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Recommendations based on Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsessionby Apostolos Doxiadis
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
The Dispossessed
by Ursula K. Le Guin
A sci-fi exploration of utopian and dystopian societies, and the struggle for a better world.
Librarian note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN, 9780061054884,. Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the ... (Goodreads)
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)
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)
Measuring the World
by Daniel Kehlmann
A humorous exploration of the history of science, revealing the dichotomy between objectivity and creativity.
The young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann conjures a brilliant and gently comic novel from the lives of two geniuses of the Enlightenment. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Fall
by Albert Camus
A man's journey into alienation and despair, driven by a sense of absurdity in life.
The Fall, ( French :, La Chute, ) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus . First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam , The Fall consists of a series of ... (Wikipedia)
Foucault's Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
A humorous and wild historical conspiracy thriller set across Europe.
A man named Casaubon , is hiding in the Musée des Arts et Métiers after closing. He believes that a secret society has kidnapped his friend Jacopo Belbo and are now after him, and will meet in the ... (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)
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel García Márquez
An epic love story spanning decades, exploring the power of true love.
The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with the help of Fermina's ... (Wikipedia)
Gates of Fire
by Steven Pressfield
Epic tale of ancient Spartan warriors on a mission of heroism and sacrifice.
The novel is narrated by Xeones, a perioikos and one of only three Greek survivors of the Battle of Thermopylae . His story is dictated to King Xerxes and transcribed by his court historian , ... (Wikipedia)
Death with Interruptions
by José Saramago
A mysterious phenomenon that stops all deaths leading to a dilemma of moral, ethical and social implications.
The book, set in an unnamed, landlocked country at a point in the unspecified past, opens with the end of death. Mysteriously, at the stroke of midnight on January 1, no one in the country ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Zorba the Greek
by Nikos Kazantzakis
A man embarks on a journey of self-discovery, learning to embrace life with gusto and joy.
The book opens in a café in Piraeus , just before dawn on a gusty autumn morning. The year is most likely 1916. The narrator, a young Greek intellectual, resolves to set aside his books for a few ... (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 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)
The Missing Piece Meets the Big O
by Shel Silverstein
A story of an incomplete circle in search of its missing piece, learning the joy of contentment.
The story centers on a circular shape-like creature that is missing a wedge-shaped piece of itself. It doesn't like this, and sets out to find its missing piece, singing: Oh, I'm lookin' for my ... (Wikipedia)
The Sea
by John Banville
A man reflects on his past and reconciles his memories of youth with the present.
The story is told by Max Morden, a self-aware, retired art historian attempting to reconcile himself to the deaths of those he loved as a child and as an adult. The novel is written as a reflective ... (Wikipedia)
What a Carve Up!
by Jonathan Coe
A satirical novel that explores the lives of the Winshaw family, a wealthy and corrupt British clan. Darkly humorous and politically charged.
Godfrey, son of the wealthy Matthew and Frances Winshaw of Yorkshire, is shot down by German anti-aircraft fire during a secret wartime mission over Berlin, on 30 November 1942. His sister Tabitha ... (Wikipedia)
A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories
by Will Eisner
Collection of interweaving stories about the struggles and joys of life in an immigrant tenement in the Bronx.
Go back to where graphic novels all started, on the Bronx street of Dropsie Avenue and A Life Force, in Will Eisner's groundbreaking 1978 creation. The human drama, the psychological insight – Eisner ... (Goodreads)
The Last Temptation of Christ
by Nikos Kazantzakis
A fictionalized account of the life of Jesus, exploring his humanity and struggles with temptation.
The internationally renowned novel about the life and death of Jesus Christ. Hailed as a masterpiece by critics worldwide, The Last Temptation of Christ is a monumental reinterpretation of the ... (Goodreads)
Sweet Thursday
by John Steinbeck
A small fishing town is transformed by an unlikely friendship between two outcasts.
Doc returns to a failed Western Biological Laboratories and a changed Cannery Row after serving in the army during World War II . Mack and the Boys are still living in the Palace Flophouse, but Lee ... (Wikipedia)
Our Man in Havana
by Graham Greene
A humorous tale of espionage in Cold War Cuba, as a vacuum cleaner salesman attempts to outwit the British Secret Service.
Graham Greene's classic Cuban spy story, now with a new package and a new introduction, First published in 1959,, Our Man in Havana, is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a ... (Goodreads)
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)
Seeing
by José Saramago
A story of an old man's journey to find meaning in a world of chaos and suffering.
Seeing is set in the same unnamed country featured in, Blindness,. The story begins with a parliamentary election, in which the majority (83%) of the populace cast blank ballots. The first half of ... (Wikipedia)
Of Love and Shadows
by Isabel Allende
A young woman's journey of courage, fighting for justice in a repressive and dangerous society.
Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground ... (Wikipedia)
The Housekeeper and the Professor
by Yōko Ogawa
A gentle story of friendship and understanding between a brilliant mathematician and his housekeeper.
The narrator's housekeeping agency dispatches her to the house of the Professor, a former mathematician who can remember new memories for only 80 minutes. She is more than a little frustrated to find ... (Wikipedia)
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)
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)
2010: Odyssey Two
by Arthur C. Clarke
A team of astronauts and scientists embark on a mission to explore Jupiter, encountering thrilling adventures along the way.
The story is set nine years after the failure of the, Discovery One, mission to Jupiter . , A joint Soviet-American crew, , including Heywood Floyd from 2001 , on the Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov ... (Wikipedia)
The Prisoner of Heaven
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A man's mysterious past entangles him in a web of secrets, love and revenge.
Daniel Sempere has settled into married life well and his son is shortly turning one year old. He is living above the family bookshop, Sempere & Sons with his elderly father, his wife Beatriz and son ... (Wikipedia)
