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Lust for Life

Irving Stone · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet

Stephanie Cowell · 338 pages

A vividly rendered portrait of both the rise of Impressionism and of Monet, the artist at the center of the movement. It is, above all, a love story of the highest romantic order.

Artist ProtagonistBittersweetParisCharacter-Driven
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Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham · 582 pages

Of Human Bondage is a moving exploration of loneliness, obsessive love, and a young man's search for meaning and direction in life. Written in the third person, it tells the story of Philip Carey, a self-conscious orphan with a club-foot who learns medicine. Not only is this a significant work in the Bildungsroman tradition, but its largely autobiographical basis gives it a special interest in vie

Finding PurposeBittersweetParisArtist Protagonist
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Rachel Joyce · 355 pages

Harold Fry has recently retired and now, he doesn't do very much. Even mowing the lawn, like his wife Maureen tells him to do, seems too much work for him. When, one day, he recieves a lettre in a pink envelope, this lazyness changes. In it, his collegue from long time ago, Queenie Hennessy, tells him she is going to die soon from a cancer in a hospice at the other end of England. Harold, at first

Finding PurposeDepressionBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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Stoner

John Williams · 278 pages

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Little

Edward Carey · 448 pages

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Clara and Mr. Tiffany

Susan Vreeland · 448 pages

At the dawn of the 20th century, Louis Comfort Tiffany wants to honor his father and the family business with innovative glass designs. But it is the freethinking Clara Driscoll, head of his women's division, who develops the iconic Tiffany lamp and earns Tiffany the critical acclaim and financial success he's dreamed of. Yearning for recognition, Clara must decide between the professional world o

Artist ProtagonistFinding PurposeCharacter-DrivenHistorical Fiction
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The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt · 817 pages

"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthra

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Just Kids

Patti Smith · 336 pages

In this memoir, singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of New York City : the denizens of Max's Kansas City, the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner's, Brentano's and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with a young man named Robert Mapplethorpe--the man who changed her life with his love, friendship, and genius.

Artist ProtagonistFinding PurposeBittersweetArt History
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Girl with a Pearl Earring

Tracy Chevalier · 248 pages

This book "centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier d

Artist ProtagonistBittersweetCharacter-DrivenHistorical Fiction
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Leaving Van Gogh

Carol Wallace · 268 pages

Imagines the career of Vincent Van Gogh from the perspective of his friend and psychiatrist Dr. Gachet, who throughout the course of their relationship watches the tortured artist deteriorate from an optimistic genius to a suicide victim.

Artist ProtagonistDepressionParisCharacter-Driven
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Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Brandon Sanderson · 480 pages

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The Other Side of the World

Stephanie Bishop · 269 pages

In the tradition of Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work or Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine comes a complex, tender and gorgeously written novel of parenthood, love and marriage that is impossible to put down. Cambridge 1963. Charlotte struggles to reconnect with the woman she was before children, and to find the time and energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, cannot face the thought of anot

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Girl in Pieces

Kathleen Glasgow · 416 pages

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At 17 she's already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she's learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don't have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie's heart just a lit

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The Family Fang

Kevin Wilson · 309 pages

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents' madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficu

Artist ProtagonistFinding PurposeCharacter-DrivenBittersweet
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Hold Still

Nina LaCour · 272 pages

An arresting story about starting over after a friend's suicide, froma breakthrough new voice in YA fictiondear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just can't.Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful...in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find

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Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?

Johan Harstad · 524 pages

Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion opens with the line: "The person you love is 72.8% water, and it hasn't rained for weeks." From there, Brage Award winning author and playwright tells the story of Mattias, a thirty-something gardener living in Stavanger, Norway, whose idol is Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon: the man who was willing to stand in Neil Armstrong's shadow in o

Finding PurposeDepressionCharacter-DrivenBittersweet
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Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson · 197 pages

"Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated

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The House Girl

Tara Conklin · 372 pages

A novel of love, family, and justice follows Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in a Manhattan law firm, as she searches for the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

Artist ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweetHistorical Fiction
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The Wedding People

Alison Espach · 384 pages

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to

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Bridge to Terabithia

Katherine Paterson · 144 pages

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm.

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The Little Paris Bookshop

Nina George · 392 pages

“There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies—I mean books—that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that’s how I sell books.” Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floa

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I Always Loved You

Robin Oliveira · 350 pages

"A novel of Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas's great romance from the New York Times bestselling author of My Name Is Mary Sutter The young Mary Cassatt never thought moving to Paris after the Civil War to be an artist was going to be easy, but when, after a decade of work, her submission to the Paris Salon is rejected, Mary's fierce determination wavers. Her father is begging her to return to Philade

Artist ProtagonistParisCharacter-DrivenHistorical Fiction
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The Painted Girls

Cathy Marie Buchanan · 368 pages

In belle époque Paris, the Van Goethem sisters struggle for survival after the sudden death of their father, a situation that prompts young Marie's ballet training and her introduction to a genius painter.

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A Man Called Ove

Fredrik Backman · 337 pages

A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just b

Finding PurposeBittersweetCharacter-DrivenMale Lead
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