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Recommendations based on The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventuresby Malba Tahan
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
A Study in Scarlet
by Arthur Conan Doyle
A masterful detective unravels a mysterious crime and its hidden motives.
In 1881, Doctor John Watson has returned to London after serving in the Second Anglo-Afghan War . He visits the Criterion Restaurant and runs into an old friend named Stamford, who had been a dresser ... (Wikipedia)
Prelude to Foundation
by Isaac Asimov
A powerful ruler's journey to save his crumbling empire, and protect humanity from a mysterious force.
Prelude to Foundation is set in the year 12,020 G.E. (Galactic Era), during the rocky reign of the Emperor Cleon I. It starts with Seldon's presentation of a paper at a mathematics convention ... (Wikipedia)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne
A thrilling adventure beneath the depths of the sea, discovering a strange and wondrous world.
During the year 1866, ships of various nationalities sight a mysterious sea monster , which, it is later suggested, might be a gigantic narwhal . The U.S. government assembles an expedition in New ... (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)
Foundation and Earth
by Isaac Asimov
A journey through the galaxy to find the lost planet of humanity's origin. Along the way, they uncover secrets of the universe.
Councilman Golan Trevize , historian Janov Pelorat , and Blissenobiarella of the planet Gaia (introduced in Foundation's Edge ) set out on a journey to find humanity's ancestral planet— Earth . The ... (Wikipedia)
I, Robot
by Isaac Asimov
A collection of science fiction stories exploring the relationship between humans and robots.
Isaac Asimov's I, Robot launches readers on an adventure into a not-so-distant future where man and machine , struggle to redefinelife, love, and consciousness—and where the stakes are nothing less ... (Goodreads)
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
by Gabriel García Márquez
An elderly man's reflections on love and life, through the lens of a young prostitute.
An old journalist, who has just celebrated his 90th birthday, seeks sex with a 14 year old prostitute, who is selling her virginity to help her family. Instead of sex, he discovers love for the first ... (Wikipedia)
Journey to the Center of the Earth
by Jules Verne
Explorers embark on an incredible subterranean adventure, uncovering the secrets of a lost world.
Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Last Kingdom
by Bernard Cornwell
Epic tale of a Saxon warrior's quest to reclaim his birthright and unite the divided kingdom.
A collection of the first four installments of Bernard Cornwell’s bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, “like Game of Thrones, but real” (,The Observer, London)—the ... (Barnes & Noble)
Elephants Can Remember
by Agatha Christie
A mother and daughter investigate a double suicide that happened years ago, uncovering secrets and lies along the way.
At a literary luncheon Ariadne Oliver is approached by a woman named Mrs Burton-Cox, whose son Desmond is engaged to Oliver's goddaughter Celia Ravenscroft. Mrs Burton-Cox questions the truth ... (Wikipedia)
Bartleby the Scrivener
by Herman Melville
A story of a mysterious scrivener whose refusal to comply with workplace demands leads to tragedy.
The narrator is an unnamed Manhattan lawyer, aged around his late 50s, with a business in legal documents. He already employs two scriveners , Nippers and Turkey, to copy legal documents by hand, but ... (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)
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 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)
Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief
by Maurice Leblanc
An infamous gentleman-thief outwits law enforcement, outmaneuvering adversaries.
Librarian note: This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780143104865. The suave adventures of a gentleman rogue—a French Thomas Crown Created by Maurice LeBlanc during the early twentieth ... (Goodreads)
The Black Cat
by Edgar Allan Poe
A man's descent into madness and guilt, upon committing a heinous act.
One of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable stories. The tale centers on two matters, a black cat and the deterioration of a man. The man is one who enjoyed family life with his wife and numerous pets, ... (Goodreads)
Awful Auntie
by David Walliams
A young girl named Stella is left in the care of her awful auntie, who has a dark secret. Together with a ghostly friend, Stella uncovers the truth.
The book is set in December 1933. The central character is Stella Saxby, whose parents, Lord and Lady Saxby, have died in a tragic car accident. In the wake of the tragedy, Stella's Aunt Alberta ... (Wikipedia)
The Burning Land
by Bernard Cornwell
A Saxon warrior's struggle to reclaim his homeland from Viking invaders.
892 – 893: Uhtred of Bebbanburg is now the preeminent warlord of Wessex, Alfred the Great 's kingdom. Always in poor health, Alfred urges him to swear an oath to Alfred's son and presumptive heir, ... (Wikipedia)
The Cask of Amontillado - an Edgar Allan Poe Short Story
by Edgar Allan Poe
A tale of revenge and retribution, forcibly trapping a foe in a ghoulish crypt.
The story's narrator, Montresor, tells an unspecified person, who knows him very well, of the day he took his revenge on Fortunato (Italian for "the fortunate one"), a fellow nobleman. Angry over ... (Wikipedia)
The Decameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio
A collection of tales of love, adventure, and comedy set in medieval Florence.
The Decameron (c.1351) is an entertaining series of one hundred stories written in the wake of the Black Death. The stories are told in a country villa outside the city of Florence by ten young noble ... (Goodreads)
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
A shipwrecked sailor's struggle to survive on an isolated island, and his eventual redemption.
Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer") set sail from Kingston upon Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a ... (Wikipedia)
The Archer's Tale
by Bernard Cornwell
A young archer's quest to avenge his family, while also finding his place in a turbulent world.
The narrative begins in the village of Hookton, where Thomas is growing up under his once mad father, who is also the village priest. Thomas has been training secretly with a bow, despite the fact ... (Wikipedia)
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
A young man's journey across America, seeking adventure and freedom.
The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Sal Paradise, and his friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense of adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to ... (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)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A man's internal struggle between good and evil forces, as he attempts to reconcile his dual personalities.
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde ... (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)
The Mysterious Island
by Jules Verne
A group of castaways survive and escape their strange island through ingenuity and exploration.
During the American Civil War , five Northern prisoners of war escape during the Siege of Richmond, Virginia , by hijacking a hydrogen-filled observation balloon. The escapees are Cyrus Smith , a ... (Wikipedia)
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle
A thrilling detective story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as they investigate a mysterious murder on the moor.
Dr James Mortimer calls on Sherlock Holmes in London for advice after his friend Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in the yew alley of his manor on Dartmoor in Devon . The death was attributed ... (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)
The Tell-Tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe
A man's obsession with the eye of an old man leads him to commit murder and ultimately, his own downfall.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a first-person narrative told by an unnamed narrator. Insisting that they are sane, the narrator suffers from a disease (nervousness) which causes " over-acuteness of the ... (Wikipedia)
