Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Suffering
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
A family's struggle to survive the Great Depression, their journey in search of a new life.
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison , where he had been incarcerated after being convicted of homicide in self-defense. While hitchhiking to his home near ... (Wikipedia)
Nine Stories
by J.D. Salinger
Nine short stories of insight into the human condition and its mysteries.
Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger published in April 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for ... (Goodreads)
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
A father and son journey through a post-apocalyptic landscape, facing the harsh realities of survival.
A father and his young son journey on foot across the post-apocalyptic ash-covered United States some years after an extinction event . The boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the ... (Wikipedia)
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak
A young girl's journey of survival in Nazi Germany, preserving the power of words.
Narrated by Death , a male voice who over the course of the book proves to be morose yet caring. The plot follows Liesel Meminger as she comes of age in Nazi Germany during World War II . After the ... (Wikipedia)
The Fault in Our Stars
by John Green
Two teenagers with cancer find love and explore life's fragility and beauty.
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist ... (Goodreads)
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
by Jung Chang
A family memoir spanning decades of Chinese history, exploring the power of resilience.
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten ... (Goodreads)
Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse
A spiritual journey of self-discovery for a young man in search of enlightenment.
The story takes place in the ancient Nepalese kingdom of Kapilavastu . Siddhartha decides to leave his home in the hope of gaining spiritual illumination by becoming an ascetic wandering beggar of ... (Wikipedia)
The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien
A collection of stories about the Vietnam War, interweaving the past and present.
In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato —a novel about the Vietnam War—won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again ... (Goodreads)
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
by Art Spiegelman
A graphic novel depicting the traumatic experiences of a Holocaust survivor and his son.
The first installment of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first ... (Goodreads)
Night
by Elie Wiesel
A harrowing chronicle of a Jewish family during the Holocaust and their struggle for survival.
Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the ... (Goodreads)
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
by Laura Hillenbrand
An extraordinary tale of struggle and survival, showing the power of resilience in the face of adversity.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean ... (Goodreads)
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt
A memoir of poverty and hardship in 1930s Ireland, and a family's struggle to survive.
Imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion. This is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to ... (Goodreads)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (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)
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)
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
A soldier's harrowing experience of the horrors of war.
The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a group of German soldiers on the Western Front during World War I . The patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek had led the whole class to ... (Wikipedia)
The Green Mile
by Stephen King
A prison guard discovers the power of redemption, and miracles, when he meets a mysterious inmate.
Featuring a first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home writing down his story in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the ... (Wikipedia)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
A young woman's struggles against societal expectations, and her journey of resilience and self-realization.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439594 . When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting ... (Goodreads)
King Lear
by William Shakespeare
An aging king's descent into madness reveals the consequences of pride and vanity.
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the ... (Goodreads)
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
by Malala Yousafzai
A young girl's fight for the right to education despite Taliban oppression.
I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday. When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai ... (Goodreads)
The Solitude of Prime Numbers
by Paolo Giordano
A poignant story of two strangers struggling to find a connection in a world of loneliness.
As a seven-year-old girl, Alice Della Rocca is forced by her father to take skiing lessons, although she hates the ski school and has no particular aptitude for the sport. One morning, Alice is ... (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)
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A young man's struggle between morality and passion, exploring the depths of human nature.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former law student, lives in extreme poverty in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. Isolated and antisocial, he has abandoned all attempts to support himself, ... (Wikipedia)
Lilac Girls
by Martha Hall Kelly
A story of three women's lives, intertwined by World War II, and their remarkable courage.
Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this powerful debut novel reveals an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets that were hidden for decades. On the eve of a ... (Goodreads)
Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins
A dystopian world where a young girl must fight for her life in an all-or-nothing arena.
After winning the 74th Hunger Games , Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark return home to District 12 , the poorest sector of Panem . Six months later, prior to Katniss and Peeta's "Victory Tour" of ... (Wikipedia)
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by Immaculée Ilibagiza
True story of a woman's faith and resilience in the face of the Rwandan genocide.
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family ... (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)
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.
The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)
Easy
by Tammara Webber
A teenage girl's journey to finding her strength and identity after surviving a traumatic event.
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Rescued by a stranger.,Haunted by a secret.,Sometimes, love isn't easy... He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became ... (Goodreads)
Silence
by Becca Fitzpatrick
A coming of age story of a young girl and her struggle to stay true to her faith in a dangerous and uncertain world.
