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The Beauty of Men

Andrew Holleran · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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The Sense of an Ending

Julian Barnes · 152 pages

By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse. This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a

Midlife CrisisGrief and MourningBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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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

Midlife CrisisGrief and MourningBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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Less

Andrew Sean Greer · 273 pages

Receiving an invitation to his ex-boyfriend's wedding, Arthur, a failed novelist on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, embarks on an international journey that finds him falling in love, risking his life, reinventing himself, and making connections with the past.

Midlife CrisisLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweet
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Gather

Kenneth M. Cadow · 325 pages

Publisher Annotation: A resourceful teenager in rural Vermont struggles to hold on to the family home while his mom recovers from addiction in this striking debut novel.

Caregiving for a ParentBittersweetGrief and MourningCharacter-Driven
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Tin Man

Sarah Winman · 224 pages

"This is almost a love story. But it's not as simple as that. Ellis and Michael are twelve-year-old boys when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to swim, discovering poetry, and dodging the fists of overbearing fathers. And then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more. But then we f

LGBTQ+ ProtagonistGrief and MourningCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Stoner

John Williams · 278 pages

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Consolation

Anna Gavalda · 473 pages

A heartbreaking, unusual story about one man, two remarkable women and an unforgettable transvestite. A 47-year-old successful architect hears about the death of a woman, whom he once loved and his life starts to unravel. Charles seems to have everything, but turns his back on the present to go in search of her past and his childhood.

Midlife CrisisGrief and MourningBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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The Hours

Michael Cunningham

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Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout · 288 pages

Olive Kitteridge: indomitable, compassionate and often unpredictable. A retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine, as she grows older she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life. She is a woman who sees into the hearts of those around her, their triumphs and tragedies. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and a young man who aches

Midlife CrisisGrief and MourningBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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The Art of Fielding

Chad Harbach · 512 pages

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. Henry’s fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love

Midlife CrisisLGBTQ+ ProtagonistLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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A Single Man

Christopher Isherwood · 158 pages

Classic fiction. The best prose writer in English' Gore Vidal Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication, A Single Man is the story of George Falconer, an English professor in suburban California left heartbroken after the death of his lover Jim. With devastating clarity and humour, Christopher Isherwood shows George's determination to carry on, evoking the unexpected pleasures of life

LGBTQ+ ProtagonistGrief and MourningLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen · 576 pages

The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of

Caregiving for a ParentMidlife CrisisLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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Rabbit at Rest

John Updike · 512 pages

It's 1989, and Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom is far from restful. Fifty-six and overweight, he has a struggling business on his hands and a heart that is starting to fail. His family, too, are giving him cause for concern. His son Nelson is a wreck of a man, a cocaine addict with shattered self-respect. Janice, his wife, has decided that she wants to be a working girl. And as for Pru, his daughter-in-la

Midlife CrisisBittersweetLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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This Time Tomorrow

Emma Straub · 310 pages

Caregiving for a ParentMidlife CrisisCharacter-DrivenBittersweet
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In One Person

John Irving · 448 pages

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a "sexual suspect," a phrase first used by John Ir

Grief and MourningBittersweetLGBTQ+ ProtagonistLiterary Fiction
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I Know This Much Is True

Wally Lamb · 912 pages

E-book extra: "Who Is Wally Lamb?" The author recalls events surrounding the acclaimed publication of I Know This Much Is True. ( Not available in print editions of this work.)Wally Lamb's masterful novel of transgression and redemption, now in e-book format.A contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth: a proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth inst

Caregiving for a ParentBittersweetLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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The Twin

Gerbrand Bakker · 288 pages

Caregiving for a ParentLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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This is Where I Leave You

Jonathan Tropper · 376 pages

International bestseller Jonathan Tropper joins Dutton with the book his fans in the trade have been waiting for him to write: an uproarious, sophisticated, and deeply moving breakout novel.Those who have already discovered Jonathan Tropper have called his novels "hilarious, but emotion-packed,"1 "fantastically funny,"2 "surprisingly moving,"3 and "utterly magnificent."4 With his Dutton debut, Tro

Midlife CrisisGrief and MourningBittersweetCharacter-Driven
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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Haruki Murakami · 336 pages

Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning 'red pine', and Oumi, 'blue sea', while the girls' names were Shirane, 'white root', and Kurono, 'black field'. Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it. One day Tsukuru Tazaki's friends announced that they didn't want to see him, or talk to him, eve

Grief and MourningBittersweetLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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The Chaperone

Laura Moriarty · 419 pages

"A novel about the friendship between an adolescent, pre-movie-star Louise Brooks, and the 36-year-old woman who chaperones her to New York City for a summer, in 1922, and how it changes both their lives"--

Midlife CrisisBittersweetCharacter-DrivenLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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Aloft

Chang-rae Lee · 368 pages

Midlife CrisisBittersweetCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara · 736 pages

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Independence Day

Richard Ford · 464 pages

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The Zahir

Paulo Coelho · 320 pages

Set in Paris and in the enchanting landscape of central Asia, this new novel by the author of the international bestsellers The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes follows the journey of a man obsessed with finding the wife who left him without an explanation.The narrator of The Zahir is a bestselling novelist who lives in Paris and enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring. His wife of te

Midlife CrisisCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction

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