18 books like Heartbreak Hotel

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

Out of the night that covers me Pat Cunningham Devoto · 2001 · ★ 4.2 · 434p · ≈ 14h · Moderate In Bainbridge, Alabama, eight-year-old John Gallatin McMillan III has been the center of his mother's world, cloistered and pampered, until she unexpectedly dies. Taken away by his one remaining relative, his mother's sister, John soon learns that the new home awaiting him in Lower Peach Tree is a run-down tenant farm in the heart of the Alabama Black Belt. There he is thrust into a life alien to… Shares: Alabama, Bildungsromans

I am Charlotte Simmons Tom Wolfe · 2004 · ★ 3.5 · 676p · ≈ 22h · Moderate "Dupont University - the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a wide-eyed, bookish freshman from a strict, devout, poor and poorly educated family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting… Shares: Women college students, Race Relations, Bildungsromans

The Idiot Elif Batuman · 1969 · ★ 3.6 · 419p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Embarking on her freshman year at Harvard in the early tech days of the 1990s, a young artist and daughter of Turkish immigrants begins a correspondence with an older mathematics student from Hungary while struggling with her changing sense of self, first love and a daunting career prospect. Shares: Women college students, Bildungsromans

Nada Carmen Laforet · 1945 · ★ 3.5 · 272p · ≈ 9h · Challenging Nada es la primera novela de la escritora barcelonesa Carmen Laforet y una de las obras literarias más importantes de la España del siglo XX. Se trata de una obra existencialista que representa el estancamiento y la pobreza que se vivieron en la posguerra española, durante los primeros años del franquismo. Dotada de un estilo literario que supuso una renovación en la prosa de la época, Nada… Shares: Women college students, Bildungsromans, History

The Fortress of Solitude Jonathan Lethem · 2003 · ★ 3.8 · 511p · ≈ 17h · Moderate This is the story of two boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude. They are friends and neighbors, but because Dylan is white and Mingus is black, their friendship is not simple. This is the story of their Brooklyn neighborhood, which is almost exclusively black despite the first whispers of something that will become known as "gentrification." This is the story of 1970s America, a time when the most… Shares: Race Relations, Bildungsromans

Whistling past the graveyard Susan Crandall · 2013 · ★ 4.1 · 320p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Determined to get to Nashville to find her mother in 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home, eventually accepting a ride from a Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. In 1963, determined to get to Nashville to find her mother, nine-year-old spitfire Starla runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. … Shares: Race Relations, Bildungsromans, History

Sons of Heaven Terrence Cheng · 2002 · ★ 3.8 · 324p · ≈ 10h · Moderate "Sons of Heaven is an epic novel set against the backdrop of one of modern history's most haunting events: the Tiananmen Square massacre. In June 1989, the world watched in horror as China's military was mobilized to suppress a student movement that stood for peaceful democracy. Hundreds were killed; some say thousands. No one knows for sure.". "But the image that remains most powerful is that… Shares: Bildungsromans, History

Coming of Age in Franco's Spain Michael D. Thomas · 1899 · 139p · ≈ 4h · Challenging How could authors not write about the effects of a civil war that tore their nation in two, that divided and destroyed families and friends? They had to tell the story, though they were carefully scrutinized and censored. How could they resist artistically and present alternate voices and visions for the future? Writing is resistance, remembering is resistance. Writing is remembering and… Shares: Bildungsromans, History

Cry, The Beloved Country Alan Paton · 1940 · ★ 3.9 · 258p · ≈ 8h · Challenging This book is the most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, and an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948. Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, " We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from… Shares: Race Relations, History

Het Achterhuis Anne Frank · 1944 · ★ 4.2 · 226p · ≈ 7h · Challenging Het Achterhuis is de titel van het dagboek van Anne Frank (1929-1945) voor het eerst uitgegeven op 25 juni 1947. Het is genoemd naar het onderduikpand Het Achterhuis op de Prinsengracht en is het verhaal van een ondergedoken jong Joods meisje ten tijde van de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Het is wereldwijd een van de meest gelezen boeken. Sinds 2009 staat Annes dagboek op de Werelderfgoedlijst voor… Shares: Race Relations, History

Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe · 1958 · ★ 3.9 · 196p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Things Fall Apart is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958. It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the arrival of Europeans during the late 19th century. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is… Shares: Race Relations, History

A Passage to India E. M. Forster · 1924 · ★ 3.7 · 325p · ≈ 10h · Challenging When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced 'Anglo-Indian' community. Determined to escape the parochial English enclave and explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are… Shares: Race Relations, History

The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois · 1903 · ★ 4.3 · 232p · ≈ 7h · Challenging Du Bois' 1903 collection of essays is a thoughtful, articulate exploration of the moral and intellectual issues surrounding the perception of blacks within American society. Shares: Race Relations, History

Dead Men's Money Joseph Smith Fletcher · 1920 · ★ 3.7 · 212p · ≈ 7h · Challenging A mysterious one-eyed stranger, a midnight meeting at a lonely spot on the Scottish border, the secret password "Panama", and a corpse This is the situation Hugh Moneylaws, a young law clerk finds himself facing. Who murdered the man he was sent to meet, and why? With the only two men who knew the purpose of the meeting dead, it would seem a puzzle that would never be solved. Yet to save himself… Shares: History

The Lady of the Rivers Philippa Gregory · 2011 · ★ 4.0 The Lady of the Rivers tells the story of Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Luxembourg, and kinswoman to half the royalty of Europe, who was married to the great Englishman John, Duke of Bedford, uncle to Henry VI. Widowed at the age of nineteen she took the extraordinary risk of marrying a gentleman of her house­hold for love, and then carved out a life for herself as Queen Margaret of Anjou's… Shares: History

The Awful Secret Bernard Knight · 2006 · 356p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Shares: History

American Icon Bryce G. Hoffman · 2012 · ★ 4.5 · 363p · ≈ 12h · Moderate At the end of 2008, Ford Motor Company was just months away from running out of cash. With the auto industry careening toward ruin, Congress offered all three Detroit automakers a bailout. General Motors and Chrysler grabbed the lifeline, but Ford decided to save itself. Under the leadership of charismatic CEO Alan Mulally, the man who had saved Boeing, Ford had put together a bold plan to unify… Shares: History

Tower of Basel Adam LeBor · 2013 · ★ 4.2 · 323p · ≈ 10h · Moderate An investigative history of the Bank for International Settlements, the central bankers' own bank. Shares: History

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