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Recommendations based on The Turkish Gambitby Boris Akunin
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The Winter Queen
by Boris Akunin
An investigation of corruption and deception that leads to a thrilling court drama.
The novel opens on 13 May 1876 with a university student, Pyotr Kokorin, committing suicide in the public park in front of a beautiful young noblewoman, Elizaveta von Evert-Kolokoltseva. His will ... (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)
The Twelve Chairs
by Ilya Ilf
A comedic tale of two men's quest for hidden jewels in a chair with a secret compartment.
In the Soviet Union in 1927, a former Marshal of Nobility , Ippolit Matveyevich "Kisa" Vorobyaninov, works as the registrar of marriages and deaths in a sleepy provincial town. His mother-in-law ... (Wikipedia)
Karlsson on the Roof
by Astrid Lindgren
A mischievous, fun-loving, and adventurous little man named Karlsson lives on the roof of an apartment building in Stockholm.
Karlsson is a very short, plump and overconfident man who lives in a small house hidden behind a chimney on the roof of 'a very ordinary apartment building on a very ordinary street' in Vasastan, ... (Wikipedia)
The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas
An adventurous tale of friendship, courage, and battle in 17th century France.
In 1625 France, d'Artagnan leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard . At a house in Meung-sur-Loire , an older man derides d'Artagnan's horse. Insulted, ... (Wikipedia)
Hotel
by Arthur Hailey
A behind-the-scenes look at the operations of a luxurious hotel, including the personal and professional lives of its staff and guests.
Peter McDermott: The main character is Mr. Peter McDermott; the general manager with a past. He is a graduate in Hotel Management from Cornell University and subsequently got a job in a hotel. ... (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)
Blood of Elves
by Andrzej Sapkowski
A young orphan embarks on a quest, struggling to accept their destiny as a Witcher.
About a year before the beginning of the novel (as chronicled in the preceding short story " Much More "), the Empire of Nilfgaard attacks the Kingdom of Cintra. Queen Calanthe, mortally wounded, ... (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)
The Luzhin Defense
by Vladimir Nabokov
A chess grandmaster battles his inner demons as he struggles to understand the game of life.
The plot concerns the title character, Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin. As a boy, he is considered unattractive, withdrawn, and an object of ridicule by his classmates. One day, when a guest comes to his ... (Wikipedia)
Hear the Wind Sing
by Haruki Murakami
A young man's journey of self-discovery and exploration of life's possibilities.
Feeling writing as a terribly painful task, the narrator re-tells the story of his 1970 summer. He was a student at a university in Tokyo then, and returned to his seaside hometown in Niigata for ... (Wikipedia)
Queen Margot
by Alexandre Dumas
An epic tale of political and religious intrigue, filled with love and revenge.
The story begins in Paris in August 1572, during the reign of the Valois King Charles IX , it is the French Wars of Religion . The protagonist is Marguerite de Valois , better known as Margot, the ... (Wikipedia)
Heartstone
by C.J. Sansom
An historical mystery set in 1540s England, exploring the power of secrets and loyalty.
Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. He is ... (Goodreads)
Twenty Years After
by Alexandre Dumas
Musketeers reunite to battle political intrigue and enemies of the French crown.
'At this game, whoever does not kill is killed.' Twenty Years After (1845), the sequel to The Three Musketeers , is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure. Two decades have passed since ... (Goodreads)
The Lost World
by Arthur Conan Doyle
An expedition to a remote region of South America, filled with prehistoric creatures and danger.
Edward Malone, a young reporter for the Daily Gazette , asks his editor for a dangerous assignment to impress the woman he loves, Gladys, who wishes for a great man capable of brave deeds and ... (Wikipedia)
Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country
by Erich Maria Remarque
A refugee's struggle for survival in a world of turmoil and violence in 1930s Europe.
Set in 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two ... (Wikipedia)
Airport
by Arthur Hailey
An airport becomes a microcosm of human drama, revealing the stories of those who pass through its gates.
The story takes place at Lincoln International, a fictional Chicago airport based very loosely on O'Hare International Airport . The action mainly centers on Mel Bakersfeld, the Airport General ... (Wikipedia)
The Redbreast
by Jo Nesbø
Detective searches for clues to an elusive crime to find a killer terrorizing Oslo.
The Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole. A brilliant and epic novel, breathtaking in its scope and design—winner of The ... (Goodreads)
Ivanhoe
by Walter Scott
An epic tale of chivalry, heroism and romance set in 12th century England.
For this novel, Scott moved far away from the setting of his own turbulent time. He went back to the late 12th century, and to England rather than the Scottish settings of all his previous novels. He ... (Goodreads)
Child 44
by Tom Rob Smith
A gripping tale of a police detective's investigation of a series of child murders in Stalinist Russia.
MGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the ... (Goodreads)
Baudolino
by Umberto Eco
A medieval tale of adventure, deception and the search for truth.
In the year of 1204, Baudolino of Alessandria enters Constantinople , unaware of the Fourth Crusade that has thrown the city into chaos. In the confusion, he meets Niketas Choniates and saves his ... (Wikipedia)
Every Man Dies Alone
by Hans Fallada
A man and his wife struggle to resist Nazi oppression in 1940s Berlin.
Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword ... (Goodreads)
The Time of Contempt
by Andrzej Sapkowski
A young witcher's quest to unravel the mysteries surrounding the magical world of the Continent.
Following their secret conclave (in Blood of Elves ), the monarchs of the Northern Kingdoms are secretly preparing to create a pretext for war with Nilfgaard, not knowing that the Emperor of ... (Wikipedia)
Heart of a Dog
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A satirical story of a scientist who attempts to transform a stray dog into a human.
Moscow , 1924. While foraging for trash one winter day, a stray dog is found by a cook and scalded with boiling water. Lying forlorn in a doorway, the dog awaits his end awash in self-pity. To his ... (Wikipedia)
Shadow of the Giant
by Orson Scott Card
A revolution of conscience and courage, led by a man seeking justice in a dangerous world.
A belief is spreading in conquered China that the government has lost the Mandate of Heaven . Han Tzu meets up with Mazer Rackham , who passes him a blow dart pen, calling it the "Mandate of Heaven". ... (Wikipedia)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle
A detective's collection of cases, full of intrigue and suspense.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and ... (Goodreads)
The Quiet American
by Graham Greene
A journalist's exploration of a conflict between a French colonial regime and Vietnamese nationalists.
Thomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has covered the French war in Vietnam for more than two years. He meets a young American idealist named Alden Pyle, a CIA agent working ... (Wikipedia)
We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
A dystopian tale of a totalitarian state and its citizens' struggle for freedom.
A few hundred years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship Integral is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief ... (Wikipedia)
The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
A young boy's journey through a graveyard, learning the secrets of the dead.
The story begins as the man Jack murders most of the members of a family (later revealed to be the Dorian family) except for the toddler upstairs. Unknown to him, the toddler has climbed out of his ... (Wikipedia)
A Wild Sheep Chase
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery through fantasy, reality, and the unknown.
This quasi-detective tale follows an unnamed, chain-smoking narrator and his adventures in Tokyo and Hokkaido in 1978. The story begins when the recently divorced protagonist, an advertisement ... (Wikipedia)
