* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Living in Oakland at the beginning of the 20th century, Martin Eden struggles to rise above his destitute, proletarian circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education, ... (Wikipedia)
The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by Jack London about a literary critic Humphrey van Weyden.The story starts with him aboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides ... (Goodreads)
"To Build a Fire" is one of Jack London's most beloved short stories. A heartbreaking tale set in the vast wintry landscape of the North, it endures as one of the greatest adventures ever written. ... (Goodreads)
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)
In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)
This story takes place in a town called "Q" which is actually a fictitious version of Quetta, Pakistan . In Q, one of the three sisters (Chunni, Munnee, and Bunny Shakil) gives birth to Omar Khayyám ... (Wikipedia)
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)
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 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 book opens on Bastian Balthazar Bux , a "fat little boy of ten or twelve," , :,5, whose mother has died and whose father is too distracted by grief to pay much attention to Bastian. While running ... (Wikipedia)
Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City , Japan. Once a talented computer hacker , Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, ... (Wikipedia)
Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high ... (Barnes & Noble)
Narcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth ... (Goodreads)
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)
The story begins in the year 1913, when a young man who is the narrator was travelling alone on a hiking trip through Provence , France, and into the Alps , enjoying the relatively unspoiled ... (Wikipedia)
The book comprises a preface, 25 chapters, and an afterword, with a total of around 72,000 words. Arthur Gordon Pym was born on the island of Nantucket , famous for its fishing harbor and whaling . ... (Wikipedia)
Nemesis explores the effect of a 1944 polio epidemic on a closely knit, family-oriented Newark Jewish community of Weequahic neighborhood. The children are threatened with maiming, paralysis, ... (Wikipedia)
The Aeneid – thrilling, terrifying and poignant in equal measure – has inspired centuries of artists, writers and musicians. Virgil’s epic tale tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who flees his ... (Goodreads)
Homer Wells grows up in an orphanage where he spends his childhood trying to be "of use" as a medical assistant to the director, Dr. Wilbur Larch, whose history is told in flashbacks : After a ... (Wikipedia)
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (Goodreads)
House of Leaves begins with a first-person narrative by Johnny Truant, a Los Angeles tattoo parlor employee and professed unreliable narrator . Truant is searching for a new apartment when his friend ... (Wikipedia)
A man named Casaubon , is hiding in the Musée des Arts et Métiers after closing. He believes that a secret society has kidnapped his friend Jacopo Belbo and are now after him, and will meet in the ... (Wikipedia)
The novel opens with a brief look at the Berglund family during their time living in St. Paul, Minnesota , from the perspective of their nosy neighbors. The Berglunds are portrayed as an ideal ... (Wikipedia)
Odd is a young Norseman whose father, a woodcutter, drowned during a Viking raid. His Scottish mother marries a fat widower who neglects him in favor of his own children, and when soon after the ... (Wikipedia)
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)
During the year 1866, ships of various nationalities sight a mysterious sea monster , which, it is later suggested, might be a gigantic narwhal . The U.S. government assembles an expedition in New ... (Wikipedia)
Hugh Glass isn’t afraid to die. He’s done it once already. Rocky Mountains, 1823. The trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is one of the most respected ... (Goodreads)
The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself and learns everything he can about ... (Wikipedia)
In the world of The Minority Report, Commissioner John Anderton is the one to thank for the lack of crime. He is the originator of the Precrime System, which uses precogs—people with the power to see ... (Goodreads)
The novel opens in early 1945. Peter Marlowe, a young British RAF Flight Lieutenant , has been a P.O.W. since 1942. Marlowe comes to the attention of the "King" - an American corporal who has become ... (Wikipedia)