Powered by a book like {foo}
Recommendations based on Transitby Rachel Cusk
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Outline
by Rachel Cusk
A woman's journey of self-reflection, exploring relationships and the complexities of life.
An English woman writer flies to Athens to teach a summer writing workshop. On the plane, she meets an older Greek bachelor , who tells her about his two failed marriages. The next day she meets with ... (Wikipedia)
Autumn
by Ali Smith
A novel about the friendship between an elderly man and a young woman, exploring themes of memory, time, and the changing of seasons.
Daniel Gluck, a 101-year-old former songwriter, lies asleep and dreaming in his care home. He is regularly visited by 32-year-old Elisabeth Demand, who had been his next door neighbour as a young ... (Wikipedia)
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
A spiritual exploration of death, exploring the afterlife through the eyes of President Lincoln.
In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by ... (Goodreads)
The Idiot
by Elif Batuman
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, learning to navigate the complexities of life.
Selin Karadağ is a freshman studying linguistics at Harvard University . She meets an older Hungarian mathematics student, Ivan, in a Russian language class and the two begin corresponding over ... (Wikipedia)
NW
by Zadie Smith
A story of a group of friends in London navigating love and identity in their complex lives.
Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals—Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan—as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their ... (Goodreads)
10:04
by Ben Lerner
A poet's journey through life, confronting the obstacles of mortality and identity.
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her ... (Goodreads)
The Days of Abandonment
by Elena Ferrante
An exploration of womanhood and psychological turmoil in the aftermath of a broken marriage.
The whole story is based on the sudden end of a seemingly solid, happy marriage. Olga, a stay at home mother in her late 30s, is told by her husband Mario that he is leaving her and their two ... (Wikipedia)
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories
by Lucia Berlin
An exploration of female experience, weaving together stories of love, loss, and resilience.
A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all ... (Barnes & Noble)
Austerlitz
by W.G. Sebald
A man discovers his past and identity through the story of a Jewish boy who escaped Nazi Germany.
Jacques Austerlitz, the main character in the book, is an architectural historian who encounters and befriends the solitary narrator in Antwerp during the 1960s. Gradually we come to understand his ... (Wikipedia)
Stoner
by John Williams
An academic's life of quiet desperation, finding solace in literature.
William Stoner is born on a small farm in 1891. After high school, the county agent advises he go to agriculture school. Stoner enrolls in the University of Missouri , where all agriculture students ... (Wikipedia)
The Sportswriter
by Richard Ford
A sportswriter navigates through life after the death of his son, reflecting on his past relationships and current struggles.
As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people–men, mostly--who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers ... (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)
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
by Ottessa Moshfegh
A young woman's year-long experiment with prescription drugs to escape her life and numb her emotions.
The unnamed narrator, a slender and beautiful blonde from a wealthy WASP family, is a recent graduate of Columbia University , where she majored in art history . During her senior year in college, ... (Wikipedia)
Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore
A collection of comedic stories depicting everyday life with a unique, wry sense of humor.
A long-awaited collection of stories–twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in ... (Goodreads)
Get in Trouble
by Kelly Link
A collection of short stories that blend fantasy and reality, exploring the complexities of human relationships and emotions.
She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection–her first for ... (Goodreads)
The Mars Room
by Rachel Kushner
A gritty and raw portrayal of life in a women's prison, following the story of a young mother serving two consecutive life sentences.
It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley . Outside is the world from which she has ... (Wikipedia)
What Belongs to You
by Garth Greenwell
An exploration of intimacy, desire, and the power of secrets in a foreign city.
Longlisted for the National Book Award in Fiction • A Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction • A Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the James Taite ... (Barnes & Noble)
Hotel du Lac
by Anita Brookner
A woman's journey of self-discovery, confronting her past and discovering her identity.
Edith reaches Hotel du Lac in a state of bewildered confusion at the turn of events in her life. After a secret and often lonely affair with a married man and an aborted marriage, she is banished by ... (Wikipedia)
My Brilliant Friend
by Elena Ferrante
A story of two friends' lives, exploring the intricacies of female friendship and life in a Neapolitan neighbourhood.
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends ... (Goodreads)
How to Be Both
by Ali Smith
Exploring duality and interconnectedness through the life of a girl and a Renaissance artist.
Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently ... (Goodreads)
The Overstory
by Richard Powers
Nine strangers are brought together by their love for trees, leading to a fight to save the last of the remaining forests.
Nicholas Hoel, Mimi Ma, Adam Appich, Ray Brinkman, Dorothy Cazaly, Douglas Pavlicek, Neelay Mehta, Patricia Westerford, and Olivia Vandergriff are people who had unique relationships with trees which ... (Wikipedia)
The Changeling
by Victor LaValle
A young man's journey of self-reflection and acceptance, confronting the truth of his traumatic past.
One man’s thrilling journey through an enchanted world to find his wife, who has disappeared after seemingly committing an unforgiveable act of violence, from the award-winning author of the, The ... (Goodreads)
LaRose
by Louise Erdrich
A family's tragedy brings them together, pushing them to confront the past and embrace their future.
LaRose is set in North Dakota , on an Ojibwa reservation in the "era of George W. Bush and 9/11." , The novel's protagonist is LaRose Iron, a young Native American boy. , His father, Landreaux Iron, ... (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)
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories
by Philip Roth
A collection of stories focused on themes of assimilation, identity, and relationships.
Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin - he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills - meet one summer and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is ... (Goodreads)
Leaving the Atocha Station
by Ben Lerner
A young poet's journey of self-discovery, struggling to find a sense of purpose in life.
Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when ... (Goodreads)
Netherland
by Joseph O'Neill
A man's journey through grief, finding solace in the game of cricket.
Netherland opens on protagonist Hans van den Broek, a Dutch financial analyst living in London with his English wife Rachel, but quickly flashes back to the years Hans spent in New York City before ... (Wikipedia)
The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A dark and mysterious tale about the mysterious suicides of five teenage sisters in a suburban town.
As an ambulance arrives for the body of Cecilia Lisbon, a group of anonymous adolescent neighborhood boys recalls the events leading up to her death. The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in the ... (Wikipedia)
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
A multi-generational saga exploring identity, race, and culture in modern-day London.
On New Year's Day 1975, Archie Jones, a 47-year-old Englishman whose disturbed Italian wife has just walked out on him, is attempting to take his own life by gassing himself in his car when a chance ... (Wikipedia)
Swing Time
by Zadie Smith
Two brown girls dream of becoming dancers, but only one has talent. Their friendship is tested by ambition and the world's inequalities.
Beginning in 2008, the novel tells the story of two mixed-race, black and white, girls who meet in 1982 in a tap class in London . The unnamed narrator, who has a white, working-class father, and a ... (Wikipedia)