Soon to be a major motion picture! The third book in the breathtaking, New York Times, bestselling Hush, Hush saga, featuring exclusive content. Nora Grey can’t remember anything from the past five ... (Barnes & Noble)
As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner
A family's struggle to fulfill the dying wish of their mother, amidst personal and societal challenges.
The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family's quest and motivations—noble or selfish—to honor her wish ... (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)
You Can Heal Your Life
by Louise L. Hay
A journey to emotional and physical healing through the power of self-love and positive affirmations.
Louise’s key message in this powerful work is: “If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.” Louise explains how limiting beliefs and ideas are often the cause of illness, ... (Goodreads)
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)
Survival in Auschwitz
by Primo Levi
True story of a man's struggle to survive in a Nazi concentration camp.
The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed by The Times Literary Supplement as a “true work of art, ... (Goodreads)
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
A teenage girl's account of life in hiding during World War II.
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to ... (Goodreads)
Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks
A small English village grapples with the effects of the bubonic plague.
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of ... (Goodreads)
A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
A story of unrequited love in the midst of war.
The novel is divided into five sections or 'books'. Frederic Henry is first person narrator of the story. Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American paramedic , is serving in the Italian Army . The novel ... (Wikipedia)
Requiem for a Dream
by Hubert Selby Jr.
A tale of four characters and their struggles with addiction, leading to a devastating climax.
This story follows the lives of Sara Goldfarb, her son Harry, his girlfriend Marion Silver, and his best friend Tyrone C. Love, who are all searching for the key to their dreams in their own ways. In ... (Wikipedia)
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
A rags-to-riches story of a young boy's adventures, trials, and tribulations.
David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously ... (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)
What's So Amazing About Grace?
by Philip Yancey
Insightful exploration of the power of grace in our lives and its implications for faith.
Original Cover Edition for, ISBN 0310245656, In 1987, an IRA bomb buried Gordon Wilson and his twenty-year-old daughter beneath five feet of rubble. Gordon alone survived. And forgave. He said of the ... (Goodreads)
Between Shades of Gray
by Ruta Sepetys
A young girl's story of survival and resilience in the face of oppression during World War II.
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family ... (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 Orphan Master's Son
by Adam Johnson
A man's struggle to survive in a totalitarian North Korean regime and his journey to freedom.
Part 1 details Jun Do's upbringing in a state orphanage and his service to the state, including as a kidnapper of Japanese citizens , and later as a signal operator stationed on a fishing boat. Due ... (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)
The Art of Happiness
by Dalai Lama XIV
A spiritual guide to finding lasting joy and contentment.
An updated edition of a beloved classic—the original book on happiness, with new material from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler,Nearly every time you see him, he's laughing, or at ... (Barnes & Noble)
Blindness
by José Saramago
A society is plunged into chaos when everyone suddenly loses their sight.
Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a ... (Wikipedia)
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
by Corrie ten Boom
A remarkable testament to faith and courage in the face of unfathomable odds and unspeakable horrors.
The book begins with the ten Boom family celebrating the 100th anniversary of the family business; they sell and repair watches under the family's elderly father, Casper ten Boom . The business takes ... (Wikipedia)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A single day in a Soviet prison camp, detailing the hardships and struggle of the inmates.
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system. He was accused of becoming a spy after being captured briefly by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II ... (Wikipedia)
The Shack
by William Paul Young
A man's spiritual journey of healing and understanding, following a traumatic event.
The novel is set in the American Northwest . The main character is Mackenzie Allen Phillips, a father of five called "Mack" by his family and friends. Four years prior to the main events of the ... (Wikipedia)
As Sure as the Dawn
by Francine Rivers
A young woman's spiritual journey to find her place in the world and the courage to follow her faith.
The third installment in the Mark of the Lion trilogy. Following A Voice in the Wind and An Echo in the Darkness, As Sure as the Dawn continues the chronicles of Hadassah, a Christian slave woman ... (Goodreads)
Me Before You
by Jojo Moyes
A woman and a disabled man form an unlikely bond as she helps him rediscover the joy of life.
From the #1, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Giver of Stars, discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in, Me Before You,, After You, and, Still Me,. They had nothing in ... (Goodreads)
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande
An exploration of the human experience of mortality and the importance of end-of-life care.
