18 books like The Pool in the Desert

What to read after The Pool in the Desert — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

The Unbearable Bassington Saki · 1912 · ★ 3.8 · 160p · ≈ 5h · Challenging FRANCESCA BASSINGTON sat in the drawing-room of her house in Blue Street, W., regaling herself and her estimable brother Henry with China tea and small cress sandwiches. The meal was of that elegant proportion which, while ministering sympathetically to the desires of the moment, is happily reminiscent of a satisfactory luncheon and blessedly expectant of an elaborate dinner to come. Shares: Classic fiction, Literature - Classics, Classics

Smoke and Ashes Abir Mukherjee · 2018 · ★ 4.4 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate India, 1921. Haunted by his memories of World War I, Captain Sam Wyndham is battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force. When Sam is summoned to investigate a grisly murder, he is stunned at the sight of the body: he's seen this before. Last night, in a drug addled haze, he stumbled across a corpse with the same ritualistic… Shares: India, British, History

Plain tales from the hills Rudyard Kipling · 1888 · 194p · ≈ 6h · Challenging Originally written for the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, the stories were intended for a provincial readership familiar with the pleasures and miseries of colonial life. For the subsequent English edition, Kipling revised the tales so as to recreate as vividly as possible the sights and smells of India for those at home. Yet far from being a celebration of Empire, Kipling's stories tell of… Shares: India, British, Social life and customs, History

The Shadow Lines Amitav Ghosh · 1988 · ★ 3.9 · 248p · ≈ 8h · Moderate This book is an excellent example of a unique narrative which most books lack. According to many literary sources this book do not intend to tell a story but rather invites the reader to invent one. The book have so many deep quotes that inspires such as :- NOBODY KNOWS NOBODY EVER KNOWS BECAUSE THERE ARE MOMENTS IN TIME THAT ARE NOT KNOWABLE. Shares: India, British

The Glass Palace Amitav Ghosh · 2000 · ★ 4.3 · 560p · ≈ 18h · Moderate Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love… Shares: India, History

Martin Bircks ungdom Hjalmar Söderberg · 1904 · 164p · ≈ 5h · Challenging "Hjalmar Soderberg's partly autobiographical second novel was originally published in 1901, and traces the development of the title character from a seemingly idyllic Stockholm childhood to maturity as a thirty-year-old man, an introspective outsider, critical of society, constantly searching for the truth but going through a gradual process of disillusionment. He dreams of being a poet, but is… Shares: Literature - Classics, Classics

Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray · 1800 · ★ 3.8 · 699p · ≈ 23h · Demanding No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought,… Shares: British, Women, Classics, Social life and customs

Butcher's Crossing John Williams · 1960 · ★ 4.2 · 265p · ≈ 8h · Moderate In the 1870s, Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek "an original relation to nature," drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. One of these men regales Will with tales of the immense buffalo herds hidden away in the Colorado Rockies and convinces him to join an… Shares: Literature - Classics, Classics

The Love of a Good Woman Alice Munro · 1998 · ★ 4.0 · 360p · ≈ 12h · Moderate In eight new stories, a master of the form extends and magnifies her great themes - the vagaries of love, the passion that leads down unexpected paths, the chaos hovering just under the surface of things, and the strange, often comical desires of the human heart. Time stretches out in some of the stories: a man and a woman look back forty years to the summer they met - the summer, as it turns… Shares: Canada, Women, Social life and customs

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Alice Munro · 1998 · ★ 4.0 · 323p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Alice Munro has long been heralded for her penetrating, lyrical prose, and in "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" -- the basis for Sarah Polley's film Away From Her -- her prodigious talents are once again on display. As she follows Grant, a retired professor whose wife Fiona begins gradually to lose her memory and drift away from him, we slowly see how a lifetime of intimate details can create a… Shares: Canada, Women, Social life and customs

The Measure of a Heart (Women of the West #6) Janette Oke · 1992 · ★ 4.1 · 219p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Anna Trent felt fortunate to finish the eighth grade with first-class honors. Already past her sixteenth birthday, most of the girls her age had been forced long ago to drop out to help at home. She loved school loved to learn, loved the excitement of new discoveries, loved the quickening of her pulse as she shared some great adventure in the pages of a book. And now that is over. The oldest… Shares: Canada, Women

A Bird in the House Margaret Laurence · 1963 · ★ 4.0 · 207p · ≈ 6h · Moderate A Bird in the House is a series of eight interconnected short stories narrated by Vanessa MacLeod as she matures from a child at age ten into a young woman at age twenty. Wise for her years, Vanessa reveals much about the adult world in which she lives. Shares: Canada, Women, Social life and customs

East of Eden John Steinbeck, David Wyatt & Susan Shillinglaw Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel, follows the interwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of… Shares: Classics

Lord of the Flies William Golding, Lois Lowry & Jennifer Buehler Lord of the Flies is the 1954 debut novel of British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of prepubescent British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves that lead to a descent into savagery. The novels themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos. Shares: Classics

The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas · 1964 · ★ 4.5 · 242p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Shares: Classics

The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov · 141p · ≈ 4h · Moderate The Master and Margarita () is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940. A censored version, with several chapters cut by editors, was published posthumously in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967 by his widow Elena Bulgakova. The manuscript was first published as a book in 1967, in Paris, France. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official… Shares: Classics

Les Misérables Christine Donougher & Victor Hugo Les Misérables (, ) is a French epic historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published on 31 March 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. Les Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for film, television, and the stage, including a musical. Shares: Classics

The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin & Charlie Jane Anders The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published in 1969, its popularity established Le Guins status as a major author of science fiction. The novel is set in the fictional universe of the Hainish Cycle, a series of novels and short stories by Le Guin, which she introduced in the 1964 short story "The Dowry of Angyar". It was fourth in… Shares: Classics

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