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Recommendations based on Oil!by Upton Sinclair
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The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair
An expose of the brutal working conditions in the early 20th century meatpacking industry.
Jurgis Rudkus marries his fifteen-year-old sweetheart, Ona Lukoszaite, in a joyous traditional Lithuanian wedding feast. They and their extended family have recently immigrated to Chicago due to ... (Wikipedia)
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Exploration of the timeless struggle between good and evil, set against a backdrop of a family saga.
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (Goodreads)
American Psycho
by Bret Easton Ellis
A corporate psychopath's descent into homicidal madness, exposing the dark side of 1980s New York.
Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho follows the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his mid-20s when the story begins, ... (Wikipedia)
Sula
by Toni Morrison
Story of two childhood friends, exploring social and racial issues in a small Ohio town.
The novel begins when the construction of a golf course is announced, the site being the destroyed remnants of what used to be the Bottom. The Bottom is a black neighborhood on the hill above the ... (Wikipedia)
The Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac
A journey of self-discovery, fueled by a passion for Buddhism and nature.
The character Japhy drives Ray Smith's story, whose penchant for simplicity and Zen Buddhism influenced Kerouac on the eve of the sudden and unpredicted success of, On the Road, . The action shifts ... (Wikipedia)
The Call of the Wild
by Jack London
A dog's adventure in the wilderness, confronting the primal struggle for survival.
The story opens in 1897 with Buck, a powerful 140-pound St. Bernard – Scotch Collie mix, , , happily living in California 's Santa Clara Valley as the pampered pet of Judge Miller and his family. One ... (Wikipedia)
L'Assommoir
by Émile Zola
An exploration of poverty and alcoholism in the Parisian working class.
The novel is principally the story of Gervaise Macquart, who is featured briefly in the first novel in the series,, La Fortune des Rougon, , running away to Paris with her shiftless lover Lantier to ... (Wikipedia)
The Last Full Measure
by Jeff Shaara
Epic story of the battles of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Chickamauga as told through the eyes of the soldiers and officers who fought them.
Librarian's note: An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here . In the Pulitzer prize-winning classic The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara created the finest Civil War novel of our ... (Goodreads)
The Last of the Mohicans
by James Fenimore Cooper
Historical fiction set during the French and Indian War, featuring a native American family and their allies.
Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, are traveling with Major Duncan Heyward from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry, where Munro is in command, and acquire another companion ... (Wikipedia)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
Two cousins create a comic book superhero and find success and adventure in 1940s New York.
The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City , where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman. With the help of his ... (Wikipedia)
The Sea Wolf
by Jack London
A man's fight against the savage and untamed elements of nature on a brutal ship voyage.
The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by Jack London about a literary critic Humphrey van Weyden.The story starts with him aboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides ... (Goodreads)
Franny and Zooey
by J.D. Salinger
A brother and sister's journey towards finding spiritual understanding and inner peace.
The short story concerns Franny's weekend date with her collegiate boyfriend, Lane Coutell. Lane takes her to a fashionable lunch room, where Franny quickly becomes exasperated when he only appears ... (Wikipedia)
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
A young man's journey across America, seeking adventure and freedom.
The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Sal Paradise, and his friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense of adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to ... (Wikipedia)
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
A hacker's quest in a futuristic America dealing with a mysterious computer virus.
Hiro Protagonist is a hacker and pizza delivery driver for the Mafia. He meets Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), a young skateboard Kourier ( courier ) who refers to herself in the third person , during ... (Wikipedia)
Memnoch the Devil
by Anne Rice
A supernatural journey of temptation, faith, and redemption.
After stalking and killing Roger, a ruthless but passionate mobster , Lestat is approached by Roger's ghost. Roger asks him to take care of his daughter Dora, a devout and popular televangelist , ... (Wikipedia)
Germinal
by Émile Zola
Depicts the harsh conditions of miners in 19th century France, a story of hope and revolution.
