What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorChinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew
Shehan Karunatilaka · 416 pages
Retired sportswriter W.G. Karunasena is dying. He will spend his final months drinking arrack, making his wife unhappy, ignoring his son, and tracking down Pradeep S. Mathew, a spin bowler who has mysteriously disappeared.
The Misfortunates
Dimitri Verhulst · 199 pages
"Sobriety and moderation are alien concepts to the men in Dimmy's family. Useless in all other respects, his three uncles have a rare talent for drinking, a flair for violence, and an unwavering commitment to the pub. And his father Pierre is no slouch either. Within hours of his son's birth, Pierre plucks him from the maternity ward, props him on his bike, and takes him on an introductory tour of
Ham on Rye
Charles Bukowski · 288 pages
In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye of
As God Commands
Niccolo Ammaniti · 406 pages
Despite his hope that the scheme of his alcoholic father, Rino, and his cronies will land a great fortune for the family, and the hand of the beautiful Fabiana for him, Cristiano finds his life changed in a single night, and not in the way he had hoped.
Long Bright River
Liz Moore · 473 pages
A female cop begins to fear for her addicted sister. A serial murder is targeting homeless female prostitutes. Can Mickey find her sister before the killer does ?
Delicious Foods
James Hannaham · 371 pages
"Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs, and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace. Unbeknownst to eleven-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promi
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs
Irvine Welsh · 400 pages
The first Irvine Welsh novel in three years. Troubled Environmental Health Officer Danny Skinner is engaged on a quest to uncover what he refers to as 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs'. He regards the unravelling of this classified information as the key to learning genetic facts about himself and the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. The ensuing journey takes hi
Where All Light Tends to Go
David Joy · 289 pages
"Set in North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains, eighteen-year-old Jacob McNeely is torn between appeasing his meth-dealing kingpin father and leaving the mountains forever with the girl he loves"--
Martyr!
Kaveh Akbar · 352 pages
Cyrus Shams is lost. Ever since his mother’s plane was senselessly shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby, Cyrus has been grappling with her death. Now, newly sober, he is set to learn the truth of her life. When an encounter with a dying artist leads Cyrus towards the mysteries of his past - an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as an Angel of Death, a haun
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Eugene O'Neill · 179 pages
Author Eugene O'Neill gives an autobiographical account of his explosive homelife. Fused by a drug-addicted mother, a father who wallows in drink after realizing he is no longer a famous actor, and an older brother who is emotionally unstable and misfit, the family is reflected by their youngest son, who at 23 is a sensitive and aspiring writer.
One of the Boys
Daniel Magariel · 172 pages
"A riveting and emotionally harrowing debut about two young brothers and their physically and psychologically abusive father--One of the Boys is 160 perfect, stunning pages by a major new talent. The three of them--a twelve-year-old boy, his older brother, their father--have won the war: the father's term for his bitter divorce and custody battle. They leave their Kansas home and drive through the
For One More Day
Mitch Albom · 208 pages
In an inspirational debut novel by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Charles "Chick" Benetto, grieving over the death of his mother, uses alcohol as a crutch to deal with his loneliness, isolation, and depression and the disintegration of his life, until an encounter with his mother's ghost brings him new awareness and leads him to attempt to put his life back together.
The Lost Weekend
Charles Jackson · 244 pages
A would-be writer's dissatisfaction with his life leads him on a three-day binge. This film gives an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism. Made into a motion picture.
Ghosts of Manhattan
Douglas Brunt · 275 pages
It's 2005. Nick Farmer is a bond trader with Bear Stearns clearing seven figures a year. The novelty of a work-related nightlife centering on liquor, hookers, and cocaine has long since worn thin, though Nick remains keenly addicted to his annual bonus. But the lifestyle is taking a toll on his marriage-- and on him. When a nerdy analyst approaches him with apocalyptic prognostications of where Be
Ablutions
Patrick deWitt · 164 pages
Working at a decaying Hollywood bar while making notes for the novel he hopes to write, a bartender is drawn into the alcoholic oblivion that affects his customers, losing his wife, his goals, and himself in the process.
The Rules of Attraction
Bret Easton Ellis · 283 pages
First Sentence: “And it’s a story that might bore you, but you don’t have to listen, she told me, because she always knew it was going to be like that, and it was, she thinks, her first year, or actually weekend, really a Friday, in September, and Camden, and this was three or four years ago, and she got so drunk that she ended up in bed, lost her virginity (late, she was eighteen) in Lorna Slavin
The River Is Waiting
Wally Lamb · 451 pages
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness
The Anatomy Lesson
Philip Roth · 291 pages
A Doubter's Almanac
Ethan Canin · 677 pages
"Milo Andret, the genius who solved the Malosz Conjecture and won the Fields Medal for mathematics, had an unusual, even eerie mind from birth, but not until he moves to Berkeley in the 1970s to pursue a ph. D. does he realize the extent of his singular talents. From the drug-soaked enclaves of beatnik California to the verdant lawns of Princeton University, from turbo-charged Wall Street to the q
Affliction
Russell Banks · 355 pages
Wade Whitehouse is an unlikely protagonist of a tragedy. Wade looms in one's mind as a bluecollar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition, his tale told by his articulate, equally-scarred younger brother. "Part thriller, part psychological study, part indictment of the American way of violence." Wade Whitehouse is an improbable protagonist for a tragedy. A well-digger
Smack
Melvin Burgess · 348 pages
After running away from their troubled homes, two English teenagers move in with a group of squatters in the port city of Bristol and try to find ways to support their growing addiction to heroin.

