18 books like Bicycle days

What to read after Bicycle days — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Of time and the river Thomas Wolfe · 1935 · ★ 4.2 · 912p · ≈ 30h · Challenging This book continues the story of Eugene Gant, the protagonist in Look Homeward Angel. If you have read and liked Angel you should definitely follow through and read this(vol 1 and 2). Autobiographical in nature.. Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

World's fair E. L. Doctorow · 1985 · ★ 3.9 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Recalls a certain New York City boyhood in the 1930s, through the eyes of the child himself and then him as an adult trying to reconstruct the past. Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

The Neon Bible John Kennedy Toole · 1989 · ★ 3.8 · 176p · ≈ 5h · Moderate The first novel by the Pulizer Prize-winning author of A Confederacy Of Dunces. David is a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. From his porch, David can see the whole valley, including the neon Bible that lights up the sky, emblem of the God-fearing folk who snub his family because Poppa can't afford the church dues. Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

His Whole Life Elizabeth Hay · 2015 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate 1 volume ; 20 cm Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

金閣寺 三島由紀夫 · 1956 · ★ 4.5 · 262p · ≈ 8h · Moderate The son of a poor rural priest becomes an acolyte at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mizoguchi had built up an image of ideal beauty in his mind based on this Golden Pavilion; this ideal image causes him to feel disappointed in any supposed form of beauty, even the actual physical Golden Pavilion. He comes under the influence of Kashiwagi, a fellow student with a very bitter view of life. Shares: Japan, Young men

Why are we in Vietnam? Norman Mailer · 1967 · ★ 3.7 · 208p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Narrated by Ranald ("D.J.") Jethroe, Texas's most precocious teenager, on the eve of his departure to fight in Vietnam, this story of a hunting trip in Alaska is both brilliantly entertaining and profoundly thoughtful. Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

The cloud atlas Liam Callanan · 2004 · ★ 4.0 · 360p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Set against the magnificent backdrop of Alaska in the waning days of World War II, The Cloud Atlas is an enthralling debut novel, a story of adventure and awakening--and of a young soldier who came to Alaska on an extraordinary, top-secret mission...and found a world that would haunt him forever.Drifting through the night, whisper-quiet, they were the most sublime manifestations of a desperate… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury · 1946 · ★ 4.1 · 221p · ≈ 7h · Challenging The summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Last Days of Summer Updated Ed Steve Kluger · 1998 · ★ 4.4 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate From Goodreads: The hilarious and heart–warming story about a down–and–out kid who finds inspiration in his favourite baseball hero. In Brooklyn, 1940, a wisecracking, baseball loving twelve–year–old boy, Joey Margolis, is in desperate need of a hero. His rich father has recently divorced his mother, leaving her all but penniless, and she is forced to move herself and her son to an Italian… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

A Painted House John Grisham · 2000 · ★ 4.1 · 462p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Using his own childhood for inspiration (and leaving the lawyers behind), bestselling author John Grisham sets A Painted House in 1950s rural Arkansas. During harvest time, together with hired Mexicans and hill people, seven-year-old Luke Chandler picks cotton on his family's rented 80 acres. But racial tension, a forbidden love affair, and murder cause Luke to grow up before he's ready. Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Reef Romesh Gunesekera · 1994 · ★ 3.4 · 192p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Triton is a young chef who was forced to leave his father's house to work for Mr. Ranjan Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements, and a Sri Lankan island's disappearing reef. Almost immediately, thanks to his master's obsessions, Triton works hard to please him with his carefully prepared delicacies. But neither of them know that the political unrest threatening Sri Lanka… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

Everything Is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer · 2002 · ★ 3.9 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis, Jr,… Shares: Young men, Americans

The Ambassadors Henry James · 1903 · ★ 3.6 · 562p · ≈ 18h · Challenging Chad Newsome has gone to Paris. He is charmed by Old World fascinations and caught up in the leisurely craft and bohemian direction of European worldliness. An older woman of rank and adventurous but subtle skill, Madame de Vionnet, strokes his ego and does her best to keep Chad in Paris indefinitely. Chad's mother lives in Woollett, Mass., and wants her son to return to run the family business.… Shares: Young men, Americans

Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts Joseph von Eichendorff · 1864 · ★ 3.3 · 150p · ≈ 5h · Challenging Der Taugenichts ist Sohn eines Müllers und durch und durch Romantiker. Mit den elenden Philistern und der engen Welt, in der sie leben, will er um keinen Preis etwas zu tun haben. Als sein Vater ihn aus dem Haus wirft, damit er endlich lernt, für sich selbst zu sorgen, zieht er mit seiner Geige zu Fuss durchs Land bis nach Italien und lebt seine Freiheit. Auf einem Schloss hatte er sich in eine… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年 村上春樹 · 2013 · ★ 3.9 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Tsukuru Tazaki reexamines his simple life as he searches for his closest high school friends to discover why he was suddenly ostracized from their group. "Cuando Tsukuru Tazakiera adolescente, se sentaba durante horas en las estaciones para ver pasar los trenes. Ahora, con treinta y seis años, es un ingeniero que diseña y construye estaciones de ferrocarril y que lleva una vida tranquila, tal… Shares: Japan, Bildungsromans

Great Expectations Charles Dickens · 1861 · ★ 3.8 · 546p · ≈ 18h · Challenging Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (the book is a bildungsroman; a coming-of-age story). It is Dickens' second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Jim the boy Tony Earley · 2000 · ★ 3.9 · 227p · ≈ 7h · Moderate A fatherless ten-year-old boy comes of age in a Depression-era, southern farming community in this charming and humorous debut novel.A New York Times Notable Book of the Year"Rich and satisfying . . . A novel that perfectly captures the innocence and confusion and wonder of childhood." —Chicago TribuneHailed as one of those rare works with the power to enchant readers of all ages, this luminous… Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

Boy Swallows Universe Trent Dalton · 2018 · ★ 4.3 · 472p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Raw, whimsical, existential, heartbreaking, modern mythology Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans

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