Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Existentialism
The Stranger
by Albert Camus
A man's journey of existentialism, questioning the meaning of life and death.
Meursault learns of the death of his mother, who has been living in a retirement home. At her funeral, he expresses none of the expected emotions of grief. When asked if he wishes to view the body, ... (Wikipedia)
Sophie's World
by Jostein Gaarder
A journey of philosophical discovery told through a young girl's exploration of the world.
Sophie Amundsen is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Lillesand , Norway. The book begins with Sophie receiving two messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to Hilde Møller Knag. Afterwards, she ... (Wikipedia)
Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie
A magical tale of India's history told through the story of a boy born at the stroke of midnight.
Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem ... (Goodreads)
Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A man's struggle to make sense of the horrors of war and the chaotic nature of life.
The story is told in a non-linear order, and events become clear through flashbacks and time travel experiences from the unreliable narrator , who begins the novel by writing "All of this happened, ... (Wikipedia)
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
Confronting the identity and mental health struggles of a young woman in a patriarchal society.
In 1953, Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston , gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City , under editor Jay Cee; however, Esther is neither stimulated ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka
A man's transformation into an insect and the surreal journey that follows.
Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". He initially considers the transformation to be temporary and slowly ponders the consequences of this ... (Wikipedia)
White Noise
by Don DeLillo
A darkly comic exploration of modern life, examining the effects of technology and consumer culture.
Set at a bucolic mid-western college known only as The-College-on-the-Hill, White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler ... (Wikipedia)
Moby-Dick or, the Whale
by Herman Melville
A whaling ship's vengeful pursuit of a white whale, with a captivating narrative.
Ishmael travels in December from Manhattan Island to New Bedford, Massachusetts , with plans to sign up for a whaling voyage. The inn where he arrives is overcrowded, so he must share a bed with the ... (Wikipedia)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
by Douglas Adams
An offbeat detective story set in a surreal, supernatural world.
Dirk Gently, who calls himself a " holistic detective", has happened upon what he thinks is a rather comfortable situation. A wealthy man in the record industry has retained him, spinning a story ... (Wikipedia)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
A story of two unlikely outcasts who find solace and comfort in each other's company.
The story revolves mainly around the characters of Renée Michel and Paloma Josse, residents of an upper-middle class Left Bank apartment building at 7 Rue de Grenelle – one of the most elegant ... (Wikipedia)
On the Genealogy of Morals
by Friedrich Nietzsche
Exploration of morality, power, and the origin of human values.
On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the ... (Goodreads)
The Drawing of the Three
by Stephen King
A man's battle for survival and acceptance in a dangerous and strange world.
The book begins less than seven hours after the end of, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, after The Man in Black has described The Gunslinger's fate using tarot cards . , Roland wakes up on a beach, ... (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 Plague
by Albert Camus
A small town in Algeria is struck by a deadly plague, testing the courage and faith of its citizens.
The book begins with an epigraph quoting Daniel Defoe , author of, A Journal of the Plague Year, . In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the ... (Wikipedia)
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)
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 Great Divorce
by C.S. Lewis
A spiritual journey through Heaven and Hell, exploring the consequences of our decisions.
The narrator inexplicably finds himself in a grim and joyless city, the "grey town", where it rains continuously, even indoors, which is either Hell or Purgatory depending on whether or not one stays ... (Wikipedia)
The Tunnel
by Ernesto Sabato
A man's descent into madness, as his past unravels and his present is slowly consumed by it.
The story begins with the main character introducing himself as "the painter who killed María Iribarne" before delving into the circumstances that led to their first encounter. Castel's obsession ... (Wikipedia)
All Systems Red
by Martha Wells
Murderbot navigates a dangerous world while struggling to maintain its own autonomy.
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are ... (Goodreads)
The Death of Ivan Ilych
by Leo Tolstoy
A man's journey of self-reflection in the face of death, confronting mortality and the meaning of life.
Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a ... (Wikipedia)
Howl and Other Poems
by Allen Ginsberg
A collection of poems exploring themes of individualism and modern culture.
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)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
by Milan Kundera
An exploration of the power of memory and the meaning of life through a series of interconnected stories.
The first section occurs in 1971 and is the story of Mirek, as he explores his memories of Zdena. Knowing that he loved this ugly woman has left a blemish, and he hopes to rectify this by destroying ... (Wikipedia)
Immortality
by Milan Kundera
An exploration of the human desire for immortality and the implications of eternity.
Divided into seven parts, Immortality centers on Agnes, her husband Paul and her sister Laura. Part One: the Face establishes these characters. Part Two: Immortality depicts Goethe 's fraught ... (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)
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)
Gravity's Rainbow
by Thomas Pynchon
A surreal exploration of war and technology, and their impact on the human spirit.
Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its ... (Goodreads)
A History of Western Philosophy
by Bertrand Russell
A comprehensive overview of the major philosophical thinkers and their ideas.
Since its first publication in 1945 Lord Russell's A History of Western Philosophy has been universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject—unparalleled in its ... (Goodreads)
Les Fleurs du Mal
by Charles Baudelaire
Collection of poems exploring the beauty and depravity of human nature.
Charles Baudelaire's 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs ... (Goodreads)
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)
Anathem
by Neal Stephenson
A philosophical novel set in a monastic society, exploring the limits of knowledge.
Anathem is set on the fictional planet of Arbre. Thousands of years before the events in the novel, the planet's intellectuals entered concents ( monastic communities) to protect their activities ... (Wikipedia)
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
An eccentric space adventure filled with comedic misadventures and cosmic revelations.
At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five novels from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a ... (Goodreads)
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
by David Foster Wallace
Reflections on leading a meaningful life, with compassion and understanding.
In this rare peak into the personal life of the author of numerous bestselling novels, gain an understanding of David Foster Wallace and how he became the man that he was. Only once did David Foster ... (Barnes & Noble)
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace
A journey through the absurdist world of entertainment, drugs, addiction & death.
There are four major interwoven narratives: , These narratives are connected via a film, Infinite Jest , also referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat ". The film is so ... (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)
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)
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)
Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
A young writer's journey of self-exploration in Paris, confronting life, love and lust.
Now hailed as an American classic Tropic of Cancer , Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a ... (Goodreads)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig
A philosophical exploration of the meaning of life, seen through the lens of a cross-country motorcycle journey.
Robert M. Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's ... (Goodreads)
Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
Two men wait for a mysterious figure who never arrives, reflecting on their lives and existence.
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, have met near a leafless tree. Estragon spent the previous night lying in a ditch and receiving a beating from some unnamed assailants. The two men discuss a variety ... (Wikipedia)
The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man's struggle to find his place in society, and the moral dilemmas he faces.
Prince Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, is on a train to Saint Petersburg on a cold November morning. He is returning to ... (Wikipedia)
Solaris
by Stanisław Lem
A psychological exploration of a distant planet, uncovering the truth behind its strange and mysterious phenomena.
Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life inhabiting a distant alien planet named Solaris. The planet is almost completely covered with an ... (Wikipedia)
A Wild Sheep Chase
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery through fantasy, reality, and the unknown.
This quasi-detective tale follows an unnamed, chain-smoking narrator and his adventures in Tokyo and Hokkaido in 1978. The story begins when the recently divorced protagonist, an advertisement ... (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)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal exploration of two separate yet interwoven realities.
The story is split between parallel narratives. The odd-numbered chapters take place in the 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland', although the phrase is not used anywhere in the text, only in page headers. The ... (Wikipedia)
Breakfast of Champions
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A humorous exploration of life's absurdities, through a madcap journey of a protagonist.
