Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Bitterness
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
A timeless tale of love and revenge, set against the backdrop of the English moors.
In 1801, Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire , pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff , at his remote moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There he meets a reserved young ... (Wikipedia)
Stone Mattress: Nine Tales
by Margaret Atwood
Nine stories exploring human relationships and the complexities of modern life.
A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late ... (Goodreads)
The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai
An exploration of the effects of colonialism on the characters' lives in a small Himalayan town.
In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his ... (Goodreads)
We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates
A family unravels after a traumatic event shatters their close-knit bond.
Michael and Corinne Mulvaney are the parents of four children: Michael Jr., Patrick, Marianne, and Judd. Living in a picture perfect farm in upstate New York , the Mulvaneys own a successful roofing ... (Wikipedia)
The Sympathizer
by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Vietnam War refugee returns to his homeland and struggles to reconcile conflicting loyalties.
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be ... (Goodreads)
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
A woman's struggles to find meaning in her life, leading to tragic consequences.
Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. When ... (Goodreads)
Embers
by Sándor Márai
A story of a lifelong friendship between two men that is tested by secrets and betrayal.
Originally published in 1942 and now rediscovered to international acclaim, this taut and exquisitely structured novel by the Hungarian master Sandor Marai conjures the melancholy glamour of a ... (Goodreads)
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
by Andrew Sean Greer
A man who ages backwards recounts his life-long love for a woman who ages normally.
Today Show Book Club Pick,An extraordinarily haunting love story told in the voice of a man who appears to age backwards,We are each the love of someone's life.,So begins, The Confessions of Max ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Secret Keeper
by Kate Morton
A woman unravels her family's past, uncovering secrets and lies that span generations.
During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a ... (Goodreads)
Redeeming Love
by Francine Rivers
A woman's journey of transformation and redemption through the power of love.
The story starts off in New England, 1835. Sarah, a beautiful young girl, meets her father, Alex Stafford, for the first time. Six-year-old Sarah learns that she is the product of Stafford's ... (Wikipedia)
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
A tale of the consequences of a child's mistake, and how its effects ripple through generations.
Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old English girl with a talent for writing, lives at her family's country estate with her parents Jack and Emily Tallis. Her older sister Cecilia has recently graduated from ... (Wikipedia)
All Families are Psychotic
by Douglas Coupland
A dysfunctional family's story of love, loss and redemption.
The novel is the tale of the Drummond family from Vancouver gathering together to watch Sarah Drummond's space shuttle blast off at the Kennedy Space Center . The Drummonds are a group of misfits ... (Wikipedia)
Hot Water Music
by Charles Bukowski
A collection of Bukowski's works exploring themes of love, death, and the human experience.
With his characteristic raw and minimalist style, Charles Bukowski takes us on a walk through his side of town in, Hot Water Music,. He gives us little vignettes of depravity and lasciviousness, bite ... (Goodreads)
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
by Hannah Tinti
A father-daughter journey of healing, as they confront the secrets of the past.
A father protects his daughter from the legacy of his past and the truth about her mother's death in this thrilling new novel from the prize-winning author of, The Good Thief., After years spent ... (Goodreads)
The Lost Daughter
by Elena Ferrante
A woman's exploration of guilt, secrets, and the power of motherhood.
Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to ... (Goodreads)
The Amateur Marriage
by Anne Tyler
An exploration of a failed marriage and its consequences across generations.
The plot concerns the marriage of Michael Anton and Pauline Barclay, who meet when he tends to her bloodied brow in his family's grocery store, located in a primarily Eastern European enclave in ... (Wikipedia)
The Island
by Victoria Hislop
A family's secrets unfold as they grapple with the consequences of the Greek Civil War.
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before ... (Goodreads)
Damned
by Chuck Palahniuk
A powerful satire of American culture, as a young woman confronts the absurdities of society.
The novel opens with 13-year-old Madison "Maddy" Spencer waking in Hell , unsure of the details surrounding her death. She believes she died of a marijuana overdose while her celebrity parents were ... (Wikipedia)
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories
by Philip Roth
A collection of stories focused on themes of assimilation, identity, and relationships.
Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin - he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills - meet one summer and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is ... (Goodreads)
The Misfortunates
by Dimitri Verhulst
A coming of age story of a boy dealing with poverty, drugs, and family strife.
In De helaasheid der dingen keert de schrijver terug naar zijn geboortegrond in Reetveerdegem. We maken kennis met zijn vader, Pierre, die zijn paar uur oude zoontje in een postzak op zijn fiets ... (Goodreads)
The Assault
by Harry Mulisch
A young boy's struggle to come to terms with his father's past during WWII.
