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Recommendations based on The Diaries of Adam and Eveby Mark Twain
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
by Mark Twain
A modern man is transported back in time to the court of King Arthur, where he uses his knowledge to attempt to change the course of history.
The novel is a comedy set in 6th-century England and its medieval culture through Hank Morgan's view; he is a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut , who, after a blow to the head, awakens ... (Wikipedia)
The Prince and the Pauper
by Mark Twain
A story of two boys who switch places, revealing the harsh realities of life in a monarchy.
Tom Canty , youngest son of a poor family living in Offal Court located in London, has always aspired to have a better life, encouraged by the local priest, who has taught him to read and write. ... (Wikipedia)
The Death of Ivan Ilych
by Leo Tolstoy
A man's journey of self-reflection in the face of death, confronting mortality and the meaning of life.
Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a ... (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 Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man's struggle to find his place in society, and the moral dilemmas he faces.
Prince Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, is on a train to Saint Petersburg on a cold November morning. He is returning to ... (Wikipedia)
Pudd'nhead Wilson
by Mark Twain
A slave switches her baby with her master's, leading to a series of tragic events in a small Missouri town.
The setting is the fictional frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century. David Wilson, a young lawyer, moves to town, and a clever ... (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)
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri
A poetic journey through the afterlife, guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining ... (Goodreads)
Chess Story
by Stefan Zweig
A chess master's attempt to regain his lost skill, and the psychological battle he faces.
The narrator opens the story on a passenger liner traveling from New York to Buenos Aires. Driven to mental anguish as the result of total isolation by the Nazis , Dr B, a securities expert hiding ... (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)
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)
The Clown
by Heinrich Böll
A young man's reflective journey through post-war Germany, exploring the consequences of war.
Hans Schnier is the "Clown" of the novel's title. He is twenty-seven years old from a very wealthy family. At the beginning of the story he arrives in Bonn, Germany. As a clown, he had to travel ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Daddy-Long-Legs
by Jean Webster
A young girl's coming-of-age story, learning to navigate the world of adulthood.
Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage . The children were completely dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual ... (Wikipedia)
Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton
Tale of doomed romance set against a harsh New England winter.
The novel is a framed narrative . The framing story concerns an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, ... (Wikipedia)
The Woman in the Dunes
by Kōbō Abe
A man finds himself stuck in a remote village, struggling to escape a mysterious sand pit.
In 1955, , Jumpei Niki, , a schoolteacher from Tokyo, visits a fishing village to collect insects. After missing the last bus, he is led by the villagers, in an act of apparent hospitality, to a ... (Wikipedia)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
by Patrick Süskind
A murder mystery set in 18th century France, exploring the depths of human obsession.
An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of ... (Goodreads)
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
A black man's journey towards self-actualization in a world of racial oppression.
The narrator, an unnamed black man, begins by describing his living conditions: an underground room wired with hundreds of electric lights, operated by power stolen from the city's electric grid. He ... (Wikipedia)
Laughable Loves
by Milan Kundera
Collection of interconnected stories exploring the complexities of love, relationships and life.
Laughable Loves is a collection of stories that first appeared in print in Prague before 1968, but was then was subsequently banned. The seven stories are all concerned with love, or rather with the ... (Goodreads)
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)
Villa Incognito
by Tom Robbins
A wild and whimsical tale of three American soldiers who go AWOL in Vietnam and end up in a remote village in Laos.
The novel is set in the present day. Its title refers to a house ins Laos inhabited by three American Air Force pilots who have been missing since the Vietnam War. , Following the arrest of one of ... (Wikipedia)
The Jungle Books
by Rudyard Kipling
Collection of stories about Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves, and his adventures in the jungle.
The Jungle Books can be regarded as classic stories told by an adult to children. But they also constitute a complex literary work of art in which the whole of Kipling's philosophy of life is ... (Goodreads)
An Ideal Husband
by Oscar Wilde
A play exploring the themes of blackmail, political corruption, and the nature of honor and integrity in Victorian society.
The play opens during a dinner party at the home of Sir Robert Chiltern in London's fashionable Grosvenor Square . Sir Robert, an esteemed member of the House of Commons , and his wife, Lady ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Fairy Tales
by Oscar Wilde
A collection of enchanting and whimsical fairy tales that explore the human condition through magical and fantastical elements.
The Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde includes the two definitive story collections The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) and A House of Pomegranates (1891). This volume collects exquisite and ... (Goodreads)
The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck
A story of humble farmers facing the struggles of poverty and the upheaval of social change.
The story begins on Wang Lung 's wedding day and follows the rise and fall of his fortunes. The House of Hwang, a family of wealthy landowners, lives in the nearby town, where Wang Lung's future ... (Wikipedia)
Othello
by William Shakespeare
A tale of jealousy, manipulation, and tragedy, as one man's descent into madness leads to disastrous consequences.
In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual ... (Goodreads)
Shakespeare's Sonnets
by William Shakespeare
A collection of poems exploring love, life, mortality, and beauty.
The Arden Shakespeare has long been acclaimed as the established scholarly edition of Shakespeare's work. Now being totally reedited for the third time, Arden editions offer the very best in ... (Goodreads)
King Lear
by William Shakespeare
An aging king's descent into madness reveals the consequences of pride and vanity.
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the ... (Goodreads)
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)
