Barnes & Noble)

  26. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

    by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    A single day in a Soviet prison camp, detailing the hardships and struggle of the inmates.

    Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system. He was accused of becoming a spy after being captured briefly by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II ... (Wikipedia)

  27. 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)

  28. The Brothers Karamazov

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.

    The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)

  29. The City of Dreaming Books

    by Walter Moers
    An adventure through a literary world, as a librarian searches for a mysterious book.

    Protagonist Optimus Yarnspinner ( Hildegunst von Mythenmetz in the German text) is a Lindworm ( dinosaur ) who inherits his authorial godfather 's possessions, including a perfect story written by an ... (Wikipedia)

  30. Into the Darkest Corner

    by Elizabeth Haynes
    Woman's struggle to escape her abusive past, and reclaim control of her life.

    When young, pretty Catherine Bailey meets Lee Brightman, she can't believe her luck. Gorgeous, charismatic Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. But what begins as flattering attention and ... (Barnes & Noble)