Recommendations based on Advise and Consentby Allen Drury

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. All the King's Men

    by Robert Penn Warren
    A powerful political drama that follows a governor's rise and fall as he grapples with ambition, morality and power.

    All the King's Men is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his ... (Goodreads)

  2. The Caine Mutiny

    by Herman Wouk
    A naval officer is court-martialed after leading a mutiny against his captain.

    The story is told through the eyes of Willis Seward "Willie" Keith, an affluent but callow young graduate of Princeton University . Following a mediocre living as a nightclub piano player, he signs ... (Wikipedia)

  3. The Magnificent Ambersons

    by Booth Tarkington
    The story of a family's rise and fall, and the changing landscape of a small town.

    The story is set in a largely fictionalized version of Indianapolis, and much of it was inspired by the neighborhood of Woodruff Place . , , The novel and trilogy trace the growth of the United ... (Wikipedia)

  4. QB VII

    by Leon Uris
    A courtroom drama that explores the aftermath of a libel suit brought by a Polish doctor against an American author.

    A famous author, Abraham Cady, stands trial for libel. In his book The Holocaust , he named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of the Jadwiga concentration camp 's most sadistic inmate/doctors. ... (Wikipedia)

  5. The Bridge of San Luis Rey

    by Thornton Wilder
    Unexpected tragedy brings together a disparate group of strangers, revealing the interconnectedness of all lives.

    The first few pages of the first chapter explain the book's basic premise: the story centers on a fictional event that happened in Peru on the road between Lima and Cuzco , at noon on Friday, July ... (Wikipedia)

  6. Foreign Affairs

    by Alison Lurie
    Two American professors find love and self-discovery while on sabbatical in England.

    Unmarried fifty-four-year-old Virginia Miner (Vinnie), a professor at Corinth University who specializes in children's literature, is off to London for another research trip. She loves England and ... (Wikipedia)

  7. A View from the Bridge: A Play in Two Acts

    by Arthur Miller
    A Brooklyn longshoreman's obsession with his niece leads to tragic consequences. A powerful portrayal of human emotions and societal expectations.

    Arthur ​Miller számos olyan kritikus hangvételű vagy mély gondolatokat tartalmazó esszét, cikket és tanulmányt írt, amelyekkel ugyanolyan mély hatást gyakorol olvasóira, mint darabjaival a színházak ... (Goodreads)

  8. The Fixer

    by Bernard Malamud
    A Jewish handyman is wrongly accused of murder in Tsarist Russia and must navigate a corrupt legal system to prove his innocence.

    A classic that won Malamud both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel—one that makes manifest his roots in Russian ... (Goodreads)

  9. 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)

  10. The Devil's Alternative

    by Frederick Forsyth
    A political thriller about a Soviet plot to blow up a British oil rig and the choices faced by the British government.

    The story opens with the discovery of a castaway in the Black Sea . Recovering in hospital in Turkey , the man is visited by Andrew Drake, an Anglo-Ukrainian . The castaway, Miroslav Kaminsky, is a ... (Wikipedia)

  11. Eye of the Needle

    by Ken Follett
    A thrilling tale of espionage and wartime romance, set in the chaos of WWII.

    In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a stiletto , is working at a London railway depot, collecting information on troop movements. ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Confessions of Nat Turner

    by William Styron
    A fictionalized account of the life of Nat Turner, a slave who led a rebellion in Virginia in 1831.

    The time is November, 1831. African American slave Nat Turner sits in a Virginia jail awaiting execution for his crimes. Nat led a slave rebellion which ended in the deaths of dozens of white people ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Centennial

    by James A. Michener
    Epic journey through the history of the American West, painting a vivid picture of its people and culture.

    Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener’s magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America’s past, the story ... (Goodreads)

  14. A Matter of Honor

    by Jeffrey Archer
    A young British naval officer is falsely accused of theft and must clear his name in a court-martial trial.

