Recommendations based on The Pleasures of the Damnedby Charles Bukowski

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  1. Women

    by Charles Bukowski
    A collection of stories exploring the lives of various women and their relationships with men.

    Women focuses on the many dissatisfactions Chinaski faced with each new woman he encountered. One of the women featured in the book is a character named Lydia Vance; she is based on Bukowski's ... (Wikipedia)

  2. Love Is a Dog from Hell

    by Charles Bukowski
    A poetic exploration of the human experience, from joy to heartache and everything in between.

    Collection of poems rising from and returning to Bukowski's personal experiences reflect people, objects, places, and events of the external world, and reflects on them, on their way out and back. ... (Goodreads)

  3. Post Office

    by Charles Bukowski
    A poetic and darkly humorous narrative about a man's struggles with poverty and loneliness.

    In Los Angeles, California , down-and-out barfly Henry Chinaski becomes a substitute mail carrier ; he quits for a while and lives on his winnings at the race track, then becomes a mail clerk. ... (Wikipedia)

  4. The Hummingbird's Daughter

    by Luis Alberto Urrea
    A Mexican girl's journey to self-acceptance, discovering the power of faith and family.

    The prizewinning writer Luis Alberto Urrea's long-awaited novel is an epic mystical drama of a young woman's sudden sainthood in late 19th-century Mexico. It is 1889, and the civil war is brewing in ... (Goodreads)

  5. Trout Fishing in America

    by Richard Brautigan
    A poetic and humorous exploration of the American experience.

    Richard Brautigan was a literary idol of the 1960s and 1970s whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imagination of young people everywhere. He came of age during the ... (Goodreads)

  6. 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)

  7. A Streetcar Named Desire

    by Tennessee Williams
    A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.

    After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (Wikipedia)

  8. Batman: The Killing Joke

    by Alan Moore
    Dark tale of psychological warfare between Batman and the Joker.

    Critically acclaimed author Alan Moore redefined graphic novel story-telling with, Watchmen, and, V for Vendetta,. In, Batman: The Killing Joke, he takes on the origin of comics' greatest ... (Barnes & Noble)

  9. Collected Poems, 1909-1962

    by T.S. Eliot
    Exploration of the complexities of life and the human condition, through innovative and experimental verse.

    There is no more authoritative collection of the poetry that Eliot himself wished to preserve than this volume, published two years before his death in 1965., Poet, dramatist, critic, and editor, T. ... (Barnes & Noble)

  10. On the Road: the Original Scroll

    by Jack Kerouac
    A semi-autobiographical novel about the travels of Kerouac and his friends across America, exploring themes of freedom and self-discovery.

    The legendary 1951 scroll draft of, On the Road, published word for word as Kerouac originally composed it Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early ... (Goodreads)

  11. Wait Until Spring, Bandini

    by John Fante
    An Italian-American family struggles to make ends meet in a small farming community in the 1930s.

    The film follows the Bandini family as they struggle through hard times in 1920s Colorado . Unemployed and broke, Svevo Bandini ( Joe Mantegna ) tries to come up with the money his family needs to ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

    by Erich Maria Remarque
    A refugee's struggle for survival in a world of turmoil and violence in 1930s Europe.

    Set in 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Franny and Zooey

    by J.D. Salinger
    A brother and sister's journey towards finding spiritual understanding and inner peace.

    The short story concerns Franny's weekend date with her collegiate boyfriend, Lane Coutell. Lane takes her to a fashionable lunch room, where Franny quickly becomes exasperated when he only appears ... (Wikipedia)

  14. The Far Side Gallery

    by Gary Larson
    Collection of single-panel cartoons exploring the absurd, surreal and humorous aspects of life.

    1984 FarWorks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Far Side and the Larson signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc. The Far Side Gallery is an anthology of Gary Larson's The Far Side comic ... (Goodreads)

  15. Drown

    by Junot Díaz
    A collection of interconnected stories of a young Dominican-American struggling to find his place in the world.

    With ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, ... (Goodreads)

  16. Chronicle of a Death Foretold

    by Gabriel García Márquez
    A murder mystery narrated by the townspeople and tracing the events leading up to the crime.

    The non-linear story, told by an anonymous narrator, begins with the morning of Santiago Nasar's death. The reader learns that Santiago lives with his mother, Placida Linero; the cook, Victoria ... (Wikipedia)

  17. Identity

    by Milan Kundera
    A novel about discovering one's true identity by examining the complexities and contradictions of life.

    There are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. This also happens with ... (Goodreads)

  18. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

    by Hunter S. Thompson
    A wild and hallucinatory journey through the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas.

    The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke ( Hunter S. Thompson ) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo ( Oscar Zeta Acosta ), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 ... (Wikipedia)

  19. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

    by Robert M. Pirsig
    A philosophical exploration of the meaning of life, seen through the lens of a cross-country motorcycle journey.

    Robert M. Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's ... (Goodreads)

  20. Lunch Poems

    by Frank O'Hara
    A collection of poems written during the author's lunch breaks in New York City, capturing the essence of urban life.

    Important poems by the late New York poet published in The New American Poetry, Evergreen Review, Floating Bear and stranger places. Often O'Hara, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a ... (Goodreads)

  21. Naked Lunch

    by William S. Burroughs
    Surrealist exploration of addiction, delusions, and reality.

    Naked Lunch is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the ... (Wikipedia)

  22. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories

    by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    A collection of short stories exploring the struggles of women in a patriarchal society.

    Best known for the 1892 title story of this collection, a harrowing tale of a woman's descent into madness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote more than 200 other short stories. Seven of her finest are ... (Goodreads)

  23. The Kindly Ones

    by Neil Gaiman
    A dark fantasy featuring a morally ambiguous protagonist on a quest to save his family.

    The Penultimate volume to the phenomenal Sandman series: distraught by the kidnapping and presumed death of her son, and believing Morpheus to be responsible, Lyta Hall calls the ancient wrath of the ... (Goodreads)

  24. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

    by Pablo Neruda
    Collection of poems exploring love, heartache, and the complexities of relationships.

    When it appeared in 1924, this work launched into the international spotlight a young and unknown poet whose writings would ignite a generation. W. S. Merwin's incomparable translation faces the ... (Goodreads)

  25. The Lottery and Other Stories

    by Shirley Jackson
    A collection of short stories exploring the dark side of human nature and society's norms.

    The Lottery , one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker . "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical ... (Goodreads)

  26. Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror, Vol. 1

    by Junji Ito
    A small town is plagued by a supernatural force that causes events to take strange and terrifying turns.

    Uzumaki follows a high-school teenager, Kirie Goshima (,五島桐絵,) ; her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito (,斎藤秀一,) ; and the citizens of the small, quiet Japanese town of Kurouzu-cho (,黒渦町,, Black Vortex Town,) ... (Wikipedia)

  27. 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)

  28. Transmetropolitan, Vol. 10: One More Time

    by Warren Ellis
    Spider Jerusalem returns to the City to finish his final column, but finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens to destroy everything he loves.

    The final volume in the saga of outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem written by comics superstar Warren Ellis. At last, it’s the final showdown between Spider and the absolutely corrupt President of ... (Goodreads)

  29. The Circle

    by Dave Eggers
    A cautionary tale of a powerful tech company that blurs the boundaries between privacy and surveillance.

    Mae Holland, a recent college graduate, lands a job at The Circle, a powerful technology company run by the "Three Wise Men"—Tom Stenton, a ruthless businessman; Eamon Bailey, a likeable public ... (Wikipedia)