Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Self Understanding
Wintergirls
by Laurie Halse Anderson
A teenage girl struggles with anorexia and the lingering trauma of her best friend's death.
Lia Overbrook, an 18-year-old girl, just found out that her ex-best friend Cassie has died. Cassie had called Lia 33 times the night of her death. However, Lia never answered the phone. Cassie was ... (Wikipedia)
High Fidelity
by Nick Hornby
A man reflects on his past relationships while trying to understand the nature of love.
Rob Fleming is a 35-year-old man who owns a record shop in London called Championship Vinyl. His lawyer girlfriend, Laura, has just left him and now he's going through a crisis. At his record shop, ... (Wikipedia)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
A family struggling to confront hidden resentments and repressions that lurk beneath the surface.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband Brick and wife Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and their interaction with Brick's ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Stories
by Flannery O'Connor
A collection of stories that explore aspects of the human condition through surreal and darkly comedic lenses.
This is the original cover edition of, ISBN: 0374515360, (ISBN13: 9780374515362 Winner of the National Book Award The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's ... (Goodreads)
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)
Wise Blood
by Flannery O'Connor
A darkly comic Southern Gothic tale of faith and sin, and a man's struggle to find redemption.
Recently discharged from service in World War II and surviving on a government pension for unspecified battle wounds, Hazel Motes returns to his family home in Tennessee to find it abandoned. Leaving ... (Wikipedia)
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
by Elaine N. Aron
A guide for highly sensitive people to understand and embrace their sensitivity, and navigate a world that can be overwhelming.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Are you a highly sensitive person? Discover how to better understand yourself and create a fuller, richer life with the help of a clinical psychologist. “To say this book ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Sportswriter
by Richard Ford
A sportswriter navigates through life after the death of his son, reflecting on his past relationships and current struggles.
As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people–men, mostly--who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers ... (Goodreads)
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A dystopian story about a group of people who were cloned for organ harvesting.
The story begins with Kathy H., who describes herself as a carer, talking about looking after organ donors. She has been a carer for almost twelve years at the time of narration, and she often ... (Wikipedia)
History of Wolves
by Emily Fridlund
A teenage girl struggles to come to terms with the aftermath of a mysterious tragedy in her small town.
Fourteen-year-old Madeline lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counter-culture world. ... (Goodreads)
The Noise of Time
by Julian Barnes
A fictionalized account of the life of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, exploring the tension between artistic integrity and political pressure.
A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich: Julian Barnes’s first novel since his best-selling, Man Booker Prize–winning The Sense of an Ending. In 1936, ... (Goodreads)
Acceptance
by Jeff VanderMeer
A journey of exploration and self-discovery, as humanity faces a mysterious alien power.
Acceptance jumps around in time and between the perspectives of several characters from the first two novels in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The Lighthouse Keeper In the years before Area X, Saul ... (Wikipedia)
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
by Elena Ferrante
Two friends navigate the changing relationships of their youth and adulthood, and the consequences of their choices.
In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila, the two girls whom readers first met in My Brilliant Friend, have become women. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her abusive ... (Goodreads)
Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
by Anthony de Mello
Exploration of how to become aware of one's true self, unlocking inner peace and happiness.
The heart of Anthony de Mello's bestselling spiritual message is awareness. Mixing Christian spirituality, Buddhist parables, Hindu breathing exercises, and psychological insight, de Mello's words of ... (Goodreads)
My Autobiography
by Charlie Chaplin
The life story of Charlie Chaplin, from his impoverished childhood to his rise as a comedic icon in Hollywood.
Chaplin’s heartfelt and hilarious autobiography tells the story of his childhood, the challenge of identifying and perfecting his talent, his subsequent film career and worldwide celebrity. In this, ... (Goodreads)
He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
by Greg Behrendt
Understanding the complexities of men's behavior and motivations in romantic relationships.
