18 books like The Agony and the Ecstasy

What to read after The Agony and the Ecstasy — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

The life of Michelangelo Buonarroti John Addington Symonds · 1892 · 520p · ≈ 17h · Challenging This is a story of Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo belonged, were a Florentine family of ancient burgher nobility. Shares: Artists, Biography & Memoir

Fifty Famous Stories Retold James Baldwin · 1896 · 102p · ≈ 3h · Challenging There is an introduce younger kids to stories that every child should know. Includes the stories of Horatius Cocles, the 300 Spartans, King Alfred and the Cakes, the Wise Men of Gotham and more. Shares: Biographical fiction, Biography & Memoir, History

The Family Mario Puzo · 2001 · ★ 3.8 · 418p · ≈ 13h · Moderate What is a family? Mario Puzo first answered that question, unforgettably, in his landmark bestseller The Godfather; with the creation of the Corleones he forever redefined the concept of blood loyalty. Now, thirty years later, Puzo enriches us further with his ultimate vision of the subject, in a masterpiece that crowns his remarkable career: the story of the greatest crime family in Italian… Shares: Biographical fiction, Italy, History

Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori Giorgio Vasari · 1759 · ★ 3.0 · 309p · ≈ 10h · Demanding In his Lives of the Artists of the Italian Renaissance, Vasari demonstrated a literary talent that outshone even his outstanding abilities as a painter and architect. Through character sketches and anecdotes he depicts Piero di Cosimo shut away in his derelict house, living only to paint; Giulio Romano's startling painting of Jove striking down the giants; and his friend Francesco Salviati, whose… Shares: Artists, Italy, Biography & Memoir, History

Пётр Первый Alexei Tolstoy · 1930 · 469p · ≈ 15h · Challenging Shares: Biographical fiction, History

Bluebeard Kurt Vonnegut · 1987 · ★ 4.2 · 293p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life story—and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man’s careless fancy to create or… Shares: Artists, Biography & Memoir

Time and Again Jack Finney · 1970 · ★ 3.9 · 399p · ≈ 13h · Moderate [Comment by Audrey Niffenegger, on The Guardian's website][1]: Time and Again is an original; there is nothing quite like it. It is the story of Si Morley, a commercial artist who is drawing a piece of soap one ordinary day in 1970 when a mysterious man from the US Army shows up at his Manhattan office to recruit him for a secret government project. The project turns out to involve time travel;… Shares: Artists, History

Drood Dan Simmons · 2009 · ★ 3.6 · 969p · ≈ 32h · Moderate On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever. Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the… Shares: Biographical fiction, History

Torches Together Emmy Arnold · 1964 · 220p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Not many people talk about "joy" these days. Emmy Arnold's memoir radiates just that - an enthusiasm for life and an unflagging optimism grounded in faith. In a genre awash in sordid sex and dysfunctional relationships, she offers a refreshing account of a hard life lived victoriously, of people brought together, despite their own weakness and turbulent times, to experience new levels of freedom,… Shares: Biography & Memoir, History

Eyewitness DK Publishing · 2000 · ★ 4.1 · 64p · ≈ 2h · Moderate Witches and magic-makers for children Shares: Artists, Biography & Memoir, History

Dear and glorious physician Taylor Caldwell · 1959 · ★ 4.3 · 574p · ≈ 19h · Moderate The world-famous novel about the triumphant story of St. Luke, man of science, and Gospel writer Today St. Luke is known as the author of the third Gospel of the New Testament, but two thousand years ago he was Lucanus, a Greek, a man who loved, knew the emptiness of bereavement, and later traveled through the hills and wastes of Judea asking, "What manner of man was my Lord?" And it is of this… Shares: Biographical fiction, History

Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt Anne Rice · 2005 · ★ 3.6 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate In Israel, in the turbulent first century, a baby is born to a humble Jewish family - but to a great destiny. His is an uneasy childhood, as he begins to come to terms with his extraordinary powers, and the whispered mysteries surrounding his birth. The tyrannical rule of King Herod has driven the family from the Holy Land to the relative safety of cosmopolitan Alexandria. But on Herod's death,… Shares: Biographical fiction, Biography & Memoir

I, Claudius Robert Graves · 1934 · ★ 4.2 · 427p · ≈ 14h · Challenging Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus lived from 10 B.C. to 54 A.D. Despised as a weakling and considered an idiot because of his physical infirmities, Claudius survived the intrigues and poisonings of the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and the mad Calgula to become emperor in 41 A.D. I, Claudius is written in the form of Claudius' autobiography and is one of the classics of modern fiction, the… Shares: Biographical fiction, History

Catilina's Riddle Steven Saylor · 1993 · ★ 4.0 · 468p · ≈ 15h · Moderate 63 BC: Gordianus attempts to find out why headless bodies keep appearing on his newly-inherited farm and contend with hostile neighbors—all cousins of his benefactor—while he is entangled in republican conspiracy and counter-conspiracy. in Rome, Meto celebrates his toga party, on his sixteenth birthday. Shares: Italy, History

Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel · 2009 · ★ 3.9 · 653p · ≈ 21h · Moderate Wolf Hall (2009) is a historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel… Shares: Biographical fiction, History

Alias Grace Margaret Atwood · 1996 · ★ 4.0 · 630p · ≈ 21h · Moderate In 'Alias, Grace, ' bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since 'The Handmaid's Tale.' She takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and Nancy… Shares: Biographical fiction, History

Twilight in Italy D. H. Lawrence · 1916 · 310p · ≈ 10h · Challenging In these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of intense beauty. "Twilight in Italy" is a vibrant account of Lawrence's stay among the people of Lake Garda, whose decaying lemon gardens bear witness to the twilight of a way of life centuries old. Shares: Italy, History

Van Gogh Federico Zeri · 1937 · ★ 4.1 · 31p · ≈ 1h · Challenging Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They inclu Shares: Artists, Biography & Memoir, History

About the book The Agony and the Ecstasy →