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Recommendations based on Arms and the Manby George Bernard Shaw
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Pygmalion
by George Bernard Shaw
The transformation of a poor flower girl into an elegant society lady.
George Orwell claimed that "The central plot of Shaw's play, Pygmalion , is lifted out of Peregrine Pickle [by Tobias Smollett ], and I believe that no one has ever pointed this out in print, which ... (Wikipedia)
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
A lighthearted comedy of manners, full of witty dialogue and satirizing Victorian society.
Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The ... (Goodreads)
King Lear
by William Shakespeare
An aging king's descent into madness reveals the consequences of pride and vanity.
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the ... (Goodreads)
As You Like It
by William Shakespeare
A romantic comedy about love, disguise, and mistaken identity in the Forest of Arden.
Readers and audiences have long greeted As You Like It with delight. Its characters are brilliant conversationalists, including the princesses Rosalind and Celia and their Fool, Touchstone. Soon ... (Goodreads)
King Henry IV, Part 1
by William Shakespeare
The play follows the rise of Prince Hal to the throne of England, including his relationship with the legendary knight Falstaff.
, David Scott Kastan lucidly explores the remarkable richness and the ambitious design of, King Henry IV Part 1, and shows how these complicate any easy sense of what kind of play it is. ... (Goodreads)
The Arabian Nights
by Anonymous
Tales of adventure and imagination, featuring larger-than-life characters and magical creatures.
This volume reproduces the 1932 Modern Library edition, for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton's multivolume translation, and includes ... (Goodreads)
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens
An orphan's journey of survival and resilience in the face of poverty and injustice.
Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune, raised in a workhouse in the fictional town of Mudfog , located 70 miles (110 km) north of London . , , , He is orphaned by his father's ... (Wikipedia)
She Stoops to Conquer
by Oliver Goldsmith
A comedy of errors where a wealthy young woman pretends to be a barmaid to win the heart of a bashful gentleman.
Act I begins at the Hardcastles’ home in the countryside. Mrs. Hardcastle complains to her husband that they never leave their rural home to see the new things happening in the city. Hardcastle says ... (Wikipedia)
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)
A Suitable Boy
by Vikram Seth
Epic story of a young woman's search for love and her family's struggle for acceptance in 1950s India.
In 1951, 19-year-old Lata Mehra attends the wedding of her older sister, Savita, to Pran Kapoor, a university lecturer. Lata’s mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, says that it is time for Lata to be married as ... (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 Zahir
by Paulo Coelho
A man's journey to understand the meaning of love and of life, in the face of loss.
The Zahir means 'the obvious' or 'conspicuous' in Arabic . The story revolves around the life of the narrator , a bestselling novelist, and in particular his search for his missing wife, Esther. He ... (Wikipedia)
Against Nature
by Joris-Karl Huysmans
A decadent exploration of art and beauty, challenging the conventions of society.
The epigraph is a quotation from Jan van Ruysbroeck ('Ruysbroeck the Admirable'), the fourteenth-century Flemish mystic: Jean des Esseintes is the last member of a powerful and once proud noble ... (Wikipedia)
An Ideal Husband
by Oscar Wilde
A play exploring the themes of blackmail, political corruption, and the nature of honor and integrity in Victorian society.
The play opens during a dinner party at the home of Sir Robert Chiltern in London's fashionable Grosvenor Square . Sir Robert, an esteemed member of the House of Commons , and his wife, Lady ... (Wikipedia)
Lady Chatterley's Lover
by D.H. Lawrence
A working-class man's affair with an aristocratic woman, and their coming to terms with the strictures of society.
Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as ... (Goodreads)
A Woman of No Importance
by Oscar Wilde
Satirical tale of societal expectations of gender roles and class in Victorian England.
Oscar Wilde's audacious drama of social scandal centres around the revelation of Mrs Arbuthnot's long-concealed secret. A house party is in full swing at Lady Hunstanton's country home, when it is ... (Goodreads)
Dubliners
by James Joyce
Collection of stories about everyday life in Dublin, exploring the Irish psyche.
This work of art reflects life in Ireland at the turn of the last century, and by rejecting euphemism, reveals to the Irish their unromantic realities. Each of the 15 stories offers glimpses into the ... (Goodreads)
A View from the Bridge: A Play in Two Acts
by Arthur Miller
A Brooklyn longshoreman's obsession with his niece leads to tragic consequences. A powerful portrayal of human emotions and societal expectations.
Arthur Miller számos olyan kritikus hangvételű vagy mély gondolatokat tartalmazó esszét, cikket és tanulmányt írt, amelyekkel ugyanolyan mély hatást gyakorol olvasóira, mint darabjaival a színházak ... (Goodreads)
Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the complexities of family, culture, and identity.
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take ... (Goodreads)
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
A moving story of two siblings growing up in India, exploring love, politics, and class.
The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car ... (Goodreads)
Watership Down
by Richard Adams
A group of rabbits embark on a treacherous journey to find a new home.
In the Sandleford warren , ,[b], Fiver, a young runt rabbit who is a seer , receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. , When he and his brother Hazel fail to convince their ... (Wikipedia)
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
A rags-to-riches story of a young boy's adventures, trials, and tribulations.
David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously ... (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)
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.
The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)
Malgudi Days
by R.K. Narayan
A captivating collection of stories set in a fictional South Indian town, exploring the lives of its eccentric inhabitants.
Four gems, with new introductions, mark acclaimed Indian writer R. K. Narayan’s centennial Introducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India “the writer has only to look ... (Goodreads)
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
A tale of struggle and sorrow for a poor, uneducated man amid the rigid conventions of Victorian England.
The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, who lives in a village in southern England (part of Hardy's fictional county of Wessex ), who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modelled on ... (Wikipedia)
Eleven Minutes
by Paulo Coelho
A young woman's journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation.
Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never ... (Goodreads)
A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
by William Faulkner
Collection of short stories exploring the complexities of Southern life, often with dark and tragic themes.
The story opens with a brief first-person account of the funeral of Emily Grierson , an elderly Southern woman whose funeral is the obligation of their small town. It then proceeds in a non-linear ... (Wikipedia)
Billy Budd, Sailor
by Herman Melville
A story of justice, morality, and innocence against a backdrop of a naval war.
Billy Budd is a seaman impressed into service aboard HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the Royal Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by the Revolutionary French Republic ... (Wikipedia)
Perestroika
by Tony Kushner
A powerful look at the impact of political upheaval on the lives of ordinary people.
Set in New York City, the play takes place between October 1985 and February 1986. , The play begins with the funeral of Sarah Ironson, an elderly Jewish woman, whose rabbi eulogizes not only her, ... (Wikipedia)
