Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Obsession
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A wealthy man's journey to reclaim an old flame, discovering the superficiality of the upper class.
In Spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a veteran of the Great War —journeys east to New York City to obtain employment as a bond salesman . He rents a bungalow in the Long ... (Wikipedia)
The Silence of the Lambs
by Thomas Harris
Brilliant FBI agent works with a notorious serial killer to catch an even more terrifying madman.
Hannibal Lecter. The ultimate villain of modern fiction. Read the five-million-copy bestseller that scared the world silent. The Silence of the Lambs. A young FBI trainee. An evil genius locked away ... (Goodreads)
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)
Misery
by Stephen King
A psychological thriller of a woman's obsession with a wounded author, and its terrifying consequences.
Paul Sheldon, the author of the best-selling series of Victorian-era romance novels featuring the character Misery Chastain, has finished the series' final installment, Misery's Child , in which ... (Wikipedia)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
by Patrick Süskind
A murder mystery set in 18th century France, exploring the depths of human obsession.
An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of ... (Goodreads)
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction
by Michel Foucault
Examination of the power dynamics and social constructions of sexual behavior.
Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Mermaids Singing
by Val McDermid
A psychological thriller about a serial killer and the profiler who must hunt him down.
Val McDermid stunned readers and critics alike with the publication of her brilliant thriller, A PLACE OF EXECUTION, which was a finalist for the prestigious Edgar Award. Now, in THE MERMAIDS ... (Goodreads)
The End of the Affair
by Graham Greene
A man's obsession and journey of love, struggling with faith, hatred and forgiveness.
"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..." "This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening ... (Goodreads)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
by Agatha Christie
Amateur detective investigates the mysterious murder of a wealthy landowner.
In King's Abbot, wealthy widow Mrs Ferrars unexpectedly commits suicide, which distresses her fiancé, widower Roger Ackroyd. At dinner that evening in Ackroyd's home of Fernly Park, his guests ... (Wikipedia)
Fifty Shades Darker
by E.L. James
A tale of an intense affair between the enigmatic billionaire Christian Grey and the young college graduate Anastasia Steele.
Three days after leaving Christian, Anastasia "Ana" Steele begins her job as personal assistant to Jack Hyde, an editor at Seattle Independent Publishing (SIP). He asks Ana out often which, though it ... (Wikipedia)
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
A controversial tale of a man's forbidden love for a young girl.
The novel is prefaced by a fictitious foreword by John Ray Jr., an editor of psychology books. Ray states that he is presenting a memoir written by a man using the pseudonym "Humbert Humbert", who ... (Wikipedia)
Possession
by A.S. Byatt
Two modern academics uncover a hidden romance between two Victorian poets.
Obscure scholar Roland Michell, researching in the London Library , discovers handwritten drafts of a letter by the eminent Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, which lead him to suspect that the ... (Wikipedia)
The Girl on the Train
by Paula Hawkins
A suspenseful tale of a woman's unraveling of a mysterious disappearance.
The story is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of three women: Rachel Watson, Anna Boyd, and Megan Hipwell. Rachel Watson is a 33-year-old alcoholic, reeling from the end of her ... (Wikipedia)
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
Examination of how technology is impacting the way we think and process information.
“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Phantom of the Opera
by George C. Perry
A tale of unrequited love, jealousy, and tragedy in the Paris Opera House.
This is the lavishly illustrated, definitive account of The Phantom of the Opera , tracing the Phantom legend from its origins in historical fact through Gaston Leroux's heartrending classic novel ... (Goodreads)
You
by Caroline Kepnes
A stalker's obsessive and dangerous pursuit of an aspiring writer.
When a beautiful aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card. There is only one Guinevere ... (Goodreads)
Malice
by Keigo Higashino
A gripping murder mystery full of unexpected twists and turns.
Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, a ... (Goodreads)
The Talented Mr. Ripley
by Patricia Highsmith
A young conman's descent into a life of crime, with deadly consequences.
