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Recommendations based on Tobacco Roadby Erskine Caldwell
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Appointment in Samarra
by John O'Hara
A wealthy man in 1930s America tries to escape his fate, but ultimately meets it in a tragic way.
O’Hara did for fictional Gibbsville, Pennsylvania what Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi: surveyed its social life and drew its psychic outlines, but he did it in utterly worldly ... (Goodreads)
A Painted House
by John Grisham
A young boy's journey of growing up on an Arkansas cotton farm, learning life lessons along the way.
"The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to go, and the season looked ... (Goodreads)
A Bend in the River
by V.S. Naipaul
Salim, an Indian-African merchant, navigates the political and social upheavals of post-colonial Africa.
Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small but growing city in the country's remote interior. Salim ... (Wikipedia)
Under the Net
by Iris Murdoch
A young writer's comedic adventures in post-war London, learning about life and love.
In this lightly comic novel about work, love, wealth and fame the main character of Jake Donaghue, a long-winded freeloader, seeks to improve his circumstances and make up for past mistakes by ... (Wikipedia)
Henderson the Rain King
by Saul Bellow
A man's journey of self-discovery, finding his place in the world through travel and adventure.
Eugene Henderson is a troubled middle-aged man. Despite his riches, high social status , and physical prowess, he feels restless and unfulfilled, and harbors a spiritual void that manifests itself as ... (Wikipedia)
Other Voices, Other Rooms
by Truman Capote
A young man's search for identity, love and acceptance in a mysterious southern mansion.
After his mother's death, 13-year-old Joel Harrison Knox, a lonely, effeminate boy, is sent from New Orleans, Louisiana , to live with his father, who abandoned him at the time of his birth. Arriving ... (Wikipedia)
Deliverance
by James Dickey
Four friends embark on a dangerous river rafting journey, facing unexpected perils.
Narrated in the first person by Ed Gentry, a graphic artist and one of the four main characters, the novel opens with him and three friends, all middle-aged men who live in a large city in Georgia, ... (Wikipedia)
Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis
A small-town woman's quest for freedom and self-expression in a repressive society.
With Commentary by E. M. Forster, Dorothy Parker, H. L. Mencken, Lewis Mumford, Rebecca West, Sherwood Anderson, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, Constance Rourke, and Mark Schorer. Main Street , the ... (Goodreads)
The Postman Always Rings Twice
by James M. Cain
A crime drama of forbidden passion, deception and murder.
The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young ... (Wikipedia)
Under the Volcano
by Malcolm Lowry
A day in the life of an alcoholic British consul in Mexico, struggling with his inner demons and relationships.
Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's ... (Goodreads)
A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
A story of unrequited love in the midst of war.
The novel is divided into five sections or 'books'. Frederic Henry is first person narrator of the story. Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American paramedic , is serving in the Italian Army . The novel ... (Wikipedia)
Darkness at Noon
by Arthur Koestler
A political prisoner is interrogated during a totalitarian regime and struggles with his loyalty to the party.
Darkness at Noon is divided into four parts: The First Hearing, The Second Hearing, The Third Hearing, and The Grammatical Fiction. In the original English translation, Koestler′s word that Hardy ... (Wikipedia)
The Love of the Last Tycoon
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Hollywood producer's rise to power and his tragic love affair with a young woman. A poignant tale of ambition, love, and loss.
The Last Tycoon, edited by the renowned literary critic Edmund Wilson, was first published a year after Fitzgerald's death and includes the author's notes and outline for his unfinished literary ... (Goodreads)
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham
A young man's struggles to find a sense of purpose, despite a series of catastrophic misfortunes.
The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the much beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months before. Now orphaned, he is sent to ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Tender Is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A young couple's tumultuous journey through love, wealth and tragedy.
Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who rent a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a circle of friends, mainly Americans. Also staying at the nearby resort are Rosemary ... (Wikipedia)
Absalom, Absalom!
by William Faulkner
A tangled web of family secrets, betrayal, and tragedy in the American South.
Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen , a white man born into poverty in West Virginia who moves to Mississippi with the complementary aims of gaining wealth and becoming a ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Queer
by William S. Burroughs
A semi-autobiographical novel exploring the underground gay culture of 1950s America, with a focus on drug use and criminality.
Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma - both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, Burroughs' only realist love story ... (Goodreads)
The Ginger Man
by J.P. Donleavy
The misadventures of a charming but irresponsible American student in Dublin, Ireland.
First published in Paris in 1955 and originally banned in America, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in ... (Goodreads)
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
by Cormac McCarthy
A violent and bloody western epic, exploring the depths of human depravity.
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." ... (Barnes & Noble)
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
A journey into the depths of the human psyche, exploring the darkness of colonialism.
Aboard the Nellie , anchored in the River Thames near Gravesend , Charles Marlow tells his fellow sailors how he became captain of a river steamboat for an ivory trading company. As a child, Marlow ... (Wikipedia)
Naked Lunch
by William S. Burroughs
Surrealist exploration of addiction, delusions, and reality.
Naked Lunch is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the ... (Wikipedia)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
by Carson McCullers
Exploring the lives of diverse characters in a small Southern town, unearthing secrets and desires.
The book begins with a focus on the relationship between two close friends, John Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos, deaf-mutes who have lived together for several years. Antonapoulos becomes mentally ... (Wikipedia)
The Ambassadors
by Henry James
A wealthy American is sent to Paris to convince his friend's son to return home, but he becomes entangled in the city's social scene.
Graham Greene and E.M. Forster marvelled at it, but F.R. Leavis considered it to be 'not only not one of his great books, but to be a bad one.' As for the author, he held The Ambassadors as the ... (Goodreads)
The Wings of the Dove
by Henry James
A tale of love and intrigue, as a young woman balances her desires against her moral obligations.
Kate Croy and Merton Densher are two betrothed Londoners who desperately want to marry but have very little money. Kate is constantly put upon by family troubles, and is now living with her ... (Wikipedia)
In the Miso Soup
by Ryū Murakami
A tour guide leads a mysterious foreigner through the neon-lit nightlife of Tokyo.
Twenty-year-old Kenji is a Japanese "nightlife" guide for foreigners—he navigates, gaijin, men around the sex clubs and hostess bars of Tokyo . On December 29 he receives a phone call from an ... (Wikipedia)
From Here to Eternity
by James Jones
Tragic tale of fate and destiny, set in the backdrop of World War II.
In February 1941, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, nicknamed "Prew", reports to his new posting at G Company, a US Army infantry unit stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Prew is a career soldier ... (Wikipedia)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
An exploration of a young man's struggle to find his identity and place in the world.
The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus's Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an ... (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)
