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Recommendations based on Gormenghastby Mervyn Peake
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Titus Groan
by Mervyn Peake
A young man's rise to power in a decaying castle, amidst a backdrop of a decaying world.
The novel begins as the imperious and ritual-driven servant Mr. Flay seeks to tell someone new of the birth of an heir to the House of Groan in a remote part of the sprawling castle of Gormenghast. A ... (Wikipedia)
The Trial
by Franz Kafka
A man is arrested and put on trial for a crime that remains unclear throughout the novel.
On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K., the chief cashier of a bank, is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. Josef is not ... (Wikipedia)
The Silmarillion
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Epic saga of the history of Middle-Earth, a world filled with mythical creatures.
The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of ... (Goodreads)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
A whimsical tale of two magicians mastering the mysteries of English magic.
The novel opens in 1806 in northern England with The Learned Society of York Magicians, whose members are "theoretical magicians" who believe that magic died out several hundred years earlier. The ... (Wikipedia)
The Third Policeman
by Flann O'Brien
A bizarre yet darkly funny tale of a man's descent into a surreal world of mischievous creatures and strange events.
The Third Policeman is set in rural Ireland and is narrated by a dedicated amateur scholar of de Selby , a scientist and philosopher. , The narrator, whose name we never learn, is orphaned at a young ... (Wikipedia)
Perdido Street Station
by China Miéville
A thrilling adventure through a captivating and unique city, filled with danger and magic.
Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a scientist living in the city of New Crobuzon. He is approached by Yagharek, a member of a birdlike species known as garuda , who has had his wings removed as a ... (Wikipedia)
The Wasp Factory
by Iain Banks
A disturbed teenage boy discovers startling truths about his family and himself.
The story is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame. Frank lives with his father on a small island in rural Scotland , and he has not seen his mother in many years. There is no ... (Wikipedia)
We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
A dystopian tale of a totalitarian state and its citizens' struggle for freedom.
A few hundred years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship Integral is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief ... (Wikipedia)
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)
The Scar
by China Miéville
A fantastical journey of survival in a dangerous, watery underworld.
The Scar opens with the journey of a small ship which has set out from the city New Crobuzon (the setting of Perdido Street Station ). It is heading to the city's new colony, Nova Esperium, which ... (Wikipedia)
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
A Franciscan friar investigates a series of murders in a medieval monastery, uncovering a sinister plot.
In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
A group of people investigating a mysterious and haunted house, uncovering its secrets.
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted ... (Goodreads)
Three Men in a Boat
by Jerome K. Jerome
Three friends and a dog embark on a whimsical boat journey down the Thames, encountering unexpected adventures and mishaps.
A comic masterpiece that has never been out of print since it was first published in 1889, Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat includes an introduction and notes by Jeremy Lewis in Penguin ... (Goodreads)
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
by Susanna Clarke
A collection of enchanting tales of faerie, folklore and romance.
Following the enormous success of 2004 bestseller and critics' favorite "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell", Susanna Clarke delivers a delicious collection of ten stories set in the same fairy-crossed ... (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)
Thank You, Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse
A bumbling English gentleman finds help from his brilliant valet, thwarting all manner of social disasters.
After a falling-out concerning Bertie's relentless playing of the banjolele , Jeeves leaves his master's service and finds work with Bertie's old friend, Lord "Chuffy" Chuffnell . Bertie travels to ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Stories and Poems
by Edgar Allan Poe
A collection of dark and mysterious stories and poems, exploring the depths of the human condition.
This single volume brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and illuminates the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential figures in American literary ... (Barnes & Noble)
Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A satirical exploration of human folly, exposing the dangers of unchecked science and technology.
Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, ... (Goodreads)
The Tin Drum
by Günter Grass
A satirical novel of a young boy's journey through WWII Germany, and the power of the human spirit.
The story revolves around the life of Oskar Matzerath, as narrated by himself when confined in a mental hospital during the years 1952–1954. Born in 1924 in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk , ... (Wikipedia)
The Glass Bead Game
by Hermann Hesse
In a future society, an elite group of intellectuals play a complex game that combines music, mathematics, and philosophy.
The beginning of the novel introduces the Music Master, the resident of Castalia who recruits Knecht as a young student and who is to have the most long-lasting and profound effect on Knecht ... (Wikipedia)
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)
A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin
A young wizard embarks on a quest to master his own magical powers and battle a mysterious force of evil.
Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon ... (Goodreads)
Feet of Clay
by Terry Pratchett
A mysterious death leads to the uncovering of secrets and treachery in a fantasy world.
Twelve of the city golems, clay creatures forced to obey the written instructions placed inside their heads, decide to create a "king" golem. They fashion a golem from their own clay and place in his ... (Wikipedia)
The Island of Dr. Moreau
by H.G. Wells
A shipwrecked man's encounters with a mad scientist's experiments in animal-human hybridization.
The Island of Doctor Moreau is the account of Edward Prendick, an Englishman with a scientific education who survives a shipwreck in the southern Pacific Ocean. A passing ship called Ipecacuanha ... (Wikipedia)
Invitation to a Beheading
by Vladimir Nabokov
A man's surreal experience in a dystopian world of psychological and physical torment.
Narrated omnisciently , the novel opens with Cincinnatus C., a thirty-year-old teacher and the protagonist, being sentenced to death by beheading for the crime "gnostical turpitude" in twenty days' ... (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)
Little, Big
by John Crowley
A multigenerational family's journey of magical discovery in a fantastical realm.
Turn-of-the-century American architect John Drinkwater begins to suspect that within this world there lies another (and within that, another and another ad infinitum, each larger than the world that ... (Wikipedia)
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A fantastical, satirical examination of Soviet life, intersecting with the supernatural.
The novel has two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds as Professor Woland . He is accompanied by Koroviev, a grotesquely-dressed valet; Behemoth , ... (Wikipedia)
I, Claudius
by Robert Graves
An epic tale of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, told through the eyes of a dynasty's forgotten leader.
Into the 'autobiography' of Clau-Clau-Claudius, the pitiful stammerer who was destined to become Emperor in spite of himself, Graves packs the everlasting intrigues, the depravity, the bloody purges ... (Goodreads)
Night Watch
by Terry Pratchett
A comedic fantasy adventure story of a man who must save the world with the help of magic and unlikely allies.
On the morning of the 30th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May (and as such the anniversary of the death of John Keel, Vimes' hero and former mentor), Sam Vimes — whose ... (Wikipedia)
