18 books like Last Days of Summer Updated Ed
Everyday Jews
“Hailed as a modern Yiddish masterpiece . . . Explor[es] the harsh reality of life for a poor family in a provincial Polish town around the year 1900” (The Huffington Post). When Everyday Jews was first published in Poland in 1935, the Jewish Left was scandalized by the sex scenes, and I. B. Singer complained that the novel was too bleak to be psychologically credible. Yet within two years,…
Shares: Jews, Bildungsromans
World's fair
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, New york
The Chosen
It's about two jewish boys from different jewish sects with very differing doctrine. The kids meet in the unlikely circumstance of a baseball game, and a terrible accident, that leads them to be lifelong friends
Shares: Male friendship, Jews, Bildungsromans, New york
A fine dark line
It is the summer of 1958 in Dewmont, Texas, a town the great American postwar boom passed by. The kids listen idly to rockabilly on the radio and waste their weekends at the Dairy Queen. And an undetected menace simmers under the heat that clings to the skin like molasses... For thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, the end of innocence comes with his discovery of the mysterious long-ago demise of…
Shares: Male friendship, Boys, Bildungsromans
The Fortress of Solitude
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: Male friendship, Bildungsromans, New york
The Kite Runner
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their…
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The Neon Bible
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
1 volume ; 20 cm
Shares: Boys, Bildungsromans
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury's unparalleled literary classic SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin.
The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The…
Shares: Male friendship, Boys
Twelve
"White Mike is clean. He has never smoked a cigarette in his life. Never had a drink, never sucked down a doobie. But White Mike has become a very good drug dealer, even though it started out as a one-shot deal with his cousin Charlie. White Mike was a good student, but he's been out of school for six months, and though some people might wonder what he's doing, no one seams to care very much that…
Shares: Bildungsromans, New york
Bicycle days
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: Boys, Bildungsromans
The Dead Fathers Club
A ghost story with a twist—a suspenseful and poignantly funny update of HamletA triumph of originality and humor, this clever novel by British author Matt Haig gives us Hamlet redux with an unforgettable voice all his own. When eleven-year-old Philip Noble is confronted by the ghost of his recently deceased father and asked to avenge his death, the boy finds himself in a thorny dilemma. Revenge,…
Shares: Adolescence, Boys
Dandelion Wine
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…
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Sag Harbor
The warm, funny, and supremely original new novel from one of the most acclaimed writers in AmericaThe year is 1985. Benji Cooper is one of the only black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to catch glimpses of nudity on late-night cable TV. After a tragic mishap on…
Shares: Adolescence, New york
A Painted House
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
How the Light Gets In
A powerful debut from an Australian novelist that features one of the most likeable but contrary figures you are likely to meet in contemporary fiction. Lou Connor, a gifted, unhappy sixteen-year-old, is desperate to escape her life of poverty in Sydney. When she is offered an exchange student placement at a school in America it seems as if her dreams will be fulfilled. Her host family has a…
Shares: Adolescence, Bildungsromans
The deerslayer
The Deerslayer is the last book in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy, but acts as a prequel to the other novels. It begins with the rapid civilizing of New York, in which surrounds the following books take place. It introduces the hero of the Tales, Natty Bumppo, and his philosophy that every living thing should follow its own nature. He is contrasted to other, less conscientious,…
Shares: Male friendship, New york
Oryx and Crake
Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help…
Shares: Male friendship, New york