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Recommendations based on Crushby Richard Siken
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Night Sky with Exit Wounds
by Ocean Vuong
An exploration of identity and displacement, told through powerful and poetic language.
Ocean Vuong's first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial "big"—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. None of these he allows to overwhelm ... (Goodreads)
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
by Sappho
Poetic exploration of love and desire, reflecting on the beauty of life and nature.
By combining the ancient mysteries of Sappho with the contemporary wizardry of one of our most fearless and original poets, If Not, Winter provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Two teenage boys explore friendship, identity, and family, with unexpected results.
The book is divided into six sections. In each part we see the two main characters, Aristotle and Dante, discovering more about themselves, more Aristotle than Dante. 15-year-old Aristotle "Ari" ... (Wikipedia)
Invisible Cities
by Italo Calvino
A fantastical exploration of the cities of the imagination and the possibilities of life.
"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young ... (Goodreads)
Lunch Poems
by Frank O'Hara
A collection of poems written during the author's lunch breaks in New York City, capturing the essence of urban life.
Important poems by the late New York poet published in The New American Poetry, Evergreen Review, Floating Bear and stranger places. Often O'Hara, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a ... (Goodreads)
Autobiography of Red
by Anne Carson
A modern retelling of Greek myth, exploring the intersections of love, art, and identity.
The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red , a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Poems
by Anne Sexton
A collection of powerful, confessional pieces exploring the beauty, tragedy, and pain of human experience.
From the joy and anguish of her own experience, Sexton fashioned poems that told truths about the inner lives of men and women. This book comprises Sexton's ten volumes of verse, including the ... (Barnes & Noble)
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.
The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)
The Raven Boys
by Maggie Stiefvater
Four friends on a supernatural quest to find a magical Welsh king.
The Raven Cycle follows the story of Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, and Noah Czerny as they attempt to find the sleeping Welsh King Owain Glendower who is buried on the ... (Wikipedia)
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)
100 Selected Poems
by E.E. Cummings
An exploration of life, love, and the beauty of nature through the lens of poetry.
E.E. Cummings is without question one of the major poets of this century, and this volume, first published in 1959, is indispensable for every lover of modern lyrical verse. It contains one hundred ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Dream Thieves
by Maggie Stiefvater
A thrilling supernatural adventure where a group of teenagers must protect the magical power of dreams.
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams ... (Goodreads)
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
by Angela Carter
A collection of subversive, darkly fantastical tales exploring the power of femininity.
Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural ... (Goodreads)
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)
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
A haunting story of loss and resilience in the aftermath of slavery.
Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio , where the protagonist Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, has been living with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver at 124 Bluestone Road. The book ... (Wikipedia)
Franny and Zooey
by J.D. Salinger
A brother and sister's journey towards finding spiritual understanding and inner peace.
The short story concerns Franny's weekend date with her collegiate boyfriend, Lane Coutell. Lane takes her to a fashionable lunch room, where Franny quickly becomes exasperated when he only appears ... (Wikipedia)
Call Me By Your Name
by André Aciman
A tender story of first love, exploring the complexities of identity, sexuality and desire.
The narrator, Elio Perlman , recalls the events of the summer of about 1987, when he was seventeen and living with his parents in Italy . Each summer, his parents would take in a doctoral student as ... (Wikipedia)
Kings Rising
by C.S. Pacat
A riveting finale to a captivating fantasy trilogy, where loyalty and ambition clash in a thrilling game of power.
Damianos of Akielos has returned. His identity now revealed, Damen must face his master Prince Laurent as Damianos of Akielos, the man Laurent has sworn to kill. On the brink of a momentous battle, ... (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)
Ariel
by Sylvia Plath
A collection of raw and intense poems that explore themes of death, femininity, and personal struggle.
Sylvia Plath's celebrated collection. When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel . Her husband, Ted Hughes, brought the ... (Goodreads)
The King's Men
by Nora Sakavic
A college student's journey to uncover the secrets of a mysterious society of men.
Neil Josten is out of time. He knew when he came to PSU he wouldn't survive the year, but with his death right around the corner he's got more reasons than ever to live. Befriending the Foxes was ... (Goodreads)
Blue Lily, Lily Blue
by Maggie Stiefvater
A magical journey to save a lost kingdom and find one's true identity.
The third installment in the all-new series from the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater! Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can ... (Goodreads)
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An exploration of race, identity, and belonging as two Nigerian immigrants experience life in America and beyond.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to ... (Goodreads)
100 Love Sonnets
by Pablo Neruda
Collection of love poems exploring the depths of passion, desire and longing.
Against the backdrop of Isla Negra - the sea and wind, the white sand with its scattering of delicate wild flowers, the hot sun and salty smells of the Pacific - the poet sets the poems in ... (Goodreads)
Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the boundaries between the real and surreal.
Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters. The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old ... (Wikipedia)
Howl and Other Poems
by Allen Ginsberg
A collection of poems exploring themes of individualism and modern culture.
Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys
A woman's journey of self-discovery in the Caribbean, her story of emancipation from the shadows of colonialism.
The novel, initially set in Jamaica, opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. , The protagonist Antoinette relates the story of ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Deathless
by Catherynne M. Valente
A sweeping fantasy tale of love and revolution in a mythical, fairytale world.
Marya Morevna and her sisters live with their upper middle class parents in Saint Petersburg before and during the Russian Revolution. Marya witnesses birds transform into handsome young men who ... (Wikipedia)
