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Old Masters: A Comedy

Thomas Bernhard · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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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

MuseumsArt HistoryDense ProseLiterary Fiction
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Agapē Agape

William Gaddis · 113 pages

"Either the last true masterpiece of the 20th century or the first of our new millenium" —San Francisco ChronicleWilliam Gaddis published four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes f

Dense ProseElderly ProtagonistLiterary FictionSatire
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Foucault's Pendulum

Umberto Eco · 641 pages

English: An Enthralling Mystery, a breathtaking rollercoaster ride through a world of ideas and aberrations, an adventure into the modern mind. One Colonel Ardenti, who has unnaturally black, brilliantined hair, an Adolphe Menjou mustache, wears maroon socks, and once served in the Foreign Legion, starts it all. He tells three Milan editors that he has discovered a coded message about a Templar

Dense ProseMuseumsSatireLiterary Fiction
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Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

Bohumil Hrabal · 122 pages

An old man, a shoemaker who once wore a pince-nez and carried a stick with a silver mounting because he wanted to look like a composer, tells the story of his life to six young, beautiful women basking in the sun. One drunken thought triggers another. Amorous conquests alternate with sundry mishaps and in the haphazard telling acquire the same weight and substance as earth-shattering events. To s

Dense ProseElderly ProtagonistDry HumorLiterary Fiction
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Earthly Powers

Anthony Burgess · 656 pages

Anthony Burgess has long been regarded as one of the most original and daring writers of our time. In Earthly Powers, Burgess has writtena book rich with astonishing powers and surprising events.

Elderly ProtagonistDense ProseLiterary FictionSatire
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The Warden

Anthony Trollope · 255 pages

*The Chronicles of Barsetshire*, Book 1: *The Warden* The tranquil atmosphere of the cathedral town of Barchester is shattered when a scandal breaks concerning the financial affairs of a Church-run almshouse for elderly men. In the ensuing furore, Septimus Harding, the almshouse's well-meaning warden, finds himself pitted against his daughter's suitor Dr John Bold, a zealous local reformer. Mat

Elderly ProtagonistDry HumorSatireLiterary Fiction
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The Pale King

David Foster Wallace · 592 pages

The character David Foster Wallace is introduced to the banal world of the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, and the host of strange people who work there, in a novel that was unfinished at the time of the author's death.

Dense ProseSatireDry HumorLiterary Fiction
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The Egoist

George Meredith · 606 pages

Virginia Woolf said of The Egoist: 'Meredith pays us a supreme compliment to which as novel-readers we are little accustomed ... He imagines us capable of disinterested curiosity in the behaviour of our kind.' In this, the most dazzlingly intellectual of all his novels, Meredith tries to illuminate the pretensions of the most powerful class within the very citadel of security which its members hav

SatireDry HumorDense ProseLiterary Fiction
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Ducks, Newburyport

Lucy Ellmann · 1,022 pages

Dense ProseDry HumorLiterary FictionSatire
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Ulysses

James Joyce · 736 pages

Written over a seven-year period, from 1914 to 1921, this book has survived bowdlerization, legal action and controversy. The novel deals with the events of one day in Dublin, 16th June 1904, now known as "Bloomsday". The principal characters are Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly. Ulysses has been labelled dirty, blasphemous and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge Jo

Dense ProseLiterary FictionSatireStream of Consciousness
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The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood · 638 pages

More than fifty years on, Iris Chase is remembering Laura's mysterious death. And so begins an extraordinary and compelling story of two sisters and their secrets. Set against a panoramic backdrop of twentieth-century history, The Blind Assassin is an epic tale of memory, intrigue and betrayal...

Elderly ProtagonistDry HumorDense ProseLiterary Fiction
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The Autumn of the Patriarch

Gabriel Garcia Marquez · 265 pages

Dense ProseSatireLiterary FictionStream of Consciousness
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Creation

Gore Vidal · 574 pages

"The hero-narrator, Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster, is brought up in a fifth-century B.C. Persian court and educated with his closest friend, Xerxes, who is destined to become master of the empire that stretches from India to the Mediterranean. As an ambassador for Xerxes, Cyrus embarks on journeys far beyond the boundaries of the known world, seeking wealth and trade routes.".

Elderly ProtagonistDense ProseDry HumorLiterary Fiction
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The Raphael Affair

Iain Pears · 191 pages

MuseumsArt HistoryDry HumorMale Lead
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The Fall

Albert Camus · 147 pages

SatireDense ProseLiterary FictionDry Humor
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Monsignor Quixote

Graham Greene · 232 pages

"A direct descendant of his famous namesake, Father Quixote is a humble parish priest. By chance he is advanced to Monsignor, resulting in furor in the bishopric. Quixote and his friend Sancho Zancas, the Communist ex-mayor of the village, leave for a pilgrimage across Spain."--Audio cassette container.

Elderly ProtagonistDry HumorSatireLiterary Fiction
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The Untouchable

John Banville · 410 pages

(From the Hardcover edition) Twenty years after his "retirement," ex-spy Victor Maskell attempts to come to terms with what has happened to his life by embarking on his memoirs. This is the plot which fuels Banville's stunning new novel--a story that goes beyond the mere facts of espionage to penetrate the intricate heart of the spy.

Elderly ProtagonistDry HumorDense ProseLiterary Fiction
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Headlong

Michael Frayn · 373 pages

"A British comedy in which academic Martin Clay is asked by a boorish country squire to assess his paintings. Clay spots what he suspects is a Bruegel and so begins a tale of lies and concealment as he schemes to separate the painting from its owner. By the author of Now You Know." --from WorldCat

MuseumsDry HumorArt HistoryLiterary Fiction
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Wittgenstein's Mistress

David Markson · 240 pages

Art HistoryDense ProseLiterary FictionStream of Consciousness
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Trainspotting

Irvine Welsh · 352 pages

Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a collection of short-stories revolving around a group of friends, their drug use, and struggles in the city of Edinburgh.

Dense ProseSatireLiterary FictionStream of Consciousness
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An Object of Beauty

Steve Martin · 303 pages

"Steve Martin's latest novel examines the glamour and the subterfuge of the fine art world in New York City"--Provided by publisher.

MuseumsSatireDry HumorLiterary Fiction
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Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 503 pages

*Don Quijote de la Mancha* es una novela escrita por el español Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Publicada su primera parte con el título de *El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha* a comienzos de 1605, es la obra más destacada de la literatura española y una de las principales de la literatura universal. En 1615 apareció su continuación con el título de *Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero

Elderly ProtagonistDense ProseSatireLiterary Fiction
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Naked Lunch

William S. Burroughs · 304 pages

Dense ProseSatireLiterary FictionStream of Consciousness
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Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel · 653 pages

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power England is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him.

Dense ProseDry HumorLiterary FictionGrief Over a Spouse
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