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Recommendations based on Lincolnby Gore Vidal
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The Killer Angels
by Michael Shaara
A gripping story of the Battle of Gettysburg, told through the eyes of the soldiers on both sides.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain , one of the major characters, remembers reciting to his father a speech from, Hamlet, : "What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!" Sgt. Buster Kilrain ... (Wikipedia)
Rabbit, Run
by John Updike
A man's attempt to escape the pressures of adult life and find freedom.
Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, formerly a high school basketball star, is now 26, and has a job selling a kitchen gadget named MagiPeeler. He is married to Janice, who was a salesgirl at the store where he ... (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)
Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry
Epic tale of two former Texas Rangers on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana.
It is the late 1870s. , Captain Woodrow F. Call and Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae, two famous retired Texas Rangers , run the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small Texas border ... (Wikipedia)
Bangkok 8
by John Burdett
An intrepid detective investigates a murder in the seedy underworld of Bangkok.
A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities. Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a ... (Goodreads)
American Tabloid
by James Ellroy
A riveting crime drama set in the 1950s, featuring a complex web of characters and their dark and twisted agendas.
"Shakedowns" covers just 26 days, introducing the three principal characters, and establishing their relationships, history, and career trajectories. Pete Bondurant is a former LASD deputy; he ... (Wikipedia)
American Pastoral
by Philip Roth
A man's experience of the American Dream gone wrong, as his daughter's political radicalism unravels his family life.
Seymour Irving Levov is born and raised in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey , in 1927 as the elder son of a successful Jewish American glove manufacturer, Lou Levov, and his wife Sylvia. ... (Wikipedia)
The Gemini Contenders
by Robert Ludlum
A man uncovers a conspiracy involving the Vatican and a secret society, leading to a dangerous race to uncover the truth.
In 1939, Savarone Fontini-Cristi is the padrone of an immensely wealthy and powerful Italian family. At this time, the Order of Xenope, a remote Greek monastic brotherhood, possesses ancient ... (Wikipedia)
The Plot Against America
by Philip Roth
An alternate history of America, where a fascist president rises to power.
The novel is told from the point of view of Roth as a child growing up in Newark, New Jersey , as the younger son of Herman and Bess Roth. It begins with aviation hero Charles Lindbergh , who is ... (Wikipedia)
The Black Dahlia
by James Ellroy
A 1940s Los Angeles detective story, exploring the depths of a gruesome unsolved murder.
On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia—and so begins the greatest manhunt in California ... (Goodreads)
The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie
An exploration into the clash between faith and reason, with a controversial narrative of religious satire.
Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jetliner explodes above the English Channel. Through the falling debris, two figures, Gibreel Farishta, the biggest star in India, and Saladin ... (Goodreads)
Gorky Park
by Martin Cruz Smith
A thrilling murder mystery, set in the Soviet Union, uncovering secrets and conspiracies.
The story follows Arkady Renko , a chief investigator for the Moscow militsiya , who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park , an amusement park in Moscow. The victims - two ... (Wikipedia)
Welcome to the Monkey House
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A collection of short stories exploring the absurdities of human life.
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly , ... (Goodreads)
Rabbit Redux
by John Updike
A man's mid-life crisis leads him to grapple with the moral and social issues of his time.
Rabbit Redux finds former high-school basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom working a dead-end job as a Linotype operator at the local printing plant. Thirty-six, he feels that he is quickly ... (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)
Quo Vadis
by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Epic tale of ancient Rome, a love story between a Christian woman and a Roman soldier.
This glorious saga unfolds against the backdrop of ancient Rome–from the Forum to the Coliseum, from banquet halls to summer retreats in Naples, from the luxurious houses of the nobility to the ... (Goodreads)
Armageddon in Retrospect: And Other New and Unpublished Writings on War and Peace
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A collection of essays on war and peace, exploring the human experience of conflict.
To be published on the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace, imbued with Vonnegut's trademark ... (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)
The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl
A group of poets, scholars and academics band together to unravel a dark mystery in 19th century Boston.
The Dante Club begins with the murder of fictional Massachusetts Chief Justice Artemus Healey, who had avoided taking a position to stop or support the escaped slaves of the South . Found by his ... (Wikipedia)
Gravity's Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon
A surreal exploration of war and technology, and their impact on the human spirit.
Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its ... (Goodreads)
Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson
A thrilling journey through the past and present, combining tech, history and adventure.
The action takes place in two periods—World War II and the late 1990s, during the Internet boom and Asian financial crisis . In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a young United States Navy code ... (Wikipedia)
The Whistling Season
by Ivan Doig
A coming-of-age story set in rural Montana in 1909, following a family's struggles and triumphs during the homesteading era.
"Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver ... (Goodreads)
Time and Again
by Jack Finney
A man travels back in time to the past to explore its secrets and mysteries.
In November 1970, Simon Morley, an advertising sketch artist, is approached by U.S. Army Major Ruben Prien to participate in a secret government project. He is taken to a huge warehouse on the West ... (Wikipedia)
A Bend in the River
by V.S. Naipaul
Salim, an Indian-African merchant, navigates the political and social upheavals of post-colonial Africa.
Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small but growing city in the country's remote interior. Salim ... (Wikipedia)
Little Children
by Tom Perrotta
A suburban couple's struggle with the everyday dramas of marriage and parenting.
Sarah, who once considered herself a radical feminist , wonders how she allowed herself to be reduced to a common housewife , constantly at the playground with three other neighborhood Stepford ... (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 Vampire Lestat
by Anne Rice
A vampire's exploration of his immortality and the secrets of the world of the undead.
Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as impoverished nobility in the ... (Wikipedia)
Restless
by William Boyd
A thrilling spy novel of international espionage, secrets, and espionage.
Eva, a young Russian woman, is recruited after her brother's death to work for the British secret service . During this time she falls for her mentor and boss, Lucas Romer. But all is not as it seems ... (Wikipedia)
An Enemy of the People
by Henrik Ibsen
A doctor confronts a public scandal, challenging expectations of morality and justice.
In An Enemy of the People , Ibsen places his main characters, Dr. Thomas Stockman, in the role of an enlightened and persecuted minority of one confronting an ignorant, powerful majority. When the ... (Goodreads)
World Without End
by Ken Follett
Epic tale of love and war, tracing the lives of two families over centuries.
The novel begins in the fictional city of Kingsbridge, England in the year 1327 . Four children - Merthin, Caris, Gwenda, and Merthin's brother Ralph - head into the woods on All Hallows Day . ... (Wikipedia)
