Recommendations based on You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Senseby Charles Bukowski

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  1. Love Is a Dog from Hell

    by Charles Bukowski
    A poetic exploration of the human experience, from joy to heartache and everything in between.

    Collection of poems rising from and returning to Bukowski's personal experiences reflect people, objects, places, and events of the external world, and reflects on them, on their way out and back. ... (Goodreads)

  2. Factotum

    by Charles Bukowski
    A portrait of a struggling writer, seeking solace in alcohol and women.

    Set in the 1940s, the plot follows Henry Chinaski , Bukowski's perpetually unemployed, alcoholic alter ego , who has been rejected from the World War II draft and makes his way from one menial job to ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Notes of a Dirty Old Man

    by Charles Bukowski
    A collection of raw and unfiltered short stories and essays, exploring the gritty and seedy underbelly of society.

    Bukowski uses his own life as the basis for his series of articles, and characteristically leaves nothing out. The different stories range from hooking up with the wife of a stranger who invites him ... (Wikipedia)

  4. The Collected Poems

    by Sylvia Plath
    A collection of poems that explore the complexities of life, death, love, and mental illness through vivid and haunting imagery.

    Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath’s complete poetic works, edited and introduced by Ted Hughes. By the time of her death on 11, February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my ... (Barnes & Noble)

  5. Ask the Dust

    by John Fante
    A young writer's journey of self-discovery in 1930s Los Angeles.

    Ask the Dust is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young Italian-American writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to ... (Goodreads)

  6. The Sun Also Rises

    by Ernest Hemingway
    A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.

    On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)

  7. 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)

  8. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

    by Yukio Mishima
    A sailor and his forbidden relationship with a young boy, exploring the themes of aggression and loyalty.

    Much of the story is told following the actions of Noboru Kuroda, an adolescent boy living in Yokohama, Japan. He and his group of friends are good students but they are secretly a gang. They believe ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Selected Poems

    by Lord Byron
    A collection of poems by the romantic poet Lord Byron, exploring themes of love, nature, and the human condition.

    Described as 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know' by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron was the quintessential Romantic. Flamboyant, charismatic and brilliant, he remains almost as ... (Goodreads)

  10. Junky

    by William S. Burroughs
    A gritty, autobiographical account of a man's descent into the underworld of addiction.

    Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch , an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky , his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an ... (Goodreads)

  11. Ariel

    by Sylvia Plath
    A collection of raw and intense poems that explore themes of death, femininity, and personal struggle.

    Sylvia Plath's celebrated collection. When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel . Her husband, Ted Hughes, brought the ... (Goodreads)

  12. The Complete Poems

    by Anne Sexton
    A collection of powerful, confessional pieces exploring the beauty, tragedy, and pain of human experience.

    From the joy and anguish of her own experience, Sexton fashioned poems that told truths about the inner lives of men and women. This book comprises Sexton's ten volumes of verse, including the ... (Barnes & Noble)

  13. 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)

  14. Big Sur

    by Jack Kerouac
    A semi-autobiographical novel about Kerouac's time in Big Sur, California, struggling with alcoholism and the pressures of fame.

    "Each book by Jack Kerouac is unique, a telepathic diamond. With prose set in the middle of his mind, he reveals consciousness itself in all its syntactic elaboration, detailing the luminous ... (Goodreads)

  15. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

    by Haruki Murakami
    A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the inner and outer worlds.

    The first part, "The Thieving Magpie", begins with the narrator, Toru Okada, a low-key and unemployed lawyer's assistant, being tasked by his wife, Kumiko, to find their missing cat. Kumiko suggests ... (Wikipedia)

  16. 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)

  17. How We Are Hungry: Stories

    by Dave Eggers
    An anthology of stories exploring universal themes of love, loss, and longing.

    "Another" "What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust" "The Only Meaning of ... (Goodreads)

  18. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

    by Hunter S. Thompson
    A wild and hallucinatory journey through the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas.

    The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke ( Hunter S. Thompson ) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo ( Oscar Zeta Acosta ), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Crossing

    by Cormac McCarthy
    A father and son's perilous journey across a post-apocalyptic landscape.

    Following All the Pretty Horses in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a novel whose force of language is matched only by its breadth of experience and depth of thought. In the bootheel of New Mexico ... (Goodreads)

  20. 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)

  21. Call Me By Your Name

    by André Aciman
    A tender story of first love, exploring the complexities of identity, sexuality and desire.

    The narrator, Elio Perlman , recalls the events of the summer of about 1987, when he was seventeen and living with his parents in Italy . Each summer, his parents would take in a doctoral student as ... (Wikipedia)

  22. 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)

  23. Isla and the Happily Ever After

    by Stephanie Perkins
    A romantic comedy about a girl who falls in love with a boy and learns to trust her own heart.

    Love ignites in the City That Never Sleeps, but can it last? Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And ... (Goodreads)

  24. The Sirens of Titan

    by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    Intergalactic odyssey exploring the meaning of life and the human condition.

    Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future North America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the ... (Wikipedia)

  25. The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

    by Leigh Bardugo
    A collection of dark and twisted fairy tales, filled with magic, monsters, and unexpected twists.

    The Grishaverse will be coming to Netflix soon with Shadow and Bone , an original series! , Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1, New York Times,-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has ... (Barnes & Noble)

  26. 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)

  27. The Sound and the Fury

    by William Faulkner
    Tragic story of the decline of a southern family, exploring the human condition.

    The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his diminished mental capacity; the only characters who show genuine care for him are ... (Wikipedia)

  28. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

    by Milan Kundera
    A story of love and loss in a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia.

    In The Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and ... (Goodreads)

  29. Tropic of Capricorn

    by Henry Miller
    A controversial and candid look into the author's tumultuous personal life in 1920s and 1930s New York.

    The novel covers Miller's growing inability and outright refusal to accommodate what he sees as America's hostile environment. It is autobiographical but not chronological, jumping between Miller's ... (Wikipedia)