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Recommendations based on All's Well That Ends Wellby William Shakespeare
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Twelfth Night
by William Shakespeare
An intertwined story of mistaken identity, love, and hilarity in a world of deception.
Named for the twelfth night after Christmas, the end of the Christmas season, Twelfth Night plays with love and power. The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) ... (Goodreads)
The Merchant of Venice
by William Shakespeare
A tale of justice, mercy, and revenge, a struggle between religious and secular law.
Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful and wealthy heiress Portia of Belmont. Having squandered his estate, he needs 3,000 ducats to subsidise his expenditures as a ... (Wikipedia)
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)
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
A woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and present in a post-war New Orleans.
After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , ... (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)
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)
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)
The Three Sisters
by Anton Chekhov
Three sisters longing for a life beyond their small provincial town, exploring themes of family and love.
First performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, The Three Sisters probes the lives and dreams of Olga, Masha, and Irina, former Muscovites now living in a provincial town from which they long to ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon
A surreal journey of uncovering the truth of a mysterious organization.
In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in the (fictional) northern Californian village of Kinneret, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless radio jockey , ... (Wikipedia)
Prometheus Bound
by Aeschylus
Prometheus, a Titan, is punished by Zeus for giving fire to humans. He is chained to a rock and tormented by various gods.
For readers accustomed to the relatively undramatic standard translations of Prometheus Bound , this version by James Scully, a poet and winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize, and C. John Herington, one ... (Goodreads)
The Unconsoled
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A surreal and dreamlike exploration of a man's inner self and his search for purpose.
Ryder, a renowned pianist, arrives in a Central European city he cannot identify for a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. But then as he traverses a landscape by turns eerie and comical – ... (Goodreads)
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
by Heinrich Böll
A young woman's fight for justice against an oppressive media, and the consequences of civil disobedience.
Four days after a Weiberfastnacht 's eve party (Wed. 20 February 1974), where Katharina Blum met a man named Ludwig Götten, she calls on Oberkommissar Moeding and confesses to killing a journalist ... (Wikipedia)
Extras
by Scott Westerfeld
A young girl's fight to win a place in society, challenging the status quo.
A few years after rebel Tally Youngblood takes down the Specials regime, a cultural renaissance sweeps the world. “Tech-heads” flaunt their latest gadgets, “kickers” spread gossip and trends, and ... (Goodreads)
Girl in Translation
by Jean Kwok
A young immigrant girl's struggles to keep up academically and financially in the US.
Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, an inspiring debut about an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from ... (Goodreads)
Moll Flanders
by Daniel Defoe
A woman's story of survival and redemption, confronting the harsh realities of life in 18th century England.
Moll's mother is a convict in Newgate Prison in London who is given a reprieve by " pleading her belly ," a reference to the custom of staying the executions of pregnant criminals. Her mother is ... (Wikipedia)
Adam Bede
by George Eliot
A carpenter, Adam Bede, falls in love with a beautiful woman, Hetty Sorrel, who is in love with another man. Tragedy ensues.
According to, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, (1967), The novel follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral, and close-knit community in ... (Wikipedia)
In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust
An exploration of memory, identity and loss of innocence, through the narrator's journey of self-discovery.
On the surface a traditional "Bildungsroman" describing the narrator’s journey of self-discovery, this huge and complex book is also a panoramic and richly comic portrait of France in the author’s ... (Goodreads)
Our Town
by Thornton Wilder
A story of life in a small town, exploring the beauty and brevity of ordinary moments.
Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has ... (Goodreads)
The Portrait of a Lady
by Henry James
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, standing up to society's expectations.
Isabel Archer, from Albany, New York , is invited by her maternal aunt, Lydia Touchett, to visit Lydia's rich husband, Daniel, at his estate near London, following the death of Isabel's father. ... (Wikipedia)
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A butler reflects on his past, grappling with the lost opportunities of a life devoted to service.
The novel tells, in first-person narration , the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (who is recently deceased, and whom Stevens ... (Wikipedia)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
Blue van Meer navigates her senior year at an eccentric school, uncovering secrets and tragedies along the way.
Blue van Meer is a film-obsessed, erudite teenager. She is the daughter of itinerant and arrogant academic Gareth van Meer, who, after the death of his amateur lepidopteran-catching wife (and Blue's ... (Wikipedia)
Medea
by Euripides
Tragedy of a woman's vengeful wrath against her husband and his family.
One of the most powerful and enduring of Greek tragedies, Medea centers on the myth of Jason, leader of the Argonauts, who has won the dragon-guarded treasure of the Golden Fleece with the help of ... (Goodreads)
Specials
by Scott Westerfeld
A thrilling adventure story about a group of teenagers with superhuman abilities.
The third novel in the Uglies series begins two months after events in Pretties, when Tally Youngblood has become a member of an elite group of "Specials" - surgically enhanced super-humans - called ... (Wikipedia)
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
A grim tale of a Victorian industrial city, highlighting its struggles of poverty, injustice and strife.
"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas ... (Goodreads)
Les Liaisons dangereuses
by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
An intricate game of love, lust and manipulation as two rival aristocrats scheme to outwit one another.
The Vicomte de Valmont is determined to seduce the virtuous, married, and therefore inaccessible Madame de Tourvel, who is staying with Valmont's aunt while her husband is away on a court case. At ... (Wikipedia)
Stardust
by Neil Gaiman
A fantastical journey of discovery, romance and adventure in a magical world.
On the outskirts of Wall, a small town in rural England, the Faerie Market is held every nine years on the other side of the wall dividing Faerie — a mystical realm of magic — from our world and for ... (Wikipedia)
The Red and the Black
by Stendhal
A young man's ambitious rise in 19th century French society, as he navigates through its politics and passions.
In two volumes,, The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the 19th Century, tells the story of Julien Sorel's life in France's rigid social structure restored after the disruptions of the French ... (Wikipedia)
The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
A governess confronts her fears and doubts about a mysterious and sinister presence in her employer's home.
On Christmas Eve, an unnamed narrator and some of their friends are gathered around a fire. One of them, Douglas, reads a manuscript written by his sister's late governess . The manuscript tells the ... (Wikipedia)