In, Being Mortal, author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Problem of Pain
by C.S. Lewis
Exploration of the philosophical and theological implications of pain and suffering.
For centuries Christians have questioned why, if God is good and all-powerful, he allows us to suffer pain. C.S. Lewis sets out to disentangle this knotty issue, but adds that, in the end, no ... (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)
Flowers in the Attic
by V.C. Andrews
A family's dark secrets emerge as four siblings are held captive in an attic.
In 1957, the Dollanganger family lives an idyllic life in Gladstone, Pennsylvania until Mr. Dollanganger dies in a car accident, leaving his wife Corinne deep in debt with four children and no ... (Wikipedia)
Sophie's Choice
by William Styron
A survivor of the Holocaust is confronted with a devastating moral dilemma.
Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in ... (Wikipedia)
No Longer Human
by Osamu Dazai
A young man's struggles with emotional turmoil and suicidal ideation.
Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human , this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a ... (Goodreads)
Black Beauty
by Anna Sewell
A horse's journey through life, as he experiences various owners and circumstances.
The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm with his mother, to ... (Wikipedia)
The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
by Brennan Manning
A reflection on the unconditional love of God, inviting readers to find healing and peace.
Are you bedraggled, beat-up, burnt-out? Most of us believe in God’s grace—in theory. But somehow we can’t seem to apply it in our daily lives. We continue to see Him as a small-minded bookkeeper, ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
Tenth of December
by George Saunders
A collection of stories exploring the human condition through diverse characters and their struggles.
A young girl named Alison is kidnapped three days before her birthday. Kyle, a boy who lives nearby whose parents enforce very strict household rules, sees the event unfold and must decide whether to ... (Wikipedia)
If I Stay
by Gayle Forman
Young girl must decide between life and death after a devastating car accident.
On a snowy day in Portland, Oregon , Mia, her mother, her father, and her little brother, Teddy, decide to go for a morning drive. The snow causes their car to swerve into another lane where a car ... (Wikipedia)
Hiroshima
by John Hersey
Tragic account of the devastating atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories ... (Goodreads)
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
A woman awaits her execution in 19th-century Iceland, reliving her story of hardship, loss and faith.
Burial Rites tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a servant in northern Iceland who was condemned to death after the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer, and became the last woman put ... (Wikipedia)
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 Hunchback of Notre-Dame
by Victor Hugo
A story of love, loyalty and redemption set amidst the stunning architecture of 15th century Paris.
The story is set in Paris in 1482 during the reign of Louis XI . The Romani Esmeralda (born as Agnes) captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire , but ... (Wikipedia)
When Breath Becomes Air
by Paul Kalanithi
A doctor's poignant memoir about life, mortality and purpose in the face of terminal illness.
For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer ... (Goodreads)
Revival
by Stephen King
A dark, supernatural tale of a small town's fight against an evil force.
When Charles Jacobs, a new minister, comes to town, young Jamie Morton is excited. Almost everyone in the tiny Maine hamlet comes to love Jacobs, his beautiful wife, and his young son. Things change ... (Wikipedia)
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
by Blaine Harden
True story of a man who escaped from a North Korean prison camp and his journey to freedom.
A, New York Times, bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived. North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and ... (Goodreads)
Papillon
by Henri Charrière
An account of an unjustly convicted man's escape from a notorious French penal colony.
Henri Charrière, called "Papillon," for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French ... (Goodreads)
A Grief Observed
by C.S. Lewis
A powerful account of a man's journey through grief following the death of his wife.
Written with love, humility, and faith, this brief but poignant volume was first published in 1961 and concerns the death of C. S. Lewis's wife, the American-born poet Joy Davidman. In her ... (Goodreads)
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
by David Sheff
An intimate look at a father's struggle to understand and help his son through his addiction.
With a new afterword Now a Major Motion Picture What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong? Those are the wrenching questions that haunted David Sheff’s journey through ... (Goodreads)
Handle with Care
by Jodi Picoult
A story of a family struggling with difficult decisions, facing tough truths about life.
The story follows the life of a young girl, Willow O'Keefe, and her family. Willow has Type III osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a disease also known as brittle bone syndrome. To her parents, Sean and ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
by Atul Gawande
Exploration of the human costs and consequences of medical care, highlighting our imperfections and vulnerabilities.
In gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge. Complications lays bare a science not in ... (Goodreads)
Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
by Sam Harris
A practical guide to cultivating a sense of inner peace and understanding through meditation, self-reflection, and philosophical inquiry.
For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s new book is a guide to meditation as a rational spiritual practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. From ... (Goodreads)
The Pearl
by John Steinbeck
A poor diver's dream of wealth is dashed when his newfound riches ultimately bring unhappiness and tragedy.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their ... (Goodreads)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
by Jesse Andrews
A teenage boy's unconventional journey of friendship and healing in the face of death.
Greg Gaines is a senior at Benson High School. A social loner, he navigates high school life by gaining everyone's acquaintance but staying clear of any particular clique. His only real friend is ... (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 Diving Bell and the Butterfly
by Jean-Dominique Bauby
A paralyzed man's memoir, transcribed through blinking his left eye.
On December 8, 1995, Bauby, the editor-in-chief of French, Elle, magazine, suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma . He awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings, but physically ... (Wikipedia)
Rosemary's Baby
by Ira Levin
A woman's descent into darkness as she is unknowingly forced to carry a child of the Devil.
The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young married woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a ... (Wikipedia)
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
by Svetlana Alexievich
An oral history of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as told by the survivors.
Written by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. ... (Goodreads)
Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
A woman's struggle to hold on to her identity in the face of a devastating diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience ... (Goodreads)
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
by Loung Ung
An inspiring true story of survival and resilience during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
From a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her ... (Goodreads)
Mother Night
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A tale of moral ambiguity, exploring the consequences of deception and the power of words.
“Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist.”—,Time,, Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American ... (Barnes & Noble)
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
Exploration of the lives of North Koreans during the famine and repression of the 1990s.
Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the ... (Goodreads)
The Miserable Mill
by Lemony Snicket
A young boy faces danger and misfortune at a sinister mill in a mysterious town.
Violet , Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are traveling on a train heading for Paltryville, the location of the children's new home, the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Upon arrival, the children learn that they ... (Wikipedia)
After the Quake
by Haruki Murakami
A collection of short stories exploring humanity in the wake of an earthquake.
The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But ... (Goodreads)
This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
by Adam Kay
An honest, funny, and heartbreaking account of life on the NHS frontline.
Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you. Scribbled in secret after ... (Goodreads)
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche
Guide to attaining inner peace in life and death, drawing from Buddhist wisdom.
“A magnificent achievement. In its power to touch the heart, to awaken consciousness, [ The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying ] is an inestimable gift.” — San Francisco Chronicle A newly revised and ... (Goodreads)
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)
God's Smuggler
by Brother Andrew
A story of faith and courage, smuggling Bibles to persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain.
As a boy he dreamed of being a spy undercover behind enemy lines. As a man he found himself undercover for God. Brother Andrew was his name and for decades his life story, recounted in God's ... (Goodreads)
A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story
by Linda Sue Park
A boy's story of courage and perseverance, as he faces the civil war in Sudan.
A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ ... (Goodreads)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
by Lew Wallace
A Jewish prince and his quest for revenge against the Roman Empire, culminating in a fateful encounter with Jesus.
Ben-Hur is a story of a fictional hero named Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish nobleman who was falsely accused and convicted of an attempted assassination of the Roman governor of Judaea and consequently ... (Wikipedia)
The Pianist
by Władysław Szpilman
A man's harrowing survival in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, and the resilience of the human spirit.
The last live broadcast on Polish Radio, on September 23, 1939, was Chopin's Nocturne in C# Minor, played by a young pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman, until his playing was interrupted by German ... (Goodreads)
Change of Heart
by Jodi Picoult
A convicted murderer is granted a reprieve when a victim's mother makes an extraordinary plea.
A man, Jack, is killed by an impaired driving, leaving his wife, June, and his daughter, Elizabeth behind. At the scene of the accident, June meets Kurt Nealon, a police officer, who becomes a close ... (Wikipedia)
90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life
by Don Piper
A pastor recounts his near-death experience, his time in Heaven and the healing of his soul.
As he is driving home from a minister's conference, Baptist minister Don Piper collides with a semi-truck that crosses into his lane. He is pronounced dead at the scene. For the next 90 minutes, ... (Goodreads)
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