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Recommendations based on Elmer Gantryby Sinclair Lewis
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Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis
A small-town woman's quest for freedom and self-expression in a repressive society.
With Commentary by E. M. Forster, Dorothy Parker, H. L. Mencken, Lewis Mumford, Rebecca West, Sherwood Anderson, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, Constance Rourke, and Mark Schorer. Main Street , the ... (Goodreads)
Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis
A satirical exploration of the conformist culture of 1920s America.
Lewis has been both criticized and congratulated for his unorthodox writing style in Babbitt . One reviewer said "There is no plot whatever... Babbitt simply grows two years older as the tale ... (Wikipedia)
Tender Is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A young couple's tumultuous journey through love, wealth and tragedy.
Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who rent a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a circle of friends, mainly Americans. Also staying at the nearby resort are Rosemary ... (Wikipedia)
Sister Carrie
by Theodore Dreiser
A young woman's journey of ambition, navigating the opportunities and pitfalls of urban life.
Late 1889. Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin home, 18-year-old Caroline "Sister Carrie" Meeber takes the train to Chicago , where her older sister Minnie, and Minnie's husband, Sven ... (Wikipedia)
In Dubious Battle
by John Steinbeck
A story of a labor strike and the power struggle between workers and landowners.
In Dubious Battle deals with a fruit-workers' strike in a California valley and the attempts of labor unions to organize, lead, and provide for the striking pickers. Jim Nolan meets Harry Nilson who ... (Wikipedia)
It Can't Happen Here
by Sinclair Lewis
A cautionary tale of how fascism can take hold in America, following the rise of a demagogue who becomes president.
In 1936, Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a charismatic and power-hungry politician, wins the 1936 United States presidential election on a populist platform, promising to restore the country to ... (Wikipedia)
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Exploration of the timeless struggle between good and evil, set against a backdrop of a family saga.
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (Goodreads)
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
An exploration of the relationship between the individual and the divine, viewed through the lens of nature and its rhythms.
A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. ... (Goodreads)
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
by Ernest J. Gaines
The life story of a former slave, Jane Pittman, who lived through the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.
Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s ... (Goodreads)
The Raven and Other Poems
by Edgar Allan Poe
A collection of dark, gothic poems, exploring the depths of the human psyche.
A chilling, thrilling collection of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry, introduced by best-selling author Philip Pullman The Raven . . . Annabel Lee . . . Ulalume . . . these are some of the spookiest, most ... (Goodreads)
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
by Hannah Green
A young woman's story of struggle to overcome her mental illness and reclaim her life.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to ... (Goodreads)
Where the Red Fern Grows
by Wilson Rawls
A young boy embarks on an adventure with his beloved hunting dogs, learning valuable life lessons.
An old man named Billy Colman rescues a redbone hound under attack by neighborhood dogs. He takes it home with him so that its wounds can heal. In light of this event, he has a flashback to when he ... (Wikipedia)
The Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
A naval officer is court-martialed after leading a mutiny against his captain.
The story is told through the eyes of Willis Seward "Willie" Keith, an affluent but callow young graduate of Princeton University . Following a mediocre living as a nightclub piano player, he signs ... (Wikipedia)
The Road Not Taken and Other Poems
by Robert Frost
Collection of poems exploring the power of choice, the passage of time, and the beauty of nature.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." These deceptively simple lines from the title poem of this collection suggest Robert ... (Goodreads)
Centennial
by James A. Michener
Epic journey through the history of the American West, painting a vivid picture of its people and culture.
Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener’s magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America’s past, the story ... (Goodreads)
The Black Dahlia
by James Ellroy
A 1940s Los Angeles detective story, exploring the depths of a gruesome unsolved murder.
On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia—and so begins the greatest manhunt in California ... (Goodreads)
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
A soldier's harrowing experience of the horrors of war.
The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a group of German soldiers on the Western Front during World War I . The patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek had led the whole class to ... (Wikipedia)
The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
by Sophocles
Ancient tragedy of a family's fall from grace due to a fateful prophecy.
English versions of Sophocles’ three great tragedies based on the myth of Oedipus, translated for a modern audience by two gifted poets. Index. ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
by Ernest Hemingway
Collection of short stories depicting the human experience in all its complexities.
THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as ... (Goodreads)
Play It As It Lays
by Joan Didion
A woman's search for identity amidst the glamour and emptiness of 1960s Hollywood.
The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film producer Carter Lang. The further narration is ... (Wikipedia)
Martin Eden
by Jack London
A young sailor's ambition for a better life leads him on a journey of self-improvement and exploration of the upper classes.
Living in Oakland at the beginning of the 20th century, Martin Eden struggles to rise above his destitute, proletarian circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education, ... (Wikipedia)
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)
The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink
A man's journey of understanding, uncovering a dark secret from his past.
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of ... (Goodreads)
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.
On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)
Presumed Innocent
by Scott Turow
Prosecutor Rusty Sabich is accused of murdering his colleague and mistress. He must prove his innocence while navigating a web of lies and deceit.
The novel begins with the discovery of Carolyn Polhemus, dead in her apartment. She is the victim of what appears to be a sexual bondage encounter gone wrong, killed outright by a fatal blow to the ... (Wikipedia)
Edge of Eternity
by Ken Follett
A sweeping epic of love, loss, and redemption, spanning three generations in the 20th century.
The story follows characters from Germany, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, who become linked by events from just before the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961 to that wall’s ... (Wikipedia)
To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis
Time-traveling historian visits Victorian England in search of an artifact, amidst a comedy of errors.
Ned Henry is a time traveler in 1940 studying Coventry Cathedral after the Coventry Blitz of World War II . He is specifically searching for the location of the "Bishop's bird stump ", a MacGuffin ... (Wikipedia)
A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
A coming-of-age story about two boys and their complex friendship set during World War II.
Gene Forrester returns to his old prep school, Devon (a thinly veiled portrayal of Knowles's alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy ), , 15 years after he graduated, to visit two places he regards as ... (Wikipedia)
All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren
A powerful political drama that follows a governor's rise and fall as he grapples with ambition, morality and power.
All the King's Men is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his ... (Goodreads)
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham
A young man's struggles to find a sense of purpose, despite a series of catastrophic misfortunes.
The book begins with the death of Helen Carey, the much beloved mother of nine-year-old Philip Carey. Philip has a club foot and his father had died a few months before. Now orphaned, he is sent to ... (Wikipedia)