Kilgore Trout is a widely published, but ignored and virtually invisible writer who is invited to deliver a keynote address at a local arts festival in distant Midland City. Dwayne Hoover is a ... (Wikipedia)
Beyond Good and Evil
by Friedrich Nietzsche
A philosophical exploration of morality and truth, challenging conventional morality and religious beliefs.
Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale with an introduction by Michael Tanner in Penguin Classics. Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's ... (Goodreads)
Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A surrealistic, satirical commentary on the horror of war and the loss of innocence.
The story is told in a non-linear order by an unreliable narrator (he begins the novel by telling the reader, "All of this happened, more or less"). Events become clear through flashbacks and ... (Wikipedia)
Bartleby the Scrivener
by Herman Melville
A story of a mysterious scrivener whose refusal to comply with workplace demands leads to tragedy.
The narrator is an unnamed Manhattan lawyer, aged around his late 50s, with a business in legal documents. He already employs two scriveners , Nippers and Turkey, to copy legal documents by hand, but ... (Wikipedia)
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.
The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)
Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
Holocaust survivor's exploration of resilience, suffering and how to find meaning in life.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the ... (Goodreads)
Notes from Underground
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A portrait of the struggles of a troubled man, exploring his inner turmoil.
The novel is divided into two parts. Serving as an introduction into the mind of the narrator, the first part of Notes from Underground is split into nine chapters: The narrator observes that utopian ... (Wikipedia)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
by Friedrich Nietzsche
A philosophical treatise exploring morality, religion, and the meaning of life.
The Waste Land and Other Poems
by T.S. Eliot
A collection of poems exploring themes of identity, mortality, and spiritual and psychological desolation.
The Waste Land and Other Poems , by T. S. Eliot , is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
by Franz Kafka
A collection of surreal stories exploring the depths of the human condition.
Virtually unknown during his lifetime, Franz Kafka is now one of the world’s most widely read and discussed authors. His nightmarish novels and short stories have come to symbolize modern man’s ... (Goodreads)
Demons
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A fictional exploration of the human condition, examining the darker sides of our nature.
The novel is in three parts. There are two epigraphs, the first from Pushkin's poem "Demons" and the second from Luke 8:32–36. After an almost illustrious but prematurely curtailed academic career ... (Wikipedia)
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert
Examination of the current extinction of species caused by human activity and the potential global implications.
Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring ... (Goodreads)
No Exit
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Four strangers, trapped in a single room, confront terrifying truths of their existence.
Three damned souls, Joseph Garcin, Inèz Serrano, and Estelle Rigault, are brought to the same room in Hell and locked inside by a mysterious valet. They had all expected torture devices to punish ... (Wikipedia)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
by T.S. Eliot
A collection of poetry exploring themes of melancholy and despair.
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless ... (Goodreads)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
A humorous exploration of fate and free will, seen through the eyes of two minor characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a ... (Goodreads)
The Angel's Game
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A writer's journey through a supernatural world of secrets and lies.
The Angel's Game is set in Barcelona in the 1920s and 1930s and follows a young writer, David Martin. In a once-abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, Martín makes his living by writing ... (Wikipedia)
Demian
by Hermann Hesse
A young man's spiritual journey towards self-discovery and enlightenment.
Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a middle class home, amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt , a play on words meaning "world of light" as well as "world of illusion". Sinclair's entire ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer
A team of four women venture into a mysterious, surreal landscape in search of answers.
A team of four women cross the border into an uninhabited area known as "Area X", an unspecified coastal location that has been closed to the public for three decades. The group consists of a ... (Wikipedia)
Jitterbug Perfume
by Tom Robbins
A journey through time and space, exploring the mysteries of life, death, and the pursuit of immortality.
A powerful and chiseled 8th-century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, from a custom of killing the leader at the first sign of aging. After fleeing, no ... (Wikipedia)
The Humans
by Matt Haig
A man's journey of self-discovery, struggling to understand the complexities of being human.