    In June 1966 disgraced British colonel Gerald Scott leaves a mysterious letter to his only son, Adam Scott. Adam's mother tells him that she had already asked his father to destroy the letter. Later, ... (Wikipedia)

  15. Rabbit at Rest

    by John Updike
    A story of family and mortality, exploring the struggle of growing old and facing death.

    This novel is part of the series that follows the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom from 1960 to 1990. Rabbit at Rest focuses on the years 1988–89. Harry, nearly 40 years after his glory days as a high ... (Wikipedia)

  16. The Shipping News

    by Annie Proulx
    A man's attempt to rebuild his life in a small Newfoundland town, discovering compassion and joy.

    The story centers around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York , whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive ... (Wikipedia)

  17. A Streetcar Named Desire

    by Tennessee Williams
    A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.

    After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Death Comes to Pemberley

    by P.D. James
    A murder mystery set in the idyllic village of Pemberley, a sequel to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".

    The novel begins in October, 1803, six years after the events in, Pride and Prejudice, which resulted in the marriage of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet . The Prologue and Book One ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Pelican Brief

    by John Grisham
    A law student's investigation into a political assassination, uncovering a deadly conspiracy.

    The story begins with the assassinations of two ideologically divergent Supreme Court Justices. Both murders are committed by Khamel, the most wanted hitman in the world. Justice Rosenberg, a ... (Wikipedia)

  20. A Thousand Acres

    by Jane Smiley
    A family's story of death and inheritance, exposing secrets of their past.

    Larry Cook is an aging farmer who decides to incorporate his farm, handing complete and joint ownership to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. When the youngest daughter objects, she is ... (Wikipedia)

  21. The Stories of John Cheever

    by John Cheever
    A collection of short stories that explore the human condition in the modern era.

    Here are sixty-one stories that chronicle the lives of what has been called "the greatest generation." From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in "The Enormous Radio" to the surprising ... (Goodreads)

  22. War and Remembrance

    by Herman Wouk
    Epic saga of a Jewish family's journey through WWII, facing the struggles of a war-torn world.

    War and Remembrance completes the cycle that began with, The Winds of War, . The story includes historical occurrences at Midway , Yalta , Guadalcanal , and El Alamein as well as the Allied invasions ... (Wikipedia)

  23. A Confederacy of Dunces

    by John Kennedy Toole
    A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.

    Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)

  24. Sophie's Choice

    by William Styron
    A survivor of the Holocaust is confronted with a devastating moral dilemma.

    Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in ... (Wikipedia)

  25. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

    by Ernest J. Gaines
    The life story of a former slave, Jane Pittman, who lived through the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.

    Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s ... (Goodreads)

  26. Tales of the South Pacific

    by James A. Michener
    Collection of interrelated stories set in the Pacific theater during World War II, exploring the complexities of war and human relationships.

    Winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for FictionEnter the exotic world of the South Pacific, meet the men and women caught up in the drama of a big war. The young Marine who falls madly in love with a ... (Goodreads)

  27. Ghost Story

    by Peter Straub
    Four elderly men gather to confront a supernatural entity that has haunted them since their youth.

    In life, not every sin goes unpunished. GHOST STORY For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. ... (Goodreads)

  28. A Town Like Alice

    by Nevil Shute
    A young woman's courageous journey from a Japanese war camp to a new life in Australia.

    The story falls broadly into three parts. In post-World War II London, Jean Paget, a secretary in a leather goods factory, is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has inherited a considerable ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Pigs in Heaven

    by Barbara Kingsolver
    A young girl and her adoptive mother fight for their family's rights and the power of love.

    Mother and adopted daughter, Taylor and Turtle Greer, are back in this spellbinding sequel about family, heartbreak and love. Six-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam ... (Goodreads)

  30. The Berlin Stories

    by Christopher Isherwood
    A collection of stories about life in Berlin, exploring themes of humanity in a time of political upheaval.

    The two novellas are set in Berlin between 1930 and 1933, just as Adolf Hitler was moving into power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this transition period of cafes and quaint avenues, ... (Wikipedia)