What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorDoctor Mirabilis
James Blish · 318 pages
Roger Bacon: heretic, occultist -- genius. In a Europe dominated by the narrow doctrines of Catholicism, Bacon was a man whose vision reached far beyond even our own day, a man who risked deadly accusations of heresy and black magic in his search for scientific truth. In this brilliant novel, set against a vividly realized backdrop of thirteenth-century England, Paris and Rome, James Blish recre
Angels & Insects
A.S. Byatt · 304 pages
These two fascinating novellas, like A. S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning novel Possession, are set in the mid-nineteenth century, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance. "Morpho Eugenia" is a lively Gothic fable of the Earthly Paradise, of the Victorian obsession with Darwinian theories of breeding and sexuality and the parallels between insect and human society - the capture and taming of n
Human Traces
Sebastian Faulks · 614 pages
Sixteen-year-old Jacques Rebiere is living a humble life in rural France, studying butterflies and frogs by candlelight in his bedroom. Across the Channel, in England, the playful Thomas Midwinter, also sixteen, is enjoying a life of ease-and is resigned to follow his father's wishes and pursue a career in medicine. A fateful seaside meeting four years later sets the two young men on a profound co
All the Pretty Horses
Cormac McCarthy · 301 pages
*All the Pretty Horses* is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. Its romanticism (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. It was a bestseller, and it won both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Along with *The Crossing* (1994), and C*ities of the Plain* (19
Us Conductors
Sean Michaels · 347 pages
"In a finely woven series of flashbacks and correspondence, Lev Termen, the Russian scientist, inventor, and spy, tells the story of his life to his "one true love, " Clara Rockmore, the finest theremin player in the world. In the first half of the book, we learn of Termen's early days as a scientist in Leningrad during the Bolshevik Revolution, the acclaim he receives as the inventor of the there
The Lieutenant
Kate Grenville · 307 pages
As a boy, Daniel Rooke was always an outsider. At school he learned to hide his clever thoughts from his cruel peers; at home his parents were bemused by their bookish son. Daniel could only hope – against all the evidence – that he would one day find his place in life. By 1788, Daniel has become Lieutenant Rooke, astronomer with the First Fleet as it lands on the unknown shores of New South Wales
Out of the Silent Planet
C.S. Lewis · 174 pages
The first book in Lewis's Space Trilogy, *Out of the Silent Planet* tells the story of Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist who likes to explore the English countryside on foot. Seeking out a place to stay the night, he ends up at the estate of a colleague who is away in London. However, the house is not empty. Ransom stumbles upon the plot of a megalomaniacal scientist and his collaborator, who jus
Galileo's Dream
Kim Stanley Robinson · 532 pages
In a novel of stunning dimensions, the acclaimed author of the Mars trilogy brings us the story of the incredible life – and death – of Galileo, the First Scientist. Late Renaissance Italy still abounds in alchemy and Aristotle, yet it trembles on the brink of the modern world. Galileo's new telescope encapsulates all the contradictions of this emerging reality. Then one night a stranger presents
Icefields
Thomas Wharton · 240 pages
Leaving England for Canada in 1898, Doctor Edward Byrne has no idea that the glacier he has set out to study will come to absorb his every thought. When he arrives in Jasper, he finds himself attracted to then mysterious presence of the big white chunk. His religious appreciation of its movement keeps him in town much longer than anticipated, living out a symbiotic relationship with a block of ice
Zeno of Bruges
Marguerite Yourcenar · 333 pages
The Mirror & the Light
Hilary Mantel · 759 pages
The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin · 408 pages
Cixin Liu's trilogy-opening novel about first contact with aliens and the clandestine struggle with them over Earth's future, and its scientific progress in particular. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military prject sends signals into space in an attempt to make contact with aliens—and they succeed. An alien civilization on the brink of descruction captures th
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer · 195 pages
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The twelfth expedition arrives expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers. They discover a massive topographic anomaly and life-forms that surpass understanding. But it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are
In Search of Klingsor
Jorge Volpi · 416 pages
Nothing Like the Sun: A Novel about William Shakespeare
Anthony Burgess · 234 pages
Nothing like the sun is an act of homage to William Shakepeare and attempts to answer certain questions about the enigmatic poet's love-life, as well as the relationship of this love-life to his work. Was, for instance, his love for the Earl of South Hampton really platonic? Did he love Anne, his wife? Who was the Dark Lady, whose eyes (as described negatively, by Shakespeare himself) give the nov
Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak · 542 pages
***This epic tale about the effects of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath on a bourgeois family was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987.*** One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. ***The book quickly became an international be
Baltasar and Blimunda
Jose Saramago · 351 pages
There Are Rivers in the Sky
Elif Shafak · 446 pages
Sophie's Choice
William Styron · 625 pages
The gripping, unforgettable story of Stingo, a 22-year-old writer; Sophie, a Polish-Catholic beauty who survived the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz; and Nathan, her mercurial lover. The three friends share magical, heart-warming times until doom overtakes them as Sophie's and Nathan's darkest secrets are revealed.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Patrick Süskind · 263 pages
The Viceroy of Ouidah
Bruce Chatwin · 125 pages
In this vivid, powerful novel, Chatwin tells of Francisco Manoel de Silva, a poor Brazilian adventurer who sails to Dahomey in West Africa to trade for slaves and amass his fortune. His plans exceed his dreams, and soon he is the Viceroy of Ouidah, master of all slave trading in Dahomey. But the ghastly business of slave trading and the open savagery of life in Dahomey slowly consume Manoel's weal
In the First Circle
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 741 pages