18 books like Reef

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

The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989 · ★ 4.3 · 257p · ≈ 8h · Moderate In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past . . .A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love. Shares: Domestics, Household employees

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

The Book of Salt Monique T. D. Truong · 2003 · ★ 3.0 · 266p · ≈ 8h · Moderate In deciding if he should accompany his employers to America, stay in France, or go back to his native Vietnam, Binh recalls his life in Vietnam, the jobs he's held since leaving there, and the people it has helped him meet. Shares: Domestics, Household employees

Mary Reilly Valerie Martin · 1990 · ★ 3.7 · 251p · ≈ 8h · Moderate This retelling of the enigmatic Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde tale deserves praise for suspense, character creation, and historical verisimilitude. Mary Reilly, a loyal, trusted servant in the household of Dr. Jekyll records in her diary the mysterious circumstances which lead to her Master's tragic fate. The hierarchy of social classes, relationships among servants and domestics, and details of language… Shares: Domestics, London

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

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

All the conspirators Christopher Isherwood · 1928 · 255p · ≈ 8h · Challenging A timeless story of decaying middle-class English life after wwI and the generation that tried to escape its values Christopher Isherwood was only twenty-one when he began his first novel, All the Conspirators. in his introduction to the American edition, Isherwood explains: “All the Conspirators records a minor engagement in what Shelley calls ‘the great war between the old and young.’ And what… Shares: London, 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

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

Ben, in the World Doris Lessing · 2000 · ★ 3.3 · 192p · ≈ 6h · Moderate "Ben Lovatt can never fit in. To those he meets, he seems awkward: too big, too strong, inhumanly made. He baffles and he terrifies: those who do not understand him want him locked up.". "His own mother locked him up; then, guilty, she liberated him. But her unyielding love for him corroded their family; this fifth child broke the home into bits. And now he has come of age and again finds… Shares: Young men, London, Bildungsromans

Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, and Shopaholic Ties the Knot (Shopaholic Series, Books 1, 2, & 3) Sophie Kinsella · 2001 · ★ 4.6 · 310p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Meet Becky Bloomwood, America’s favorite shopaholic—a young woman with a big heart, big dreams…and just one little weakness. Becky has a fabulous flat in London's trendiest neighborhood, a troupe of glamorous socialite friends, and a closet brimming with the season's must-haves. The only trouble is that she can't actually afford it—not any of it. Her job writing at Successful Savings not only… Shares: London, Bildungsromans

Number9Dream David Mitchell · 2001 · ★ 3.9 · 416p · ≈ 13h · Moderate At age twenty, Eiji goes to Tokyo to search for the wealthy father he's never known. He stumbles upon the hidden power centers of the Japanese underworld and instead of finding his father, finds himself. Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

Sophie's Choice William Styron · 1979 · ★ 4.2 · 624p · ≈ 20h · Moderate 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. Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

Kipps H. G. Wells · 1900 · 224p · ≈ 7h · Challenging Partly based on Wells’ own experiences as a young man this novel centres on an orphan who becomes apprenticed to a draper. Bored with his humdrum existence of living and working in a drapers, Kipps’ life changes radically when he inherits a fortune from a previously unknown relative. However more troubles occur when he attempts to emulate the people he encounters in upper class society. Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

Go John Clellon Holmes · 1952 · ★ 4.0 · 311p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Go is a 1952 semi-autobiographical novel by John Clellon Holmes. (Holmes referred to the book as a roman à clef.) It is considered to be the first published novel depicting the Beat Generation. Set in New York, it concerns the lives of a collection of characters largely based on the friends Holmes used to hang around with in the 1940s and 1950s in Manhattan. An underworld of drug-fueled parties,… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

A heartbreaking work of staggering genius Dave Eggers · 2000 · ★ 3.7 · 400p · ≈ 13h · Moderate From Wikipedia: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (ISBN 0-330-48455-9) is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents. The book was an enormous commercial and critical success, reaching number one on The New York Times bestseller list and being nominated as a… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

The turmoil, a novel Booth Tarkington · 1914 · 139p · ≈ 4h · Challenging Booth Tarkington grew up in Indianapolis, and attended Princeton University. He set much of his fiction in Indiana. Tarkington was one of the more popular novelists of his time, and in 1921 booksellers rated him in a poll as the most significant contemporary American author. -Wikipedia entry for Tarkington Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

Demian Hermann Hesse · 1919 · ★ 4.1 · 171p · ≈ 5h · Challenging A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual… Shares: Young men, Bildungsromans

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