18 books like Demian

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

Narziss und Goldmund Hermann Hesse · 1930 · ★ 4.0 · 319p · ≈ 10h · Challenging First published in 1930, Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of two diametrically opposite men: one, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and the other, a romantic youth hungry for worldly experience. Hesse was a great writer in precisely the modern sense: complex, subtle, allusive: alive to the importance of play. Narcissus and Goldmund is his very best. What makes this short book… Shares: Translations from German, German fiction, Germany, Continental european fiction

Der Zauberberg Thomas Mann · 1924 · ★ 4.1 · 711p · ≈ 23h · Challenging One of the most influential and celebrated German works of the 20th century has been newly rendered in English by Woods, twice winner of the PEN Translation Prize. First published in 1929, Mann's novel tells the story of Hans Castorp, a modern everyman who spends seven years in an Alpine sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, finally leaving to become a soldier in World War I. Isolated from the… Shares: German language materials, German fiction, Germany, Continental european fiction

The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse Martin Swales · 1978 · 186p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Although some of the most distinguished German novels written since about 1770 are generally considered to be Bildungsromane, the term Bildungsroman is all too frequently used in English without an awareness of the tradition from which it arose. Professor Swales concentrates on the roles of plot, characterization, and narrative commentary in novels by Wieland, Goethe, Stifter, Keller, Mann, and… Shares: Bildungsroman, German fiction, Bildungsromans

The Deadman's Pedal Alan Warner · 1999 · ★ 3.9 · 375p · ≈ 12h · Moderate It is the early 1970s and for 16-year-old Simon Crimmons there's really not much to do in the Highlands of Scotland. The only local drama and romance is the West Highland Line, so Simon joins up as a train driver. But that summer he is introduced to a world far more glamorous and strange than the railways can provide. Shares: Teenage boys, Social conditions, Bildungsromans

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

Die Leiden des jungen Werthers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1779 · ★ 3.7 · 176p · ≈ 5h · Demanding Edición de Manuel José González. Shares: German fiction, Germany, Young men, Continental european fiction

Imago bird Nicholas Mosley · 1980 · ★ 3.5 · 185p · ≈ 6h · Moderate "This novel examines the contradictions between the public face and the private experience. Nephew to the prime minister of England, Bert tries to make sense of the grown-up world around him, a colorful crowd of television personalities, politicians, young Trotskyites, pop stars, and eccentric relatives. With the help of his laconic psychoanalyst, Bert questions the relation between exterior and… Shares: Teenage boys, Bildungsromans

To die in spring Ralf Rothmann · 2017 · ★ 4.0 · 209p · ≈ 6h · Moderate "The lunacy of the final months of World War II, as experienced by a young German soldier. Distant, silent, often drunk, Walter Urban is a difficult man to have as a father. But his son -- the narrator of this slim, harrowing novel -- is curious about Walter's experiences during World War II, and so makes him a present of a blank notebook in which to write down his memories. Walter dies, however,… Shares: Youth, Germany

Im Westen nichts Neues Erich Maria Remarque · 1928 · ★ 4.1 · 192p · ≈ 6h · Challenging This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I. These young men become enthusiastic soldiers, but their world of duty, culture, and progress breaks into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the hatred that meaninglessly pits young men of the… Shares: German fiction, Germany, Continental european fiction

A paixão segundo G.H. Clarice Lispector · 1964 · ★ 4.1 · 212p · ≈ 7h · Moderate The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector's mystical novel of 1964, concerns a well-to-do Rio sculptress, G.H., who enters her maid's room, sees a cockroach crawling out of the wardrobe, and, panicking, slams the door - crushing the cockroach - and then watches it die. At the end of the novel, at the height of a spiritual crisis, comes the most famous and most genuinely shocking scene in… Shares: Portuguese fiction, Social conditions

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, Continental european fiction, Bildungsromans

Die Blechtrommel Günter Grass · 1959 · ★ 3.9 · 591p · ≈ 19h · Moderate Die Blechtrommel ist ein Roman von Günter Grass. Er erschien 1959 als Auftakt der Danziger Trilogie und gehört zu den meistgelesenen Romanen der deutschen Nachkriegsliteratur. Der Roman lässt sich als historischer Roman, Zeitroman, Schelmenroman und Entwicklungsroman charakterisieren. ---------- Set against the backcloth of National Socialism, [this novel] is told in the first person by the… Shares: German language materials, German fiction

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky · 1999 · ★ 4.5 · 221p · ≈ 7h · Moderate The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a young adult coming-of-age epistolary novel by American writer Stephen Chbosky, which was first published on February 1, 1999, by Pocket Books. Set in the early 1990s, the novel follows Charlie, an introverted observing teenager, through his freshman year of high school in a Pittsburgh suburb. The novel details Charlie's unconventional style of thinking as he… Shares: Bildungsroman, Social conditions, Bildungsromans

Youth in Revolt C. D. Payne · 1993 · ★ 4.0 · 200p · ≈ 6h · Moderate The hilarious, take-no-prisoners novel about a cynical, sex-obsessed teenager's pining love for an intelligent girl-- now a major motion picture from Dimension Films starring Michael CeraSIX MONTHS IN THE LIFE OF THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS TEENAGERYouth in Revolt is the journals of Nick Twisp, California's most precocious diarist, whose ongoing struggles to make sense out of high school, deal… Shares: Youth, Teenage boys

Unbecoming women Susan Fraiman · 1993 · 189p · ≈ 6h · Moderate "Is there a "female Bildungsroman"? Can the story of Elizabeth Bennet's development be yoked to a genre conceived in terms of Wilhelm Meister and David Copperfield? Unbecoming Women unpacks the ideological baggage of the Bildungsroman, and turns to novels of development and conduct books by women for a new poetics of growing up." "In subtle readings of works by Frances Burney, Jane Austen,… Shares: Bildungsroman, Bildungsromans

All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr · 2014 · ★ 4.3 · 544p · ≈ 18h · Moderate From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are… Shares: Youth, Germany

Bicycle days John Burnham Schwartz · 1989 · 253p · ≈ 8h · Moderate When Alec Stern arrives in Japan, he discovers a land of opportunity. For only in Tokyo could an impressionable young man fresh out of college find, in one stroke, a new job, a new family, and a society that lavishes attention on Japanese-speaking gaijin. Yet, even as Alec claims a place in this new world, he is haunted by memories of the one he left behind—a world once infinitely secure but… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

O Alquimista Paulo Coelho · 1988 · ★ 3.9 · 204p · ≈ 6h · Moderate The Alchemist details the journey of a young Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Santiago, believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, decides to travel to the pyramids of Egypt to find treasure. On the way, he encounters love, danger, opportunity and disaster. One of the significant characters that he meets is an old king named Melchizedek who tells him that "When you want something, all… Shares: Portuguese fiction, Young men

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