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Centuries of June

Keith Donohue · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov · 412 pages

The battle of competing translations, a new publishing phenomenon which began with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, now offers two rival American editions of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Mirra Ginsburg's (Grove Press) version is pointedly grotesque: she delights in the sharp, spinning, impressionistic phrase. Her Bulgakov reminds one of the virtuoso effects encountered in Za

Frame StoryMagical RealismDark ComedyLiterary Fiction
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Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie · 548 pages

Frame StoryMagical RealismDark ComedyLiterary Fiction
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The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray

Jorge Amado · 70 pages

"Along with The Discovery of America by the Turks, two masterworks by the greatest Brazilian novelist of the twentieth century, published for the centennial of his birth. Widely considered the greatest work by the foremost Brazilian author of the twentieth century, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray comes to Penguin Classics in a new translation by the dean of Portuguese-language translators,

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Franz Kafka · 271 pages

This collection of new translations brings together the small proportion of Kafka's works that he thought worthy of publication. It includes 'Metamorphosis', his most famous work, an exploration of horrific transformation and alienation; 'Meditation', a collection of his earlier studies; 'The Judgement', written in a single night of frenzied creativity; 'The Stoker', the first chapter of a novel s

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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Bluebeard

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. · 300 pages

Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life story—and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man’s careless fancy to create or destr

Frame StoryDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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Malone Dies

Samuel Beckett · 176 pages

Frame StoryDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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The Nimrod Flipout: Stories

Etgar Keret, Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature · 176 pages

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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The High Mountains of Portugal

Yann Martel · 352 pages

In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that--if he can find it--would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe's earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure. Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center

Frame StoryMagical RealismLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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Steppenwolf

Hermann Hesse · 246 pages

A story that focuses on the loneliness and suffering of the protagonist, Harry Haller, who feels that he has no place in a world filled with meaningless frivolity. Having decided to take his own life a chance encounter causes him to change his views and he begins to learn ways to enjoy life. One of the most misunderstood of his novels the book is, according to Hesse, about the possibilities of tra

Frame StoryMagical RealismLiterary FictionMale Lead
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Oracle Night

Paul Auster · 245 pages

A novelist recovers from an accident. He begins to write again, after buying a blue portugese notebook. The words flow, but at some point, strange things begin to happen: his beloved wife behaves strangely, fiction and reality get mixed up, and what about this strange stationary shop where he bought the notebook? It disappears over night.

Frame StoryMagical RealismLiterary FictionMale Lead
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Dangerous Laughter

Steven Millhauser · 250 pages

Thirteen darkly comic stories, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey that stretches the boundaries of the ordinary world.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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Portnoy's Complaint

Philip Roth · 288 pages

Though is caused outrage and controversy at the time of its publication Roth’s comic novel of sexual obsession and frustration is now widely regarded as one of the best novels of the twentieth century.

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Wise Children

Angela Carter · 237 pages

In their heyday on the vaudeville stages of the early twentieth century, Dora Chance and her twin sister, Nora -- unacknowledged the daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day -- were known as the Lucky Chances, with private lives as colorful and erratic as their careers. But now, at the age of 75, Dora is typing up their life story, and it is a tale indeed the A

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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Bailey's Cafe

Gloria Naylor · 229 pages

"Welcome to Bailey's Cafe, the most mythically real eating place you've ever walked into. Presided over by Bailey himself and his helpmate, Nadine, it is a magnet that draws a wide variety of society's detritus, each with her own story to tell." "There is Sadie, whose addiction to alcohol is second only to her mania for cleanliness; and the oddly maternal Eve, whose bordello accepts only fresh flo

Magical RealismFrame StoryLiterary FictionShort Stories
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Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Karen Russell · 256 pages

Six short stories with subjects ranging from a dejected teenager who discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull's nest to two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove who try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood.

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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The Egyptologist

Arthur Phillips · 404 pages

Frame StoryDark ComedyLiterary FictionMale Lead
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The Overcoat

Nikolai Gogol · 52 pages

Magical RealismDark ComedyLiterary FictionMale Lead
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Survivor

Chuck Palahniuk · 289 pages

Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish death cult, has commandeered a Boeing 747, emptied of passengers, in order to tell his story to the plane’s black box before it crashes. Brought up by the repressive cult and, like all Creedish younger sons, hired out as a domestic servant, Tender finds himself suddenly famous when his fellow cult members all commit suicide. As media messia

Frame StoryDark ComedyLiterary FictionAbsurdist Humor
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Arabian Nights and Days

Naguib Mahfouz, njyb mHfwZ · 227 pages

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Tokyo Cancelled

Rana Dasgupta · 383 pages

Thirteen passengers are stranded at an airport. Tokyo, their destination, is covered in snow and all flights are cancelled. To pass the night they form a huddle by the silent baggage carousels and tell one another stories. Thus begins Rana Dasgupta's Canterbury Tales for our times. In the spirit of Borges and Calvino, Dasgupta's writing combines an energetically modern landscape with a timeless, b

Magical RealismFrame StoryLiterary FictionShort Stories
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The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye

A.S. Byatt · 277 pages

A collection of fairy tales for adults. The title novella is on a middle-aged Englishwoman attending a writers' conference in Turkey. She picks up an antique bottle and as she is washing it a djinn appears, offering to grant her three wishes. She asks for a younger body, then requests he make love to her.

Frame StoryMagical RealismLiterary FictionShort Stories
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The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life

Steven Pressfield · 272 pages

The protagonist of this metaphysical fable is Rannulph Junah, Southern aristocrat and World War I hero. In a tournament in Savannah, he defeats two golf pros by following the teachings of his guru, Bagger Vance, a black mystic serving as his caddie.

Frame StoryMagical RealismLiterary FictionMale Lead
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Frame StoryMagical RealismLiterary FictionMale Lead

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