What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorMartyr!
Kaveh Akbar · 352 pages
Cyrus Shams is lost. Ever since his mother’s plane was senselessly shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby, Cyrus has been grappling with her death. Now, newly sober, he is set to learn the truth of her life. When an encounter with a dying artist leads Cyrus towards the mysteries of his past - an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as an Angel of Death, a haun
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong · 256 pages
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once
The Yage Letters
William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg · 67 pages
Dancer from the Dance
Andrew Holleran · 256 pages
One of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past -- and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene. From Manhattan's Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island's deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and l
Spitting Off Tall Buildings
Dan Fante · 160 pages
Bruno Dante has fled Los Angeles for New York City. With its cold, hard edge, it's his kind of town. . . . But the string of deadbeat temporary telemarketing gigs is getting to Bruno and the steady work he can stand is hard to come by. Bruno's trying everything: hotel night manager, window cleaner, and cab driver, all the while punctuating his unsatisfying employment experiments with meaningless a
Naked Lunch
William S. Burroughs · 304 pages
Sprout
Dale Peck · 288 pages
Moving from Long Island to Kansas after his mother dies, a teenaged boy nicknamed Sprout is surprised to find new friends, a fascinating landscape, and romantic love.
Capote: A Biography
Gerald Clarke · 632 pages
Christodora
Tim Murphy · 445 pages
"The Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions. Their neighbor Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly and Jared's lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, Milly and Jared's adopted son Mateo grows to see the opportunity for both self-realization and ob
The Alcoholic
Jonathan Ames · 136 pages
Jonathan A. is a boozed-up, coked-out, sexually confused, hopelessly romantic and, of course, entirely fictional novelist who bears only a coincidental resemblance to real-life writer Jonathan Ames, critically acclaimed author of Wake Up, Sir!, The Extra Man and What's Not to Love? For the fictional Jonathan, writing and drinking come easy. The hard parts of life are love and hope. From a touching
Hollywood
Charles Bukowski · 239 pages
Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski, returns, revelling in his eternal penchant for booze, women and horse-racing as he makes the precarious journey from poet to screenwriter. Based on Bukowski's experiences when working on the film Barfly, the absurdity and egotism of the film industry are laid bare in this deadpan, touching and funny glimpse into the endless negotiations and back-stabbings of L
Last Exit to Brooklyn
Hubert Selby Jr. · 303 pages
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a raw depiction of life amongst New York's junkies, hustlers, drag queens and prostitutes. An unforgettable cast of characters inhabits the housing projects, bars and streets of Brooklyn: Georgette, a hopelessly romantic and tormented transvestite; Vinnie, a disaffected and volatile youth who has never been on the right side of the law; Tralala, who can find no escape from
City of Night
John Rechy · 380 pages
When John Rechy's explosive first novel appeared in 1963, it marked a radical departure in fiction, and gave voice to a subculture that had never before been revealed with such acuity. It earned comparisons to Genet and Kerouac, even as Rechy was personally attacked by scandalized reviewers. Nevertheless, the book became an international bestseller, and fifty years later, it has become a classic.
The Lost Weekend
Charles Jackson · 244 pages
A would-be writer's dissatisfaction with his life leads him on a three-day binge. This film gives an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism. Made into a motion picture.
The Paris Wife
Paula McLain · 320 pages
Meeting through mutual friends in Chicago, Hadley is intrigued by brash "beautiful boy" Ernest Hemingway, and after a brief courtship and small wedding, they take off for Paris, where Hadley makes a convincing transformation from an overprotected child to a game and brave young woman who puts up with impoverished living conditions and shattering loneliness to prop up her husband’s career.
South on Highland
Liana Maeby · 230 pages
Leila Massey, a promising young screenwriter, lands a hotshot agent and is on the verge of hitting it big when she falls into the powerful grip of drug addiction. Along with her new actor boyfriend, Leila's catastrophic descent into the dark underbelly of Los Angeles leads her to a drug-fueled commune in the desert, a filthy room at the Chateau, and, eventually, rehab. Based in part on the author'
The Rum Diary
Hunter S. Thompson · 204 pages
The Anatomy Lesson
Philip Roth · 291 pages
Pushkin Hills
Sergei Dovlatov · 160 pages
"An unsuccessful writer and an inveterate alcoholic, Boris Alikhanov has recently divorced his wife Tatyana, and he is running out of money. The prospect of a summer job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve offers him hope of regaining some balance in life as his wife makes plans to emigrate to the West with their daughter Masha, but during Alikhanov's stay in the rural estate of Mikhaylo
Ablutions
Patrick deWitt · 164 pages
Working at a decaying Hollywood bar while making notes for the novel he hopes to write, a bartender is drawn into the alcoholic oblivion that affects his customers, losing his wife, his goals, and himself in the process.
The Journals of John Cheever
John Cheever · 399 pages
Three decades of writer John Cheever's journals giving an account of his family life, literary life, and emotional life. An outstanding literary event: the journals--begun in the late 1940s and continued through more than three decades--of a great American writer. John Cheever's journals provide, of course, peerless insights into the creation of his novels and stories. But they are equally the re
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
David Sedaris · 321 pages
"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book. Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to
Howl and Other Poems
Allen Ginsberg · 44 pages
"The prophetic poem that launched a generation when it was first published in 1956 is here presented in a commemorative 40th Anniversary Edition." "When the book arrived from its British printers, it was seized almost immediately by U.S. Customs, and shortly thereafter the San Francisco police arrested its publisher and editor, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, together with the City Lights Bookstore manager