The novel's central character is Étienne Lantier, previously seen in, L'Assommoir, (1877), and originally to have been the central character in Zola's "murder on the trains" thriller, La Bête ... (Wikipedia)
Suite Française
by Irène Némirovsky
A story of love and loss set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied France.
The first two stories of a masterwork once thought lost, written by a pre-WWII bestselling author who was deported to Auschwitz and died before her work could be completed. By the early l940s, when ... (Goodreads)
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
by Flannery O'Connor
A collection of short stories exploring the human condition, from the comic to the grotesque.
This now classic book revealed Flannery O'Connor as one of the most original and provocative writers to emerge from the South. Her apocalyptic vision of life is expressed through grotesque, often ... (Goodreads)
The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells
A scientist travels through time, discovering the future of mankind.
The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond , Surrey , identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller . Similarly, with but one exception ... (Wikipedia)
Empire of the Sun
by J.G. Ballard
A young British boy's life is turned upside down during WWII as he is separated from his parents and forced to survive in a Japanese internment camp.
The novel recounts the story of a young British boy, Jamie (“Jim”) Graham (named after Ballard's two first names, "James Graham"), who lives with his parents in Shanghai . After the Pearl Harbor ... (Wikipedia)
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
by Edwin A. Abbott
A two-dimensional world and its inhabitants explore the concept of multidimensionality.
The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square , a ... (Wikipedia)
The Rum Diary
by Hunter S. Thompson
A man's journey to find himself and meaningful work, set in a tropical paradise.
Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto ... (Goodreads)
I Am Legend and Other Stories
by Richard Matheson
A collection of sci-fi horror stories exploring themes of isolation, fear and the unknown.
Robert Neville appears to be the sole survivor of a pandemic that has killed most of the human population and turned the remainder into " vampires " that largely conform to their stereotypes in ... (Wikipedia)
What Is the What
by Dave Eggers
A young African refugee's journey from Sudan to America, struggling to survive and keep his culture alive.
Achak is separated from his family during the Second Sudanese Civil War when the Arab militia, referred to as murahaleen (which is Arabic for the deported), wipes out his Dinka village, Marial Bai . ... (Wikipedia)
Heart of a Dog
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A satirical story of a scientist who attempts to transform a stray dog into a human.
Moscow , 1924. While foraging for trash one winter day, a stray dog is found by a cook and scalded with boiling water. Lying forlorn in a doorway, the dog awaits his end awash in self-pity. To his ... (Wikipedia)
Doctor Zhivago
by Boris Pasternak
A love story set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, exploring the tragedy of a nation in upheaval.
The plot of Doctor Zhivago is long and intricate. It can be difficult to follow for two reasons. First, Pasternak employs many characters, who interact with each other throughout the book in ... (Wikipedia)
Dream Country
by Neil Gaiman
A collection of short stories that explore the boundaries of dreams, reality, and fantasy.
The third volume of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. In each of these otherwise unrelated stories, Morpheus serves only as a minor character. Here we meet the ... (Goodreads)
American Tabloid
by James Ellroy
A riveting crime drama set in the 1950s, featuring a complex web of characters and their dark and twisted agendas.
"Shakedowns" covers just 26 days, introducing the three principal characters, and establishing their relationships, history, and career trajectories. Pete Bondurant is a former LASD deputy; he ... (Wikipedia)
A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
A black family's struggle for a better life and the dreams that accompany their journey.
Walter and Ruth Younger, their son Travis, along with Walter's mother Lena (Mama) and Walter's sister Beneatha, live in poverty in a dilapidated two-bedroom apartment on Chicago's south side. Walter ... (Wikipedia)
Saga, Volume 3
by Brian K. Vaughan
A family's epic adventure of survival in a dangerous and unpredictable universe.
The Eisner, Harvey, and Hugo Award-winning phenomenon continues, as new parents Marko and Alana travel to an alien world to visit their hero, while the family's pursuers finally close in on their ... (Barnes & Noble)
