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Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates · 155 pages

An Amazon Best Book of July 2015: Readers of his work in The Atlantic and elsewhere know Ta-Nehisi Coates for his thoughtful and influential writing on race in America. Written as a series of letters to his teenaged son, his new memoir, Between the World and Me, walks us through the course of his life, from the tough neighborhoods of Baltimore in his youth, to Howard University—which Coates dubs “

Epistolary FormatLyrical ProseEssay CollectionSelf-Discovery
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Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Elizabeth Gilbert · 288 pages

Elizabeth Gilbert digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity, offering insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need i

Finding PurposeArtist ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryEssay Collection
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Finding PurposeSelf-DiscoveryEssay CollectionLyrical Prose
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By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Paulo Coelho · 210 pages

"The story of a young Spanish woman, Pilar, and her encounter with her lost love, an unnamed spiritual seeker who comes to worship the feminine face of God. Clarke's translation is, as usual, somewhat hurried and condensed as if he's impatient with Coelho's admittedly belabored and self-consciously poetical style"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Finding PurposePhilosophyLyrical ProseSelf-Discovery
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The Dharma Bums

Jack Kerouac · 204 pages

The Dharma Bums is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The basis for the novel's semi-fictional accounts are events occurring years after the events of On the Road. The main characters are the narrator Ray Smith, based on Kerouac, and Japhy Ryder, based on the poet and essayist Gary Snyder, who was instrumental in Kerouac's introduction to Buddhism in the mid-1950s. The book co

Finding PurposePhilosophySelf-DiscoveryLyrical Prose
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Clara and Mr. Tiffany

Susan Vreeland · 448 pages

At the dawn of the 20th century, Louis Comfort Tiffany wants to honor his father and the family business with innovative glass designs. But it is the freethinking Clara Driscoll, head of his women's division, who develops the iconic Tiffany lamp and earns Tiffany the critical acclaim and financial success he's dreamed of. Yearning for recognition, Clara must decide between the professional world o

Finding PurposeArtist ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryLyrical Prose
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Narcissus and Goldmund

Hermann Hesse · 313 pages

Finding PurposeSelf-DiscoveryPhilosophyLyrical Prose
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The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh · 351 pages

Most unusually among major painters, Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) was also an accomplished writer. His letters provide both a unique self-portrait and a vivid picture of the contemporary cultural scene. Van Gogh emerges as a complex but captivating personality, struggling with utter integrity to fulfil his artistic destiny. This major new edition, which is based on an entirely new translation, rein

Epistolary FormatArtist ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryLyrical Prose
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The Little Prince & Letter to a Hostage

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Finding PurposeSelf-DiscoveryLyrical ProsePhilosophy
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The Agony and the Ecstasy

Irving Stone · 710 pages

Mr. Stone gives his signature style and thought to this story of Michelangelo. He points out often in this book that Michelangelo, before beginning a work, asks what it is he is trying to capture in the moment of his painting, sculpture, or poem. So it is with Mr. Stone. He wants to portray, as close as he can find, the moments of the life of this artist. What shaped him, what he loved, what (and

Finding PurposeArtist ProtagonistPhilosophyLyrical Prose
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haruki Murakami · 179 pages

Finding PurposeSelf-DiscoveryPhilosophyEssay Collection
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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

Artist ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryLyrical ProsePhilosophy
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Gift from the Sea

Anne Morrow Lindbergh · 138 pages

From inside flap- "Anne Morrow Lindbergh's reflections on a woman's life were matured in active years of family living and stimulated by conversations with men and women who experience the same problems and feel the same need for assessing the true values of life. The setting of her book is the sea shore; the time, a brief vacation which had lifted her from the distractions of everyday exis

Self-DiscoveryLyrical ProseEssay CollectionPhilosophy
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The Color Purple

Alice Walker · 274 pages

The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009 at number seventeenth because of the sometimes explicit content, particula

Epistolary FormatSelf-DiscoveryLyrical ProseCharacter-Driven
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My Name Is Asher Lev

Chaim Potok · 352 pages

"Memorable...A book profound in its vision of humanity, of religion, and of art."THE WALL STREET JOURNALHere is the original, deeply moving story of Asher Lev, the religious boy with an overwhelming need to draw, to paint, to render the world he knows and the pain he feels, on canvas for everyone to see. A loner, Asher has an extroardinary God-given gift that possesses a spirit all its own. It is

Finding PurposeArtist ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryEmotional
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Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Brandon Sanderson · 480 pages

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The Sorrows of Young Werther

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 177 pages

Epistolary FormatSelf-DiscoveryLyrical ProseEmotional
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Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Richard Bach · 96 pages

Because he spends so much time perfecting his flying form instead of concentrating on getting food, a seagull is ostracized by the rest of the flock.

Finding PurposePhilosophySelf-DiscoveryLyrical Prose
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Walden

Henry David Thoreau · 260 pages

Essay CollectionSelf-DiscoveryLyrical ProsePhilosophy
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Love Letters to the Dead

Ava Dellaira · 327 pages

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

Epistolary FormatSelf-DiscoveryLyrical ProseCharacter-Driven
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March

Geraldine Brooks · 304 pages

Epistolary FormatLyrical ProsePhilosophyEmotional
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Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham · 582 pages

Of Human Bondage is a moving exploration of loneliness, obsessive love, and a young man's search for meaning and direction in life. Written in the third person, it tells the story of Philip Carey, a self-conscious orphan with a club-foot who learns medicine. Not only is this a significant work in the Bildungsroman tradition, but its largely autobiographical basis gives it a special interest in vie

Finding PurposeSelf-DiscoveryArtist ProtagonistEmotional
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White Oleander

Janet Fitch · 390 pages

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Artist ProtagonistLyrical ProseSelf-DiscoveryEmotional
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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.

Finding PurposeSelf-DiscoveryPhilosophyEmotional
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