Body-snatching has never been so heartwarming . . . The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable novel about alien abduction, mathematics, and that most interesting subject of all: ourselves. Combine ... (Goodreads)
The Blade Itself
by Joe Abercrombie
Epic fantasy saga of an unlikely band of misfits and their struggle against an oppressive empire.
Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead ... (Goodreads)
The Fall
by Albert Camus
A man's journey into alienation and despair, driven by a sense of absurdity in life.
The Fall, ( French :, La Chute, ) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus . First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam , The Fall consists of a series of ... (Wikipedia)
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle
by Harold Bloom
A satire of religion, science, and the arms race, exploring themes of morality and mortality.
A critical overview of the work features the writings of Terry Southern, William S. Doxey, Jerome Klinkowitz, Richard Giannone, John L. Simons, James Lundquist, and other scholars. - After the bomb, ... (Goodreads)
Choke
by Chuck Palahniuk
A darkly humorous story of a man's journey to self-awareness through disruption and chaos.
Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. , Victor had grown up moving from one foster home ... (Wikipedia)
Rant
by Chuck Palahniuk
A darkly humorous and surreal look into a world of chaos, taking on societal norms and conventions.
Buster Casey is born in the rural town of Middleton with the senses of smell and taste far more advanced than any other human. He acquires the nickname "Rant" from a childhood prank involving animal ... (Wikipedia)
John Dies at the End
by David Wong
A bizarre supernatural adventure, blending horror and sci-fi elements.
John and Dave, two perpetual slackers and long-time friends, encounter strange phenomena in an undisclosed small city in the Midwestern United States and gain a reputation for dealing with paranormal ... (Wikipedia)
The Gambler
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A story of addiction and gambling, and the psychological depths of a man’s desperation.
The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of Alexei Ivanovich, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is ... (Wikipedia)
Fables & Reflections
by Neil Gaiman
A collection of myths and tales about life, morality and the search for answers.
NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Neil Gaiman's transcendent series SANDMAN is often hailed as the definitive Vertigo title and one of the finest achievements in graphic storytelling. Gaiman created ... (Goodreads)
Einstein's Dreams
by Alan Lightman
Exploring the mysteries of time as imagined through the dreams of Albert Einstein.
The novel fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity in 1905. The book consists of 30 chapters, each exploring one dream ... (Wikipedia)
When Nietzsche Wept
by Irvin D. Yalom
Exploration of the relationship between a doctor and his patient, a tormented philosopher.
From the acclaimed author of Love's Executioner and Schopenhauer’s Couch , comes a “fascinating…shrewd intellectual thriller” ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ) about pioneering Viennese psychoanalyst ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Long Goodbye
by Raymond Chandler
A hard-boiled detective's journey to unravel the truth behind a mysterious disappearance.
The novel opens outside a club called the Dancers. It is late October or early November. No year is given for the events but internal evidence and the publication date of the novel place them between ... (Wikipedia)
The Castle
by Franz Kafka
Townspeople's surreal struggle against a mysterious ruling power.
The protagonist, K., arrives in a village governed by a mysterious bureaucracy operating in a nearby castle. When seeking shelter at the town inn, he claims to be a land surveyor summoned by the ... (Wikipedia)
The Razor's Edge
by W. Somerset Maugham
A spiritual journey in search of personal fulfillment, as an individual in a rapidly changing world.
Maugham begins by characterizing his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major ... (Wikipedia)
Nausea
by Jean-Paul Sartre
A philosophical exploration of the nature of existence and human freedom.
Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the ... (Goodreads)
The Reality Dysfunction
by Peter F. Hamilton
Epic sci-fi adventure through space and time, tackling questions of identity and reality.
The Reality Dysfunction opens in the year 2581 with a war raging between two worlds, Omuta and Garissa, over three hundred and eighty seven mineral-rich asteroids known as the Dorados. The war ... (Wikipedia)
The Myth of Sisyphus
by Albert Camus
An essay on understanding the absurdity of life, and realizing there is meaning in even the most mundane tasks.
