Recommendations based on Kiss of the Spider Womanby Manuel Puig

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. Like Water for Chocolate

    by Laura Esquivel
    Magical tale of forbidden love, crossed by cultural and family traditions.

    The book is divided into 12 sections named after the months of the year, starting in January and ending in December. Each section begins with a Mexican recipe . The chapters connect each dish to an ... (Wikipedia)

  2. Pedro Páramo

    by Juan Rulfo
    A man returns to his hometown in search of his father, discovering the ghostly inhabitants.

    A classic of Mexican modern literature about a haunted village. As one enters Juan Rulfo's legendary novel, one follows a dusty road to a town of death. Time shifts from one consciousness to another ... (Goodreads)

  3. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

    by Pablo Neruda
    Collection of poems exploring love, heartache, and the complexities of relationships.

    When it appeared in 1924, this work launched into the international spotlight a young and unknown poet whose writings would ignite a generation. W. S. Merwin's incomparable translation faces the ... (Goodreads)

  4. The Aleph and Other Stories

    by Jorge Luis Borges
    A collection of stories featuring metaphysical and philosophical explorations of the human condition.

    Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges's most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight, he takes us inside the minds of an ... (Goodreads)

  5. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

    by Junot Díaz
    An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.

    Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The House of the Spirits

    by Isabel Allende
    Epic family saga spanning generations, exploring the power of love and the impact of politics.

    The story starts with the del Valle family, focusing upon the youngest and the oldest daughters of the family, Clara and Rosa. The youngest daughter, Clara del Valle, has paranormal powers and keeps ... (Wikipedia)

  7. Mrs. Dalloway

    by Virginia Woolf
    A day in the life of a high-society woman, delving into her inner thoughts and feelings.

    Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about ... (Wikipedia)

  8. 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)

  9. Of Love and Other Demons

    by Gabriel García Márquez
    A young girl is thrown into a spiritual journey of faith and superstition as she faces a mysterious illness.

    Sierva Maria de Todos Los Angeles Sierra is the twelve-year-old daughter of the Marquis and his wife Bernarda. Her hair has never been cut, and was promised to the saints when she was born with the ... (Wikipedia)

  10. 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)

  11. Orlando

    by Virginia Woolf
    A fantastical journey through history and gender, exploring the complexities of identity.

    The eponymous hero is born as a male nobleman in England during the reign of Elizabeth I . He undergoes a mysterious change of sex at the age of about 30 and lives on for more than 300 years into ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Hopscotch

    by Julio Cortázar
    A surrealist journey of self-exploration and imaginative play.

    Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club." A child's death and La ... (Goodreads)

  13. Chronicle of a Death Foretold

    by Gabriel García Márquez
    A murder mystery narrated by the townspeople and tracing the events leading up to the crime.

    The non-linear story, told by an anonymous narrator, begins with the morning of Santiago Nasar's death. The reader learns that Santiago lives with his mother, Placida Linero; the cook, Victoria ... (Wikipedia)

  14. A Confederacy of Dunces

    by John Kennedy Toole
    A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.

    Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)

  15. The Vampire Lestat

    by Anne Rice
    A vampire's exploration of his immortality and the secrets of the world of the undead.

    Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as impoverished nobility in the ... (Wikipedia)

  16. Love in the Time of Cholera

    by Gabriel García Márquez
    An epic love story spanning decades, exploring the power of true love.

    The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with the help of Fermina's ... (Wikipedia)

  17. The Flanders Panel

    by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
    A painting restoration expert discovers a hidden message in a 15th-century Flemish painting, leading to a thrilling investigation of a murder mystery.

    Julia, an art restorer and evaluator living in Madrid , discovers a painted-over message on a 1471 Flemish masterpiece called La partida de ajedrez ( The Chess Game ) which reads "Quis Necavit ... (Wikipedia)

  18. In the Time of the Butterflies

    by Julia Alvarez
    A story of courage and sacrifice, as four sisters resist a tyrannical regime in the Dominican Republic.

    This is the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. At school, one of the sisters, Minerva , meets a girl, Sinita, who later became one ... (Wikipedia)

  19. Brokeback Mountain

    by Annie Proulx
    Forbidden love between two cowboys exploring their sexuality and emotions in a hostile environment.

    Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, "Brokeback Mountain" is her masterpiece. Ennis del Mar ... (Goodreads)

  20. The House on Mango Street

    by Sandra Cisneros
    A young girl navigates life in a poor Latino neighborhood, dreaming of a better future and finding her voice through writing.

    The bestselling coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world from the winner of the 2018 ... (Barnes & Noble)

  21. Stoner

    by John Williams
    An academic's life of quiet desperation, finding solace in literature.

    William Stoner is born on a small farm in 1891. After high school, the county agent advises he go to agriculture school. Stoner enrolls in the University of Missouri , where all agriculture students ... (Wikipedia)

  22. American Psycho

    by Bret Easton Ellis
    A corporate psychopath's descent into homicidal madness, exposing the dark side of 1980s New York.

    Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho follows the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his mid-20s when the story begins, ... (Wikipedia)

  23. Nada

    by Carmen Laforet
    A young woman's journey to find her identity and place in the world.

    The novel is set in post Spanish Civil War Barcelona. The novel is narrated by its main character, Andrea, an orphan, who has fond memories of her well off family in Barcelona, and has been raised in ... (Wikipedia)

  24. Norwegian Wood

    by Haruki Murakami
    A young man's journey of love and loss set against the backdrop of the 1960s.

    Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of ... (Goodreads)

  25. The Threepenny Opera

    by Bertolt Brecht
    A satirical musical about the criminal underworld and the corrupt society that enables it.

    The Threepenny Opera was Brecht's first and greatest commercial success, and it remains one of his best-loved and most-performed plays. Based on John Gay's eighteenth-century Beggar's Opera, the play ... (Goodreads)

  26. The Stories of Eva Luna

    by Isabel Allende
    An exploration of passion, fantasy and storytelling in Latin America.

    Isabel Allende is one of the world's most beloved authors. In 1988, she introduced the world to Eva Luna in a novel of the same name that recounted the adventurous life of a young Latin American ... (Goodreads)

  27. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    A man's journey through life in reverse, exploring the meaning of life and death.

    In 1860 Baltimore , Benjamin is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man, already capable of speech. His father Roger invites neighborhood boys to play with him and orders him to play ... (Wikipedia)

  28. The Blind Assassin

    by Margaret Atwood
    A complex, interwoven story of family secrets, love, tragedy, and mystery.

    The novel's protagonist , Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, grow up well-off but motherless in a small town in southern Ontario. As an old woman, Iris recalls the events and relationships of her ... (Wikipedia)

  29. The Running Man

    by Richard Bachman
    A man's journey fighting for his life in a deadly game, facing impossible odds.

    In 2025, the world's economy is in shambles and America has become a totalitarian dystopia. 28-year-old Ben Richards, an impoverished resident of the fictional Co-Op City, is unable to find work, ... (Wikipedia)

  30. My Brilliant Friend

    by Elena Ferrante
    A story of two friends' lives, exploring the intricacies of female friendship and life in a Neapolitan neighbourhood.

    A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends ... (Goodreads)