Powered by a book like {foo}
Recommendations based on The Masterby Colm Tóibín
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Brooklyn
by Colm Tóibín
A young Irish woman's migration to America, exploring themes of identity and belonging.
Eilis Lacey is a young woman who is unable to find work in 1950s Ireland . Her older sister Rose organises a meeting with a Catholic priest called Father Flood on a visit from New York City , who ... (Wikipedia)
Regeneration
by Pat Barker
Story of WWI soldiers & their experiences of trauma, set amidst the backdrop of a psychiatric hospital.
The novel begins as Dr W. H. R. Rivers , an army psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital , learns of poet Siegfried Sassoon 's declaration against the continuation of the war. A government board ... (Wikipedia)
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
An exploration of the relationship between the individual and the divine, viewed through the lens of nature and its rhythms.
A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. ... (Goodreads)
Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore
A collection of comedic stories depicting everyday life with a unique, wry sense of humor.
A long-awaited collection of stories–twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in ... (Goodreads)
Nora Webster
by Colm Tóibín
A widow navigates life in a small Irish town in the 1960s, finding solace in music and independence.
From one of contemporary literature's most acclaimed and beloved authors comes this magnificent new novel set in a small town in Ireland in the 1960s, where a fiercely compelling, too-young widow and ... (Goodreads)
Enduring Love
by Ian McEwan
A story of obsession and its consequences, as two men clash over a woman's affections.
Joe planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside to celebrate his lover's return after 6 weeks in the States. The perfect day turns to nightmare however, when they are involved in ... (Goodreads)
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
An exploration of the life of a small-town woman, revealing her struggles and emotional complexities.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires. At times stern, at other times ... (Goodreads)
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories
by Alice Munro
Interconnected stories exploring the complexities of love, relationships, and family.
In the her tenth collection (the title story of which is the basis for the new film Hateship Loveship ), Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and ... (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)
Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
A historical fiction about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry ... (Goodreads)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)
The Line of Beauty
by Alan Hollinghurst
The story of a young gay man in Thatcher's England, navigating his identity and sexuality.
The novel is set in Britain in three parts, taking place in 1983, 1986 and 1987. The story surrounds the young gay protagonist, Nick Guest. Nick is middle-class and from the fictional market town of ... (Wikipedia)
The Story of a New Name
by Elena Ferrante
Two young women's search for identity and independence in a patriarchal society.
In 2012, Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New ... (Goodreads)
Faust, First Part
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A timeless story of a man's struggle between the forces of good and evil.
Goethe’s masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental ... (Goodreads)
Lila
by Marilynne Robinson
A young woman's journey of self-discovery and exploration of faith and spirituality.
Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder. Lila, ... (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)
The Children of Men
by P.D. James
In a world where no children have been born for 25 years, a man discovers a pregnant woman and must protect her.
The narrative voice for the novel alternates between the third person and the first person , the latter in the form of a diary kept by Dr. Theodore "Theo" Faron, an Oxford don . The novel opens with ... (Wikipedia)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by David Mitchell
An epic tale of love and adventure set in an 18th century Japanese trading port.
The novel begins in the summer of 1799 at the Dutch East India Company trading post Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki . It tells the story of a Dutch trader's love for a Japanese midwife who is ... (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 Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides
by Aeschylus
Tragedy of a cursed family and their struggle to find the truth and justice.
Alternate cover edition can be found, here,, here,, here,, here, In the Oresteia—the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity—Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder ... (Goodreads)
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
A tale of struggle and sorrow for a poor, uneducated man amid the rigid conventions of Victorian England.
The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, who lives in a village in southern England (part of Hardy's fictional county of Wessex ), who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modelled on ... (Wikipedia)
The Bridge on the Drina
by Ivo Andrić
A multigenerational epic of a small Bosnian town and the bridge that stands as its symbol.
A vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, The Bridge on the Drina earned Ivo Andric the Nobel ... (Goodreads)
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
A dynamic narrative spanning centuries, exploring the interconnectedness of humanity.
The book consists of six nested stories; each is read or observed by a main character of the next, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each ... (Wikipedia)
Play It As It Lays
by Joan Didion
A woman's search for identity amidst the glamour and emptiness of 1960s Hollywood.
The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film producer Carter Lang. The further narration is ... (Wikipedia)
Dubliners
by James Joyce
Collection of stories about everyday life in Dublin, exploring the Irish psyche.
This work of art reflects life in Ireland at the turn of the last century, and by rejecting euphemism, reveals to the Irish their unromantic realities. Each of the 15 stories offers glimpses into the ... (Goodreads)
Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson
A series of intertwining stories of people whose lives are changed by an unexpected event.
'Case Histories' tells the story of Jackson Brodie, a private investigator who tries to find out the truth of some cases. Brodie meets some people who reclaims his help to solve their cases Kirkus ... (Wikipedia)
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
A young Indian-American's journey of reconciling two different cultures and his own identity.
The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta , India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Ashoke is an engineering student at the ... (Wikipedia)
Death of an Expert Witness
by P.D. James
A detective investigates a suspicious death in a hospital laboratory, uncovering a sinister conspiracy.
Dr. Lorrimer appeared to be the picture of a bloodless, coldly efficient scientist. Only when his brutally slain body is discovered and his secret past dissected does the image begin to change. Once ... (Goodreads)
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)
100 Selected Poems
by E.E. Cummings
An exploration of life, love, and the beauty of nature through the lens of poetry.
E.E. Cummings is without question one of the major poets of this century, and this volume, first published in 1959, is indispensable for every lover of modern lyrical verse. It contains one hundred ... (Barnes & Noble)