Everyone can use a daily wake-up call. Now in bite-size mantras, the abridged empathetic wit and wisdom of the number one New York Times bestseller He's Just Not That Into You will recharge and ... (Goodreads)
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
by Friedrich Nietzsche
A philosophical exploration of the human condition and the pursuit of morality.
This volume presents Nietzsche's remarkable collection of almost 1400 aphorisms in R. J. Hollingdale's distinguished translation, together with a new historical introduction by Richard Schacht. ... (Goodreads)
Amerika
by Franz Kafka
A young man's surreal journey through a bizarre and dystopian version of America.
The story describes the bizarre wanderings of sixteen-year-old European immigrant Karl Roßmann, who was forced to go to New York City to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ... (Wikipedia)
Madness: A Bipolar Life
by Marya Hornbacher
A memoir of living with bipolar disorder, detailing the author's struggles with mania, depression, and addiction.
An astonishing dispatch from inside the belly of bipolar disorder, reflecting major new insights When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not ... (Goodreads)
Ice
by Anna Kavan
A surreal and haunting tale of addiction, obsession, and a woman's search for escape in a frozen, apocalyptic world.
In this haunting and surreal novel, the narrator and a man known as the warden search for an elusive girl in a frozen, seemingly post-nuclear, apocalyptic landscape. The country has been invaded and ... (Goodreads)
Leaving the Atocha Station
by Ben Lerner
A young poet's journey of self-discovery, struggling to find a sense of purpose in life.
Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when ... (Goodreads)
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
by Richard Yates
A collection of short stories exploring the various forms of loneliness experienced by individuals in post-World War II America.
Richard Yates's unflinchingly realistic stories explore loneliness, but they don't neglect failure, cruelty, and heartbreak. Most of the stories feature men who have been disappointed, somehow, by ... (Goodreads)
Freedom from the Known
by Jiddu Krishnamurti
A philosophical exploration of the limitations of the mind and the pursuit of true freedom through self-awareness and detachment from societal conditioning.
Krishnamurti shows how people can free themselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected, no matter what their age–opening the door to transforming society and their ... (Goodreads)
Flawed
by Cecelia Ahern
A young woman's journey of self-acceptance, challenging societies expectations of perfection.
You will be punished… Celestine North lives a perfect life. She’s a model daughter and sister, she’s well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she’s dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan. ... (Goodreads)
The Contortionist's Handbook
by Craig Clevenger
A forger with a rare medical condition navigates through a world of drugs, crime, and love.
John Dolan Vincent is a talented young forger with a proclivity for mathematics and drug addiction. In the face of his impending institutionalization, he continually reinvents himself to escape the ... (Wikipedia)
Undisputed Truth
by Mike Tyson
The autobiography of Mike Tyson, detailing his rise to fame, fall from grace, and eventual redemption.
Be sure to check out IRON AMBITION: My Life with Cus D’Amato by Mike Tyson,“Raw, powerful and disturbing—a head-spinning take on Mr. Tyson's life.”—,Wall Street Journal, Philosopher, Broadway ... (Barnes & Noble)
Altered
by Jennifer Rush
Anna discovers her father's secret lab and learns the truth about her identity. She must fight to stay alive and uncover the conspiracy behind her existence.
They were made to forget. But they'll never forgive. Everything about Anna's life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch, at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering ... (Barnes & Noble)
Tonio Kröger
by Thomas Mann
A story of a young artist's struggle to reconcile his artistic aspirations with his bourgeois background and societal expectations.
The narrative follows the course of a man's life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and a "Southern" mother (Consuelo) with artistic talents, Tonio inherited ... (Wikipedia)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
by Peter Cameron
A coming-of-age story of a teenage boy struggling to cope with change and life's struggles.
James Sveck, 18, is an isolated young adult caught in the summer before he is to begin college at Brown University . The only person in his life with whom he is able to successfully relate is his ... (Wikipedia)
If you enjoyed this, try uploading your goodreads reviews and seeing what recommendations we can come up with for you.