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, ... (Goodreads)
Bloodsucking Fiends
by Christopher Moore
A humorous take on a vampire's life, as he navigates the modern world.
Jody, a young, single, red-headed woman living in San Francisco, is attacked by a vampire and soon finds that she has become one herself. While attempting to adjust to her new nocturnal lifestyle, ... (Wikipedia)
Journey to the End of the Night
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
A darkly comic, nihilistic journey of self-discovery, following a man into the heart of an absurd world.
Céline’s masterpiece—colloquial, polemic, hyper-realistic, boiling over with black humor Céline’s masterpiece—colloquial, polemic, hyper realistic—boils over with bitter humor and revulsion at ... (Barnes & Noble)
Mostly Harmless
by Douglas Adams
A humorous, intergalactic adventure as a hapless protagonist struggles with existential crisis.
Arthur Dent plans to sightsee across the Galaxy with his girlfriend Fenchurch , but she disappears during a hyperspace jump, a result of being from an unstable sector of the Galaxy. Depressed, Arthur ... (Wikipedia)
Hunger
by Knut Hamsun
The story of a man's battle against poverty and his descent into near-madness.
The novel's first-person protagonist, an unnamed vagrant with intellectual leanings, probably in his late twenties, wanders the streets of Norway's capital, Kristiania ( Oslo ), in pursuit of ... (Wikipedia)
Child of God
by Cormac McCarthy
A violent and disturbing story of a man's descent into depravity.
Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee , in the 1960s, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like ... (Wikipedia)
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
by C.S. Lewis
Autobiography of an Oxford professor's spiritual journey from atheism to faith.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is a partial autobiography describing Lewis' conversion to Christianity. The book overall contains less detail concerning specific events than typical ... (Goodreads)
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
by C.G. Jung
Autobiography of renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung, reflecting on his life and work.
In the spring of 1957, when he was eighty-one years old, C. G. Jung undertook the telling of his life story. At regular intervals he had conversations with his colleague and friend Aniela Jaffé, and ... (Goodreads)
Welcome to the Monkey House
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A collection of short stories exploring the absurdities of human life.
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly , ... (Goodreads)
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)
Possible Side Effects
by Augusten Burroughs
A humorous, darkly satirical look at the pharmaceutical industry and its effects on individuals.
National Bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection of true stories yet. From nicotine gum addiction to ... (Goodreads)
The Elephant Vanishes
by Haruki Murakami
Collection of short stories depicting the surreal and mysterious aspects of life.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679750536 With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled ... (Goodreads)
Death with Interruptions
by José Saramago
A mysterious phenomenon that stops all deaths leading to a dilemma of moral, ethical and social implications.
The book, set in an unnamed, landlocked country at a point in the unspecified past, opens with the end of death. Mysteriously, at the stroke of midnight on January 1, no one in the country ... (Wikipedia)
Being and Nothingness
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Philosophical exploration of the nature of being and consciousness.
Being & Nothingness is without doubt one of the most significant philosophical books of the 20th century. The central work by one of the century's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of ... (Goodreads)
Written in Red
by Anne Bishop
An epic fantasy tale of a world where humans and supernatural beings clash.
As a cassandra sangue , or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut—a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg’s Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her ... (Goodreads)
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
by Albert Camus
Philosophical essays on the absurd human condition, questioning the value of life.
One of the most influential works of this century, this is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan, and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a ... (Goodreads)
Time Enough for Love
by Robert A. Heinlein
A journey through time and space, exploring the boundaries of love, death and existence.
The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (born Woodrow Wilson Smith), an early beneficiary of a breeding experiment designed to increase mankind's natural lifespan. The ... (Wikipedia)
The Hour of the Star
by Clarice Lispector
A poor Brazilian girl's life story, illustrating the struggles of the working class.
The novel starts with the narrator, Rodrigo S.M., discussing what it means to write a story. He addresses the reader directly and spends a lot of time talking about his philosophical beliefs. After ... (Wikipedia)
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