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Recommendations based on اللص والكلابby Naguib Mahfouz
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Palace Walk
by Naguib Mahfouz
An exploration of family life in Cairo during the 1920s, uncovering secrets and tensions in the everyday.
al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is the tyrannical head of his household, demanding total, unquestioning obedience from his wife, Amina, his sons, Yasin, Fahmy and Kamal, and his daughters, Khadija and ... (Wikipedia)
Season of Migration to the North
by Tayeb Salih
A stranger arrives in a small Sudanese village, stirring up dark secrets from the past.
After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North returns to his village along the Nile in the Sudan. It is the 1960s, and he is eager to make a contribution to ... (Goodreads)
Midaq Alley
by Naguib Mahfouz
A story of life in a small Egyptian alleyway, exploring the interwoven lives of its inhabitants.
Never has Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than in Midaq Alley , which centers around the residents of one of the hustling, teeming ... (Goodreads)
Poor Folk
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A tale of romance between two unprivileged people, exploring the human condition of poverty.
Varvara Dobroselova and Makar Devushkin are second cousins twice-removed and live across from each other on the same street in terrible apartments. Devushkin's, for example, is merely a portioned-off ... (Wikipedia)
Samarkand
by Amin Maalouf
Epic tale of a man's journey to discover his identity and the truths of his ancestry.
The first half of the story is set in Persia (present day Iran ) and Central Asia in the 11th century, and revolves around the scientist, philosopher, and poet Omar Khayyám . It recounts the creation ... (Wikipedia)
The Overcoat
by Nikolai Gogol
A tale of a lowly bureaucrat's journey to reclaim his sense of self-worth.
The story narrates the life and death of titular councillor Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (Russian: Акакий Акакиевич Башмачкин), an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the Russian capital of ... (Wikipedia)
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly
by Sun-mi Hwang
A hen's quest to break free of her mundane life and fulfill her dream of flying.
A Korean, Charlotte's Web,More than 2 million copies sold, This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses ... (Goodreads)
Daddy-Long-Legs
by Jean Webster
A young girl's coming-of-age story, learning to navigate the world of adulthood.
Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage . The children were completely dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual ... (Wikipedia)
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
Exploration of African culture and traditions, grappling with the tension between modernity and tradition.
The novel's protagonist , Okonkwo, is famous in the villages of Umuofia for being a wrestling champion, defeating a wrestler nicknamed "Amalinze The Cat" (because he never lands on his back). Okonkwo ... (Wikipedia)
The Forty Rules of Love
by Elif Shafak
A story of romance and spiritual enlightenment, exploring the teachings of a Sufi master.
Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy , a novel written by a ... (Goodreads)
The Pearl
by John Steinbeck
A poor diver's dream of wealth is dashed when his newfound riches ultimately bring unhappiness and tragedy.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their ... (Goodreads)
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)
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)
Fathers and Sons
by Ivan Turgenev
A story of generational divide, exploring the differences between fathers and sons.
Arkady Kirsanov has just graduated from the University of Petersburg . He returns with a friend, Bazarov, to his father's modest estate in an outlying province of Russia. His father, Nikolay, gladly ... (Wikipedia)
Blindness
by José Saramago
A society is plunged into chaos when everyone suddenly loses their sight.
Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a ... (Wikipedia)
Hickory Dickory Dock
by Agatha Christie
An investigation into a murder at a nursery school, unravelling a web of conspiracy and deceit.
An outbreak of apparent kleptomania at a student hostel arouses Hercule Poirot's interest when he sees the bizarre list of stolen and vandalised items. These include a stethoscope , some lightbulbs, ... (Wikipedia)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
by Agatha Christie
Amateur detective investigates the mysterious murder of a wealthy landowner.
In King's Abbot, wealthy widow Mrs Ferrars unexpectedly commits suicide, which distresses her fiancé, widower Roger Ackroyd. At dinner that evening in Ackroyd's home of Fernly Park, his guests ... (Wikipedia)
Antigone
by Jean Anouilh
Tragic story of a woman's courage to defy the law in pursuit of justice.
Antigone was originally produced in Paris in 1942, when France was an occupied nation and part of Hitler's Europe. The play depicts an authoritarian regime and the play's central character, the young ... (Goodreads)
The Man Who Laughs
by Victor Hugo
A man with a disfiguring facial deformity, who is sold into a life of suffering and exploitation.
The novel is divided into two parts: La mer et la nuit ( The sea and the night ) and Par ordre du roi ( On the king's command ). In late 17th-century England, a homeless boy named Gwynplaine rescues ... (Wikipedia)
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)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
by Agatha Christie
Detective Hercule Poirot investigates the mysterious death of a doctor and uncovers a sinister plot.
Hercule Poirot meets former actress Mabelle Sainsbury Seale while leaving his appointment with dentist Henry Morley. In this meeting, he retrieves a shiny buckle for her that had fallen from her ... (Wikipedia)
The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man's struggle to find his place in society, and the moral dilemmas he faces.
Prince Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, is on a train to Saint Petersburg on a cold November morning. He is returning to ... (Wikipedia)
All the Names
by José Saramago
A story of investigation into an old bureaucratic mystery and the search for a missing woman.
The main setting of the novel is the Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths located in an ambiguous and unnamed city. This municipal archive holds the record cards for all of the residents ... (Wikipedia)
Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare
Tragedy of political power and ambition as Rome's leader is betrayed by those closest to him.
The Oxford School Shakespeare has become the preferred introduction to the literary legacy of the greatest playwright in the English language. This exclusive collection of the Bard's best works has ... (Goodreads)
The Yacoubian Building
by Alaa Al Aswany
A novel set in a Cairo apartment building, exploring the lives of its diverse inhabitants and their struggles with love, politics, and societal norms.
The novel described the Yacoubian Building as one of the most luxurious and prestigious apartment blocks in Cairo following its construction by Armenian businessman Hagop Yacoubian in 1934, with ... (Wikipedia)
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
A shipwrecked sailor's struggle to survive on an isolated island, and his eventual redemption.
Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer") set sail from Kingston upon Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a ... (Wikipedia)
The Fifth Mountain
by Paulo Coelho
A man's spiritual journey, overcoming obstacles and finding his place in the world.
The story is based on the account of Biblical prophet Elijah from the Hebrew Bible (1 Kings chapters 17-19). The focus is on Elijah's time in Zarephath (in this book named Akbar). In ninth century ... (Wikipedia)
The French Lieutenant's Woman
by John Fowles
A love story set in Victorian England, exploring the complexities of class, gender, and social norms.
Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the narrator identifies the novel's protagonist as Sarah Woodruff, the Woman of the title, also known as "Tragedy" and as "The French Lieutenant's Whore". She lives ... (Wikipedia)
Leo Africanus
by Amin Maalouf
An epic historical novel, tracing the journey of a North African explorer and diplomat in the 16th century.
"I, Hasan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I, Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, ... (Goodreads)
