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Recommendations based on The Golden Assby Apuleius
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The Aeneid
by Virgil
Epic tale of Aeneas and the founding of Rome, a fateful journey through the gods.
The Aeneid – thrilling, terrifying and poignant in equal measure – has inspired centuries of artists, writers and musicians. Virgil’s epic tale tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, who flees his ... (Goodreads)
Metamorphoses
by Ovid
A collection of tales of transformation, featuring gods and mortals.
Prized through the ages for its splendor and its savage, sophisticated wit, The Metamorphoses is a masterpiece of Western culture–the first attempt to link all the Greek myths, before and after ... (Goodreads)
Inferno
by Dante Alighieri
An epic journey through the nine circles of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
Of the great poets, Dante is one of the most elusive and therefore one of the most difficult to adequately render into English verse. In the Inferno, Dante not only judges sin but strives to ... (Goodreads)
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri
A poetic journey through the afterlife, guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining ... (Goodreads)
Candide
by Voltaire
A young man's satirical journey through life, encountering misfortune and eventual optimism.
Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a ... (Goodreads)
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
A Franciscan friar investigates a series of murders in a medieval monastery, uncovering a sinister plot.
In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
An aging knight's adventures and misadventures, filled with chivalry, honor, and satire.
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in ... (Goodreads)
The Decameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio
A collection of tales of love, adventure, and comedy set in medieval Florence.
The Decameron (c.1351) is an entertaining series of one hundred stories written in the wake of the Black Death. The stories are told in a country villa outside the city of Florence by ten young noble ... (Goodreads)
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)
Ficciones
by Jorge Luis Borges
A collection of short stories exploring the limits of the imagination.
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his ... (Goodreads)
Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
by Jonathan Swift
A fanciful journey to lands of tiny people, giant people, talking horses, and other strange creatures.
The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck ... (Wikipedia)
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A fantastical, satirical examination of Soviet life, intersecting with the supernatural.
The novel has two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds as Professor Woland . He is accompanied by Koroviev, a grotesquely-dressed valet; Behemoth , ... (Wikipedia)
Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
Two men wait for a mysterious figure who never arrives, reflecting on their lives and existence.
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, have met near a leafless tree. Estragon spent the previous night lying in a ditch and receiving a beating from some unnamed assailants. The two men discuss a variety ... (Wikipedia)
The Bacchae
by Euripides
A classic tragedy exploring the clash of divine and mortal power and the consequences of hubris.
The play begins before the palace at Thebes, with Dionysus telling the story of his birth and his reasons for visiting the city. Dionysus explains he is the son of a mortal woman, Semele, and a god, ... (Wikipedia)
Uncle Vanya
by Anton Chekhov
A study of the ennui and monotony of rural life, with characters struggling with their place in the world.
A garden in Professor Serebryakov's country estate. Astrov and Marina discuss how old Astrov has grown, and his boredom with his life as a country doctor. Vanya enters, and complains of the ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Poems
by John Keats
A collection of Keats' poetry, showcasing his romantic and melancholic style, exploring themes of love, beauty, nature, and mortality.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera
A story of love and loss in a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia.
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and ... (Goodreads)
Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles
Tragic tale of a man's inescapable destiny and the consequences of his actions.
Oedipus, King of Thebes, sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to ask advice of the oracle at Delphi , concerning a plague ravaging Thebes. Creon returns to report that the plague is the result of ... (Wikipedia)
Demons
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A fictional exploration of the human condition, examining the darker sides of our nature.
The novel is in three parts. There are two epigraphs, the first from Pushkin's poem "Demons" and the second from Luke 8:32–36. After an almost illustrious but prematurely curtailed academic career ... (Wikipedia)
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
by Vladimir Nabokov
An epic novel of forbidden love between a brother and sister, set against a backdrop of family secrets.
Ada tells the life story of a man named Van Veen, and his lifelong love affair with his sister Ada. They meet when she is eleven (soon to be twelve) and he is fourteen, believing that they are ... (Wikipedia)
Paradise Lost
by John Milton
Epic poem of the Fall of Man, exploring the depths of human nature and the consequences of sin.
John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of ... (Goodreads)
Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
A journey into the depths of the human psyche, exploring the darkness of colonialism.
Aboard the Nellie , anchored in the River Thames near Gravesend , Charles Marlow tells his fellow sailors how he became captain of a river steamboat for an ivory trading company. As a child, Marlow ... (Wikipedia)
The Sirens of Titan
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Intergalactic odyssey exploring the meaning of life and the human condition.
Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future North America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the ... (Wikipedia)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
by Unknown
A classic Arthurian fantasy tale of loyalty, honor, and courage.
Written by an anonymous 14th-century poet, this epic poem is recognized as an equal of Chaucer's masterworks and of the great Old English poems, including "Beowulf." This edition includes a Preface ... (Goodreads)
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
by Lewis Carroll
Alice's fantastical journey through a strange and surreal world of her own making.
Chapter One – Looking-Glass House : Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls "Snowdrop") and a black kitten (whom she calls "Kitty") when she ponders what the world is like on the other ... (Wikipedia)
Othello
by William Shakespeare
A tale of jealousy, manipulation, and tragedy, as one man's descent into madness leads to disastrous consequences.
In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual ... (Goodreads)
Red Harvest
by Dashiell Hammett
A private detective infiltrates a corrupt town to clean up the crime and corruption.
The Continental Op is called to Personville (known as "Poisonville" to the locals) by the newspaper publisher Donald Willsson, who is murdered before the Op has a chance to meet with him. The Op ... (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)