Tom Ripley is a young man struggling to make a living in New York City by whatever means necessary, including a series of small-time confidence scams . One day, he is approached by shipping magnate ... (Wikipedia)
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
by Shunryu Suzuki
A guide to Zen meditation and philosophy, exploring the power of mindfulness and introspection.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” So begins this most beloved of all American Zen books. Seldom has such a small handful of words provided a ... (Goodreads)
Behind Her Eyes
by Sarah Pinborough
Psychological suspense novel following a woman's tangled web of secrets, lies and relationships.
Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough's, Behind Her Eyes?, Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and ... (Goodreads)
A Reliable Wife
by Robert Goolrick
A dark tale of deception, secrecy and manipulation between two strangers in rural Wisconsin.
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Swan Thieves
by Elizabeth Kostova
A renowned psychiatrist unravels the mystery of a patient's obsession with painting swans.
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery ... (Goodreads)
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel García Márquez
An epic love story spanning decades, exploring the power of true love.
The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with the help of Fermina's ... (Wikipedia)
The Prestige
by Christopher Priest
Two rival magicians use deception and misdirection to outwit each other in a dangerous game of one-upmanship.
The events of the past are related through the diaries of 19th century magicians Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden. The diaries are read by their great-grandchildren, Kate Angier and Andrew Westley ... (Wikipedia)
The Collector
by John Fowles
A man's obsession with a young woman leads to a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall and collects butterflies in his spare time. The first part of the novel tells the story from his point of ... (Wikipedia)
The Ice Princess
by Camilla Läckberg
Detective fiction set in a small Swedish village, uncovering secrets and solving a murder.
Erica Falck has returned to her family home in Fjällbacka after her parents died. While coping with the death of her parents, she is trying to work on a biography of Selma Lagerlöf , a Swedish author ... (Wikipedia)
Thunderstruck
by Erik Larson
Fascinating true story of the invention of the wireless and its effect on two men's lives.
The interwoven stories of two men whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal cases of all time - Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator ... (Goodreads)
The Art Forger
by Barbara A. Shapiro
An aspiring artist embarks on a daring mission to forge a stolen masterpiece.
A Barbara A. Shapiro tour de force. On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest ... (Goodreads)
Enduring Love
by Ian McEwan
A story of obsession and its consequences, as two men clash over a woman's affections.
Joe planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside to celebrate his lover's return after 6 weeks in the States. The perfect day turns to nightmare however, when they are involved in ... (Goodreads)
The Orchid Thief
by Susan Orlean
A captivating story of obsession, intrigue, and the beauty of the rare flower.
The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii— a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named ... (Goodreads)
A Hunger Artist
by Franz Kafka
A unique artist's exploration of suffering, as he strives to make his art ever more extreme.
"A Hunger Artist" is told retrospectively through third-person narration. The narrator looks back several decades from "today", to a time when the public marveled at the professional hunger artist. ... (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)
The Phantom of the Opera
by Gaston Leroux
A tragic love story between a mysterious masked figure and the woman he loves.
In the 1880s, in Paris , the Palais Garnier Opera House is believed to be haunted by an entity known as the Phantom of the Opera, or simply the Opera Ghost. A stagehand named Joseph Buquet is found ... (Wikipedia)
The Luzhin Defense
by Vladimir Nabokov
A chess grandmaster battles his inner demons as he struggles to understand the game of life.
The plot concerns the title character, Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin. As a boy, he is considered unattractive, withdrawn, and an object of ridicule by his classmates. One day, when a guest comes to his ... (Wikipedia)
The Big Nowhere
by James Ellroy
A crime noir set in 1950s Los Angeles, unraveling a web of corruption and violence.
The plot is about three characters; L.A. Deputy Sheriff Danny Upshaw investigates a brutal sex murder which becomes a string of killings, working outside the law in his efforts to catch him. Turner ... (Wikipedia)
The Dark Fields
by Alan Glynn
A struggling writer discovers a pill that unlocks his brain's full potential, leading him down a dangerous path.
Edward "Eddie" Spinola is a copywriter at a small publishing house in New York City . He starts using MDT-48, an experimental drug granting heightened intellectual, creative, and learning powers, and ... (Wikipedia)
Affinity
by Sarah Waters
Gothic mystery of spiritual and romantic entanglement set in Victorian London.
