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Recommendations based on Patriaby Fernando Aramburu
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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)
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)
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)
A Heart So White
by Javier Marías
A family's secrets and lies unfold through a young man's investigation of his father's past.
The narrator, Juan, seeks to use his newly-wed wife, Luisa, to uncover the murky past of his father's previous marriages which include (aside from Juan's mother) two other women. The first of these ... (Wikipedia)
Blindness
by José Saramago
A society is plunged into chaos when everyone suddenly loses their sight.
Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Baltasar and Blimunda
by José Saramago
A forbidden love story set against the backdrop of 1700s Portugal and its Inquisition.
From the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, a “brilliant...enchanting novel” (New York Times Book Review) of romance, deceit, religion, and magic set in eighteenth-century Portugal at ... (Goodreads)
Captain Alatriste
by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
A swashbuckling adventure set in 17th century Spain, following the exploits of Captain Alatriste and his band of mercenaries.
It is the height of Spain's celebrated golden century - but beyond the walls of the Royal Palace there is little on the streets of Madrid that glitters. The Invincible Armada has been defeated. The ... (Goodreads)
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)
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)
Invisible
by Paul Auster
A man's life is turned upside down when he receives a mysterious letter from a stranger. He embarks on a journey to uncover the truth about his past.
The first section, titled "Spring" and told in first person , chronicles the entanglement of Columbia University student Adam Walker with French political science professor Rudolf Born, who meet in ... (Wikipedia)
The Book of Illusions
by Paul Auster
A grieving professor is transported on a journey of the past, unlocking secrets of his deceased wife.
Six months after losing his wife and two young sons, Vermont Professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then one night, he stumbles upon a clip ... (Goodreads)
Nutshell
by Ian McEwan
A unique retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet, from the perspective of an unborn child.
Nutshell is a classic story of murder and deceit, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true ... (Goodreads)
All This I Will Give to You
by Dolores Redondo
A man's life is turned upside down when his husband dies and he inherits a family estate in Galicia, Spain.
The award-winning, international bestselling page-burner about the secrets and lies of one man that lead another into a treacherous house of strangers… When novelist Manuel Ortigosa learns that his ... (Goodreads)
Silk
by Alessandro Baricco
Adventure of a 19th century French trader who travels to Japan to find rare silkworm eggs.
The novel tells the story of a French silkworm merchant-turned-smuggler named Hervé Joncour in 19th century France who travels to Japan for his town's supply of silkworms after a disease wipes out ... (Wikipedia)
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
by Elena Ferrante
Two friends navigate the changing relationships of their youth and adulthood, and the consequences of their choices.
In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila, the two girls whom readers first met in My Brilliant Friend, have become women. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her abusive ... (Goodreads)
Inés of My Soul
by Isabel Allende
A historical novel of a woman's struggles and triumphs in colonial Latin America.
This historial novel is about the main facts of the life of Inés (an important figure in Chile), written in older Ines' first-person voice, with its intended audience to be Ines' adoptive daughter, ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Prisoner of Heaven
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A man's mysterious past entangles him in a web of secrets, love and revenge.
Daniel Sempere has settled into married life well and his son is shortly turning one year old. He is living above the family bookshop, Sempere & Sons with his elderly father, his wife Beatriz and son ... (Wikipedia)
Portnoy's Complaint
by Philip Roth
A young Jewish man's exploration of his own identity and the nature of his relationships.
The famous confession of Alexander Portnoy, who is thrust through life by his unappeasable sexuality, yet held back at the same time by the iron grip of his unforgettable childhood. Hilariously ... (Goodreads)
The Feast of the Goat
by Mario Vargas Llosa
A political thriller exploring a dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
The novel's narrative is divided into three distinct strands. One is centred on Urania Cabral, a fictional Dominican character; another deals with the conspirators involved in Trujillo's ... (Wikipedia)
The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq
Story of two half-brothers, exploring the depths of humanity and the emptiness of modern life.
Despite the essentially elaborate scope of the plot revealed in the novel's conclusion, the narrative focuses almost exclusively on the bleak and unrewarding day-to-day lives of the protagonists, two ... (Wikipedia)
Benediction
by Kent Haruf
A story of compassion and redemption in a small Colorado town.
When Dad Lewis is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and his wife must work together, along with their daughter, to make his final days as comfortable as possible, despite the bitter absence of their ... (Goodreads)
The Physician
by Noah Gordon
An orphan's quest to become a doctor in 11th century Europe.
It is the year 1020. Rob Cole is the eldest of many children. His father is a Joiner in the Guild of Carpenters in London. His mother, Agnes Cole, is his father's wife. Robert has a particular Gift: ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink
A man's journey of understanding, uncovering a dark secret from his past.
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of ... (Goodreads)
The Story of a New Name
by Elena Ferrante
Two young women's search for identity and independence in a patriarchal society.
In 2012, Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New ... (Goodreads)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
by Peter Cameron
A coming-of-age story of a teenage boy struggling to cope with change and life's struggles.
James Sveck, 18, is an isolated young adult caught in the summer before he is to begin college at Brown University . The only person in his life with whom he is able to successfully relate is his ... (Wikipedia)
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)
