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Phases of Gravity

Dan Simmons · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Spaceman of Bohemia

Jaroslav Kalfar · 288 pages

"When Jakub Procha is sent into space to examine a cosmic dust cloud covering Venus, it may be a solo suicide mission. Dreaming of becoming a national hero and desperate to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he leaves his beloved wife behind and launches into the galaxy. But things aboard spaceship JanHus1 quickly turn weird, and, to make matters worse, he soon learns that his wi

AstronautsSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Wanderers

Meg Howrey · 370 pages

"Station Eleven meets The Martian in this brilliantly inventive novel about three astronauts training for the first-ever mission to Mars, an experience that will push the boundary between real and unreal, test their relationships, and leave each of them--and their families--changed forever In an age of space exploration, we search to find ourselves. In four years Prime Space will put the first hum

AstronautsSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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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 CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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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 CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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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.

Midlife CrisisCharacter-DrivenSelf-DiscoveryLiterary Fiction
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Herzog

Saul Bellow · 352 pages

In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption. Introduction by Philip Roth

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Atmosphere: A Love Story

Taylor Jenkins Reid · 352 pages

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the f

AstronautsSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenScience Fiction
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The Green Pen

Eloy Moreno · 366 pages

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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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 CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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All That Man Is

David Szalay · 402 pages

Szalay (London and the South-East) delivers a kaleidoscopic portrayal of nine men at various stages in their lives, each in the throes of extraordinary change. Despite their diverse circumstances, they are all somehow connected, engaged in a search for relevance and-dare they even consider it-meaning. English teenagers Simon and Ferdinand arrive in Berlin with competing ideas of how best to enjoy

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Death of Ivan Ilych

Leo Tolstoy · 76 pages

Ivan Ilych, a peaceful public official in the Russian provinces, has his life permanently changed by a serious illness which no doctor can accurately diagnose.

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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This Book Will Save Your Life

A.M. Homes · 372 pages

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary 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 CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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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 CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Rebecca Miller · 239 pages

Pippa seems to have everything in life. But suddenly she finds her world beginning to unravel. Amid the buzzing lawnmowers and suburban coffee mornings, she starts to wonder how she came to be in this place. The answer is a story of wild youth, unexpected encounters, affairs and betrayals, and the dangerous security of marriage. It brilliantly reveals the challenges of modern life - and all the po

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Ellen in Pieces

Caroline Adderson · 315 pages

When middle-aged, single mother, Ellen McGinty sells the house she raised her daughters in and sets out in search of a new life, she runs directly into the path of a man twenty years younger. Told from multiple points of view, the story explores concepts of love, the nature of regret and the hope of recovery.

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Mermaid Chair

Sue Monk Kidd · 335 pages

It's about a woman named Jessie Sullivan who has to return to her former home Egret island to take care of her mother. Within a monastery resides a chair carved with mermaids that supposedly was dedicated to a mermaid.Jessie meet a monk and falls for him although she is already married.....

Midlife CrisisCharacter-DrivenSelf-DiscoveryLiterary Fiction
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The Scenic Route

Binnie Kirshenbaum · 317 pages

Divorced, alone, and unexpectedly unemployed, Sylvia Landsman flees to Italy, where she meets Henry, a wistful, married, middle-aged expatriate. Taking off on a grand tour of Europe bankrolled with his wife's money, Henry and Sylvia follow a circuitous route around the continent—as Sylvia entertains Henry with stories of her peculiar family and her damaged friends, of dead ducks and Alma Mahler. H

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

Dorthe Nors · 192 pages

Mirror, shoulder, signal is a poignant, sharp-witted tale of one woman's journey in search of herself when there's no one to ask for directions.

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Summer Before the Dark

Doris Lessing · 248 pages

With her children grown and her husband away in America for several months, Kate Brown finds herself alone for the first time in twenty years.

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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To the Moon and Back

Eliana Ramage · 448 pages

AstronautsCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Dave Eggers · 212 pages

In a barracks on an abandoned military base, miles from the nearest road, Thomas watches as the man he has brought wakes up. Kev, a NASA astronaut, doesn't recognize his captor, though Thomas remembers him. Kev cries for help. He pulls at his chain. But the ocean is close by, and nobody can hear him over the waves and wind. Thomas apologizes. He didn't want to have to resort to this. But they real

AstronautsCharacter-DrivenLiterary FictionMale Lead
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Ladder of Years

Anne Tyler · 336 pages

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKBALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who f

Midlife CrisisSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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