An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity ... (Goodreads)
What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]
by Zoë Heller
An intriguing tale of a manipulative teacher and a forbidden affair, told through a colleague's perspective.
Barbara, a veteran history teacher at a comprehensive school in London , is a lonely, unmarried woman in her early sixties, and she is eager to find a close friend. However, she reveals that she has ... (Wikipedia)
Small Sacrifices
by Ann Rule
True crime story of a mother who goes to deadly lengths to get the perfect family.
On 19 May 1983 at approximately 10:48 p.m, Diane Downs, drives to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield , Oregon with a gunshot wound to her arm. She claims that an unknown assailant attempted ... (Wikipedia)
Juliet, Naked
by Nick Hornby
A story about a complex love triangle, set against a backdrop of music and fandom.
Duncan, an obsessive music fan, receives a CD of Juliet, Naked , an album of solo acoustic demos of the songs on the album Juliet by his favourite artist, Tucker Crowe. Duncan's girlfriend, Annie, ... (Wikipedia)
Six Years
by Harlan Coben
A man's search for the truth of his lost love, uncovering secrets of a mysterious past.
Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six ... (Goodreads)
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
by David Grann
Exploring the mysteries of a long-lost Amazonian civilization and an adventurer's obsessive quest to uncover its secrets.
A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve ... (Goodreads)
The Perfect Nanny
by Leïla Slimani
A captivating and chilling story of a nanny's descent into madness.
This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780143132172. When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for ... (Goodreads)
Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
by Bill Dedman
Uncovering the secrets of an enigmatic heiress and her mysterious family fortune.
When Pulitzer Prize – winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty ... (Goodreads)
The Museum of Innocence
by Orhan Pamuk
A story of unrequited love set in the city of Istanbul, exploring the power of nostalgia and memory.
Kemal has been engaged to a pretty girl named Sibel for two months when he meets a shop girl, Füsun, while buying a handbag for his fiancee. What follows in the next month and a half is an intense ... (Wikipedia)
Glamorama
by Bret Easton Ellis
A man's descent into a world of fame, glamour, and superficiality.
The author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world.In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret ... (Goodreads)
Amok and other Stories
by Stefan Zweig
A man's inner turmoil and descent into madness, driven by his own obsessions.
The nameless first-person narrator travels from India to Europe on the ocean liner Oceania in 1912. One night, during a walk on deck, he meets a man who, disturbed and scared, avoids any social ... (Wikipedia)
The Girl Before
by Rena Olsen
A young woman's life is shattered when she discovers her parents have been involved in a child trafficking ring.
In this powerful psychological suspense debut, when a woman’s life is shattered, she is faced with a devastating question: What if everything she thought was normal and good and true . . . wasn’t? ... (Goodreads)
The Fever
by Megan Abbott
A mysterious illness spreads through a small town, causing panic and paranoia among its residents.
Deenie Nash is a diligent student with a close-knit family: her brother, Eli, is a hockey star and her father is a popular teacher. But when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, ... (Wikipedia)
The Private Patient
by P.D. James
A gripping crime-mystery of murder and secrets, set in a rural English village.
Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate a murder at a private nursing home for rich patients being treated by the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. A welcome ... (Goodreads)
Audition
by Ryū Murakami
A widower holds a fake audition to find a new wife, but the woman he chooses has a dark and twisted past.
Documentary-maker Aoyama hasn't dated anyone in the seven years since the death of his beloved wife, Ryoko. Now even his teenage son Shige has suggested he think about remarrying. So when his best ... (Goodreads)
The Siren
by Tiffany Reisz
An erotic romance between a writer and a siren, exploring the power of seduction and desire.
Notorious Nora Sutherlin is famous for her delicious works of erotica, each one more popular with readers than the last. But her latest manuscript is different—more serious, more personal—and she's ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Improbability of Love
by Hannah Rothschild
A young woman discovers a lost masterpiece and uncovers the secrets of the art world.
A dazzling, witty and tenderly savage satire of London life and the art world that is also a surprising and wonderful love story. When lovelorn Annie McDee stumbles across a dirty painting in a junk ... (Goodreads)
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