The novel consists of a brief prologue and five "episodes" dated 1945, 1952, 1956, 1966, and 1981. Twelve-year-old Anton Steenwijk is living with his parents and older brother on the outskirts of ... (Wikipedia)
Bonjour Tristesse
by Françoise Sagan
Coming of age tale of a young girl learning to navigate the complexities of love and relationships.
17-year-old Cécile spends her summer in a villa on the French Riviera with her father Raymond and his current mistress, the young, superficial, fashionable Elsa, who gets on well with Cécile. Raymond ... (Wikipedia)
The Insulted and Humiliated
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A story of revenge, focusing on morality and redemption.
Natasha leaves her parents' home and runs away with Alyosha (prince Alexey) – the son of Prince Valkovsky. As a result of his pain, her father, Nikolai, curses her. The only friend that remains by ... (Wikipedia)
A Land More Kind Than Home
by Wiley Cash
An exploration of the rural American South, casting a spotlight on the bonds of family and the power of faith.
In his phenomenal debut novel—a mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a small North Carolina town—author Wiley Cash displays a remarkable talent ... (Barnes & Noble)
North and South
by John Jakes
A story of two families divided by the Civil War and their journey to reconciliation and understanding.
Part history, part novel, this book chronicles two great American dynasties over three generations. Though brought together in a friendship that neither jealousy nor violence could shatter, the ... (Goodreads)
The Day of the Locust
by Nathanael West
A study of the dark side of the American Dream, exploring the disappointments and struggles of the have-nots.
Tod Hackett is the novel's protagonist. He moves from the east coast to Hollywood, California in search of inspiration for his next painting. The novel is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression ... (Wikipedia)
Thoughtless
by S.C. Stephens
A young woman's exploration of love, trust and commitment, confronting difficult choices.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author S.C. Stephens comes a powerful and emotional contemporary romance featuring a young woman in a new city who finds herself torn between her handsome, ... (Barnes & Noble)
A Country Doctor's Notebook
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A young doctor's struggles to practice medicine in a small rural village.
Brilliant stories that show the growth of a novelist's mind, and the raw material that fed the wild surrealism of Bulgakov's later fiction. With the ink still wet on his diploma, the ... (Goodreads)
The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
A woman's life story, told through her own words, as she reflects on her life journeys.
The main character is an old woman, Roseanne McNulty, who now resides in the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. Having been a patient for some fifty years or more, Roseanne decides to write an ... (Wikipedia)
The Road to Grace
by Richard Paul Evans
A man's journey to find redemption and forgiveness after losing everything he held dear.
The third novel in the, New York Times, bestselling series about an advertising executive who loses everything and embarks on a walk across America: “definitely a journey worth taking” (,Booklist,). ... (Barnes & Noble)
Little Altars Everywhere
by Rebecca Wells
A Southern family struggles to find connection and understanding amidst their chaotic lives.
Little Altars Everywhere is a national best-seller, a companion to Rebecca Wells' celebrated novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Originally published in 1992, Little Altars introduces ... (Goodreads)
Grace
by Richard Paul Evans
A man's life is changed when he meets a mysterious woman named Grace who helps him find hope and redemption.
Updated and Renamed now as, If Only, A heartwarming and inspirational Christmas novel in the tradition of The Christmas Box, The Gift , and The Christmas List . The New York Times bestselling author ... (Goodreads)
Bleachers
by John Grisham
A former high school football star returns to his hometown to confront the past.
Neely Crenshaw, born in 1969, is a high school All-American quarterback , who has been Messina High School's 'golden boy,' expected to lead them to the state title. Neely is a highly recruited ... (Wikipedia)
Self-Help
by Lorrie Moore
Collection of humorous short stories exploring the lives of characters facing disappointments and heartbreaks.
In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. ... (Goodreads)
Kuyucaklı Yusuf
by Sabahattin Ali
A young man's struggle to reconcile his idealistic dreams and harsh realities of life.
"Bu manasız ve yabancı hayatta bir tek şeye hakikaten sarılmış, hakikaten inanır gibi olmuştu. Bu da karısı idi. Muazzez'in varlığı Yusuf için büyük, boşlukları dolduracak mahiyette bir şey değildi, ... (Goodreads)
Men Without Women
by Ernest Hemingway
Collection of short stories exploring the lives of men and their struggles with love, loss, and loneliness.
CLASSIC SHORT STORIES FROM THE MASTER OF AMERICAN FICTION First published in 1927, Men Without Women represents some of Hemingway's most important and compelling early writing. In these fourteen ... (Goodreads)
A Life Intercepted
by Charles Martin
A former NFL player is released from prison and must confront his past to rebuild his life and family.
Twelve years ago Matthew "the Rocket" Rising had it all. Married to his high school sweetheart and one of the winningest quarterbacks in the history of college football, he was the number one NFL ... (Goodreads)
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