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Recommendations based on The Sorrows of Young Wertherby Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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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)
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)
Faust, First Part
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A timeless story of a man's struggle between the forces of good and evil.
Goethe’s masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental ... (Goodreads)
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)
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
An aging knight's adventures and misadventures, filled with chivalry, honor, and satire.
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in ... (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)
The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann
A young man's journey of self-exploration and personal growth during a long stay at a Swiss sanatorium.
The narrative opens in the decade before World War I . It introduces the protagonist, Hans Castorp, the only child of a Hamburg merchant family. Following the early death of his parents, Castorp has ... (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)
Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
by Thomas Mann
A story of a family's decline, tracing four generations of a wealthy German family.
In 1835, the wealthy and respected Buddenbrooks, a family of grain merchants, invite their friends and relatives to dinner in their new home in Lübeck , Germany . The family consists of patriarch ... (Wikipedia)
The Red and the Black
by Stendhal
A young man's ambitious rise in 19th century French society, as he navigates through its politics and passions.
In two volumes,, The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the 19th Century, tells the story of Julien Sorel's life in France's rigid social structure restored after the disruptions of the French ... (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 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)
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri
A poetic journey through the afterlife, guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining ... (Goodreads)
Nausea
by Jean-Paul Sartre
A philosophical exploration of the nature of existence and human freedom.
Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the ... (Goodreads)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
by Patrick Süskind
A murder mystery set in 18th century France, exploring the depths of human obsession.
An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of ... (Goodreads)
Narcissus and Goldmund
by Hermann Hesse
An exploration of the spiritual journey of two men, contrasting their different paths.
Narcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth ... (Goodreads)
Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
A day in the life of a high-society woman, delving into her inner thoughts and feelings.
Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about ... (Wikipedia)
The Plague
by Albert Camus
A small town in Algeria is struck by a deadly plague, testing the courage and faith of its citizens.
The book begins with an epigraph quoting Daniel Defoe , author of, A Journal of the Plague Year, . In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the ... (Wikipedia)
Ficciones
by Jorge Luis Borges
A collection of short stories exploring the limits of the imagination.
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his ... (Goodreads)
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)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (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)
Dead Souls
by Nikolai Gogol
A satirical tale of a man's quest for wealth, exposing the corruption of 19th century Russian society.
The story follows the exploits of Chichikov, a middle-aged gentleman of middling social class and means. Chichikov arrives in a small town and turns on the charm to woo key local officials and ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Aeneid
by Virgil
Epic tale of Aeneas and the founding of Rome, a fateful journey through the gods.
The Aeneid – thrilling, terrifying and poignant in equal measure – has inspired centuries of artists, writers and musicians. Virgil’s epic tale tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who flees his ... (Goodreads)
Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
Two men wait for a mysterious figure who never arrives, reflecting on their lives and existence.
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, have met near a leafless tree. Estragon spent the previous night lying in a ditch and receiving a beating from some unnamed assailants. The two men discuss a variety ... (Wikipedia)
Sophie's World
by Jostein Gaarder
A journey of philosophical discovery told through a young girl's exploration of the world.
Sophie Amundsen is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Lillesand , Norway. The book begins with Sophie receiving two messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to Hilde Møller Knag. Afterwards, she ... (Wikipedia)
Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the boundaries between the real and surreal.
Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters. The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old ... (Wikipedia)
Les Fleurs du Mal
by Charles Baudelaire
Collection of poems exploring the beauty and depravity of human nature.
Charles Baudelaire's 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs ... (Goodreads)
Candide
by Voltaire
A young man's satirical journey through life, encountering misfortune and eventual optimism.
Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a ... (Goodreads)
