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Andrew Sean Greer · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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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

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That Old Cape Magic

Richard Russo · 272 pages

Following Bridge of Sighs--a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as "an astounding achievement" and "a masterpiece"--Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father's ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive a

Midlife CrisisWriter ProtagonistLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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The Beauty of Men

Andrew Holleran · 280 pages

Lark's mourning over the loss of his youth and of friends and acquaintances, his visits to his dying mother, and his actual and remembered visits to boat docks and baths comprise a narrative of loneliness, aging, and obsessive desire.

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Wonder Boys

Michael Chabon · 368 pages

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I See You've Called in Dead

John Kenney · 294 pages

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The Anatomy Lesson

Philip Roth · 291 pages

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Becoming Ted

Matt Cain · 432 pages

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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

Writer ProtagonistLGBTQ+ ProtagonistLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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Women

Charles Bukowski · 297 pages

Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at fifty, he is reveling in his sudden rock-star life, running three hundred hangovers a year, and maintaining a sex life that woul

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The Forty Rules of Love

Elif Shafak, lyf shfq · 354 pages

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The Sportswriter

Richard Ford · 375 pages

In the aftermath of his divorce and the death of his son, Frank Bascombe struggles to come to terms with failure and tries to find consolation in the arms of a new girlfriend. What he hoped would be an idyllic adventure turns into a succession of calamities.

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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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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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Traveling Sprinkler

Nicholson Baker · 291 pages

An accomplished poet tries his hand at songwriting, Quaker meetings, and tobacco experiments while he copes with his ex-girlfriend's new relationship with a local NPR radio host.

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The Night Listener

Armistead Maupin · 353 pages

"I'm a fabulist by trade," warns Gabriel Noone, a late-night radio storyteller, as he begins to untangle the skeins of his tumultuous life: his crumbling ten-year love affair, his disaffection from his Southern father, his longtime weakness for ignoring reality. Gabriel's most sympathetic listener is Pete Lomax, a thirteen-year-old fan in Wisconsin whose own horrific past has left him wise and gen

Writer ProtagonistLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

Larry McMurtry · 292 pages

Danny Deck is on the verge of success as an author, when he flees Houston and hurtles unexpectedly into the hearts of three women: a girlfriend who makes him happy but who won't stay; a neighbour as generous as she is lusty; and his pal, Emma Horton. Ranging from Texas to California on a young writer's journey in a car he calls El Chevy, Danny embarks on a wild ride towards literary fame and an un

Writer ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary FictionFunny
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The Jane Austen Book Club

Karen Joy Fowler · 296 pages

"In California's Central Valley, five women and one man join together to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens." "Dedicated Austen readers will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through this novel, but many readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, desp

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Domestic Violets

Matthew Norman · 329 pages

"In the vein of Jonathan Tropper and Tom Perrotta comes DOMESTIC VIOLETS, Matthew Norman's darkly comic family drama about love, loss, and ambition"--Provided by publisher.

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The Doctor's Daughter

Hilma Wolitzer · 288 pages

Alice Brill struggles to come to terms with the hidden truths of her life--her unrealized aspirations as a writer, her lackadaisical marriage, her troubled younger son, and her father, who is slipping into senility in a nursing home.

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This Time Tomorrow

Emma Straub · 310 pages

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Sputnik Sweetheart

Haruki Murakami · 224 pages

"The scenario is as simple as it is uncomfortable: a college student falls in love (once and for all, despite everything that transpires afterward) with a classmate whose devotion to Kerouac and an untidy writerly life precludes any personal commitments - until she meets a considerably older and far more sophisticated businesswoman. It is through this wormhole that she enters Murakami's surreal ye

Writer ProtagonistLiterary FictionCharacter-DrivenLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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High Fidelity

Nick Hornby · 256 pages

Nick Hornby's first novel, an international bestseller and instantly recognized by critics and readers alike as a classic, helps to explain men to women, and men to men. Rob is good on music: he owns a small record shop and has strong views on what's decent and what isn't. But he's much less good on relationships. In fact, he's not at all sure that he wants to commit himself to anyone. So it's har

Midlife CrisisCharacter-DrivenLiterary FictionFunny
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The Hours

Michael Cunningham

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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

Midlife CrisisWriter ProtagonistLiterary FictionSelf-Discovery

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