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Recommendations based on Picnic at Hanging Rockby Joan Lindsay
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Strange Weather in Tokyo
by Hiromi Kawakami
A tale of love and friendship between two lonely people in Tokyo.
Tsukiko is drinking alone in her local sake bar when by chance she meets one of her old high school teachers and, unable to remember his name, she falls back into her old habit of calling him ... (Goodreads)
Rendezvous with Rama
by Arthur C. Clarke
A mysterious alien spacecraft discovered in the Solar System, explored by a human team.
After an asteroid falls in Northeast Italy in 2077, creating a major disaster, the government of Earth sets up the Spaceguard system as an early warning of arrivals from deep space. The "Rama" of the ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
The Thin Man
by Dashiell Hammett
A retired detective called to investigate a mysterious murder.
The story is set in New York City in December 1932, in the last days of Prohibition. The main characters are a former private detective , Nick Charles and Nora, his clever young wife. Nick, son of a ... (Wikipedia)
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
A group of people investigating a mysterious and haunted house, uncovering its secrets.
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted ... (Goodreads)
On the Beach
by Nevil Shute
After a nuclear war, the last survivors in Australia await their inevitable death from radiation poisoning.
The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne , Australia , in 1963. World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout , and killing all ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Salomé
by Oscar Wilde
A retelling of the Biblical story of a young woman's defiance and seductive power.
Outraged by the sexual perversity of this one-act tragedy, Great Britain's Lord Chamberlain banned Salomé from the national stage. Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice ... (Goodreads)
Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann
A writer's journey of self-discovery in an Italian city, through a tangled web of art, beauty, and passion.
The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach , a famous author in his early fifties who has recently been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic " von " in his ... (Wikipedia)
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A butler reflects on his past, grappling with the lost opportunities of a life devoted to service.
The novel tells, in first-person narration , the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (who is recently deceased, and whom Stevens ... (Wikipedia)
2001: A Space Odyssey
by Arthur C. Clarke
An interstellar journey of exploration, confronting humanity's place in the universe.
A mysterious alien civilization uses a tool with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent ... (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)
Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
A woman's journey of self-discovery in the Caribbean, her story of emancipation from the shadows of colonialism.
The novel, initially set in Jamaica, opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. , The protagonist Antoinette relates the story of ... (Wikipedia)
Orlando
by Virginia Woolf
A fantastical journey through history and gender, exploring the complexities of identity.
The eponymous hero is born as a male nobleman in England during the reign of Elizabeth I . He undergoes a mysterious change of sex at the age of about 30 and lives on for more than 300 years into ... (Wikipedia)
The Stepford Wives
by Ira Levin
An unsuspecting woman discovers a sinister conspiracy in her seemingly perfect suburban town.
The premise involves the married men of the fictional Fairfield County town of Stepford, Connecticut and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. The protagonist is Joanna Eberhart, a ... (Wikipedia)
Brideshead Revisited
by Evelyn Waugh
A nostalgic reflection on a wealthy family and the enduring power of love.
The novel is divided into three parts, framed by a prologue and epilogue. The prologue takes place during the final years of the Second World War . Charles Ryder and his battalion are sent to a ... (Wikipedia)
The Diary of a Nobody
by George Grossmith
A humorous look at the everyday struggles of an ordinary family living in 19th century London.
Mr Pooter is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to ... (Goodreads)
The Thirteen Problems
by Agatha Christie
A woman seeks to find answers to a series of mysterious crimes, involving a sinister secret society.
The Tuesday Night Club is the name for a varied group of guests who challenge each other to solve recent, and not so recent, crimes. It begins one evening when the group gathers at Miss Marple’s ... (Goodreads)
Prep
by Curtis Sittenfeld
A teenage girl's struggle to find her place and identity in an elite prep school.
Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, Prep , is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ... (Goodreads)
Cloudstreet
by Tim Winton
Two families share a house in Perth, Australia, and navigate their lives over two decades. A story of love, loss, and redemption.
In 1943, precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two poor families, the Lambs and the Pickles, flee their rural homes to share a large house called Cloudstreet in Perth, Western Australia. , The ... (Wikipedia)
Legion
by William Peter Blatty
A priest confronts an ancient evil while battling inner demons and questioning his faith.
The story opens with the discovery of a twelve-year-old boy who has been murdered and crucified on a pair of rowing oars. Kinderman already sees that the boy is mutilated in a way identical to the ... (Wikipedia)
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
by Edgar Allan Poe
A young man's journey on a whaling ship turns into a terrifying adventure of survival and discovery in the Antarctic.
The book comprises a preface, 25 chapters, and an afterword, with a total of around 72,000 words. Arthur Gordon Pym was born on the island of Nantucket , famous for its fishing harbor and whaling . ... (Wikipedia)
Nightwood
by Djuna Barnes
A lyrical exploration of the human condition, examining the innermost depths of the soul.
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" (TLS). That time is the period between the two World Wars, ... (Goodreads)
The Tale of Genji
by Murasaki Shikibu
A classic Japanese novel about the romantic life of a nobleman and his various loves.
The work recounts the life of, Hikaru Genji, , or "Shining Genji", the son of an ancient Japanese emperor , known to readers as Emperor Kiritsubo, and a low-ranking, but beloved concubine called ... (Wikipedia)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson
A family isolated from society, struggling to cope with prejudice and tragedy.
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two ... (Goodreads)
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
Exploration of the complexities of human relationships and family life.
The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides , on the Isle of Skye . The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the ... (Wikipedia)
The Violent Bear It Away
by Flannery O'Connor
Exploration of religious faith and fanaticism in the American South.
Mason Tarwater, an outspoken evangelist and self-ordained prophet, dies many years after kidnapping his great-nephew Francis, raising him in a backwoods cabin and preparing him to someday take his ... (Wikipedia)
The World According to Garp
by John Irving
A humorous and heart-wrenching journey of life, love and literature.
This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a ... (Goodreads)
Comet in Moominland
by Tove Jansson
A fantastical adventure of a young Moomin as he searches for a mysterious comet.
The story begins a few weeks after the events of The Moomins and the Great Flood , as the Moomin family are settling into their new life in Moominvalley. Sniff , who is now living with the Moomins, ... (Wikipedia)
A Room with a View
by E.M. Forster
A young woman's exploration of love, morality, and societal norms in Edwardian England.
The novel is set in the early 1900s as upper-middle-class English women are beginning to lead more independent, adventurous lives. In the first part, Miss Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her ... (Wikipedia)
