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Recommendations based on Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Storiesby Raymond Carver
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Cathedral
by Raymond Carver
An unexpected encounter changes a man's outlook on life and his relationships.
Raymond Carver’s third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. These ... (Goodreads)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
by Raymond Carver
Exploration of relationships, revealing the complexities of love and its many forms.
Alternate-cover edition can be found, here, In his second collection, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated and beloved short-story writers in American literature—a haunting ... (Goodreads)
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
by Raymond Carver
An exploration of mundane moments and everyday lives of ordinary people.
With this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts ... (Goodreads)
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
by Cormac McCarthy
A violent and bloody western epic, exploring the depths of human depravity.
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." ... (Barnes & Noble)
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
by Flannery O'Connor
A collection of short stories exploring the human condition, from the comic to the grotesque.
This now classic book revealed Flannery O'Connor as one of the most original and provocative writers to emerge from the South. Her apocalyptic vision of life is expressed through grotesque, often ... (Goodreads)
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Stories
by Flannery O'Connor
A collection of stories that explore aspects of the human condition through surreal and darkly comedic lenses.
This is the original cover edition of, ISBN: 0374515360, (ISBN13: 9780374515362 Winner of the National Book Award The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's ... (Goodreads)
Dubliners
by James Joyce
Collection of stories about everyday life in Dublin, exploring the Irish psyche.
This work of art reflects life in Ireland at the turn of the last century, and by rejecting euphemism, reveals to the Irish their unromantic realities. Each of the 15 stories offers glimpses into the ... (Goodreads)
As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner
A family's struggle to fulfill the dying wish of their mother, amidst personal and societal challenges.
The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family's quest and motivations—noble or selfish—to honor her wish ... (Wikipedia)
The Stories of John Cheever
by John Cheever
A collection of short stories that explore the human condition in the modern era.
Here are sixty-one stories that chronicle the lives of what has been called "the greatest generation." From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in "The Enormous Radio" to the surprising ... (Goodreads)
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.
On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)
Nine Stories
by J.D. Salinger
Nine short stories of insight into the human condition and its mysteries.
Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger published in April 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for ... (Goodreads)
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
A young man's journey across America, seeking adventure and freedom.
The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Sal Paradise, and his friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense of adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to ... (Wikipedia)
Jesus' Son
by Denis Johnson
A collection of short stories exploring life of addiction and redemption.
Jesus' Son , the first collection of stories by Denis Johnson, presents a unique, hallucinatory vision of contemporary American life unmatched in power and immediacy and marks a new level of ... (Goodreads)
Ham on Rye
by Charles Bukowski
A semi-autobiographical novel following a young man's struggles with poverty, violence and mental illness.
The novel focuses on the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, between the years of 1920 and 1941. , It begins with Chinaski's early memories. As the story progresses the reader follows his life through the ... (Wikipedia)
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner
Tragic story of the decline of a southern family, exploring the human condition.
The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his diminished mental capacity; the only characters who show genuine care for him are ... (Wikipedia)
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
A haunting story of loss and resilience in the aftermath of slavery.
Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio , where the protagonist Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, has been living with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver at 124 Bluestone Road. The book ... (Wikipedia)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the inner and outer worlds.
The first part, "The Thieving Magpie", begins with the narrator, Toru Okada, a low-key and unemployed lawyer's assistant, being tasked by his wife, Kumiko, to find their missing cat. Kumiko suggests ... (Wikipedia)
Revolutionary Road
by Richard Yates
An American couple's struggle to stay afloat in suburban conventions and expectations.
Set in 1955, the novel focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut suburbanites who see themselves as very different from their neighbors in the ... (Wikipedia)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.
Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)
This Is How You Lose Her
by Junot Díaz
A collection of stories about young love, heartache, and the struggle to find one's place in the world.
On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a ... (Goodreads)
The World According to Garp
by John Irving
A humorous and heart-wrenching journey of life, love and literature.
This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a ... (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 Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
by Ernest Hemingway
Collection of short stories depicting the human experience in all its complexities.
THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as ... (Goodreads)
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)
Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A satirical exploration of human folly, exposing the dangers of unchecked science and technology.
Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, ... (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 Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
Private eye investigates a complex case involving a wealthy family and blackmail.
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of the wealthy and elderly General Sternwood, in the month of October. He wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt by a bookseller named Arthur ... (Wikipedia)
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
Exploration of the complexities of human relationships and family life.
The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides , on the Isle of Skye . The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the ... (Wikipedia)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
An autobiographical account of a young man dealing with grief and responsibility.
'When you read his extraordinary memoir you don't laugh, then cry, then laugh again; you somehow experience these emotions all at once.' "Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided ... (Goodreads)
