Recommendations based on Between the Actsby Virginia Woolf

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  1. The Waves

    by Virginia Woolf
    Inner musings of six characters in search of individual identity, expressed through the ebb and flow of the sea.

    The novel follows its six narrators from childhood through adulthood. Woolf is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together. Bernard ... (Wikipedia)

  2. To the Lighthouse

    by Virginia Woolf
    Exploration of the complexities of human relationships and family life.

    The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides , on the Isle of Skye . The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the ... (Wikipedia)

  3. The Voyage Out

    by Virginia Woolf
    A young woman's journey of self-discovery and awakening as she navigates through life, love, and loss.

    Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provide Woolf with ... (Wikipedia)

  4. Metamorphoses

    by Ovid
    A collection of tales of transformation, featuring gods and mortals.

    Prized through the ages for its splendor and its savage, sophisticated wit, The Metamorphoses is a masterpiece of Western culture–the first attempt to link all the Greek myths, before and after ... (Goodreads)

  5. The Aleph and Other Stories

    by Jorge Luis Borges
    A collection of stories featuring metaphysical and philosophical explorations of the human condition.

    Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges's most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight, he takes us inside the minds of an ... (Goodreads)

  6. The Return of the Native

    by Thomas Hardy
    A story of a man's ill-fated love, set against the wild landscape of rural England.

    The novel takes place entirely in the environs of Egdon Heath , and, with the exception of the epilogue, Aftercourses , covers exactly a year and a day. The narrative begins on the evening of Guy ... (Wikipedia)

  7. After the Quake

    by Haruki Murakami
    A collection of short stories exploring humanity in the wake of an earthquake.

    The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But ... (Goodreads)

  8. 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)

  9. 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)

  10. 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)

  11. Dream Country

    by Neil Gaiman
    A collection of short stories that explore the boundaries of dreams, reality, and fantasy.

    The third volume of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. In each of these otherwise unrelated stories, Morpheus serves only as a minor character. Here we meet the ... (Goodreads)

  12. 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)

  13. 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)

  14. Washington Square

    by Henry James
    A woman's struggle against the expectations of her society, in pursuit of her own happiness.

    The plot of Washington Square has the simplicity of old-fashioned melodrama: a plain-looking, good-hearted young woman, the only child of a rich widower, is pursued by a charming but unscrupulous man ... (Goodreads)

  15. The Fishermen

    by Chigozie Obioma
    Four Nigerian brothers' lives are forever changed after they encounter a local madman. A tale of family, tradition, and tragedy.

    Four brothers, Ikenna, Boja, Obembe, and Benjamin, begin to fish at the Omi-Ala river near their home in a quiet neighbourhood of the city of Akure in Nigeria , despite being forbidden from doing so ... (Wikipedia)

  16. 1Q84 #1-2

    by Haruki Murakami
    A surreal and magical story of two people trying to find each other amidst a strange alternate universe.

    The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, ... (Goodreads)

  17. Netherland

    by Joseph O'Neill
    A man's journey through grief, finding solace in the game of cricket.

    Netherland opens on protagonist Hans van den Broek, a Dutch financial analyst living in London with his English wife Rachel, but quickly flashes back to the years Hans spent in New York City before ... (Wikipedia)

  18. The Complete Poems 1927-1979

    by Elizabeth Bishop
    A lyrical exploration of life's moments, relationships, and nature.

    This study guide consists of approx. 36 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Complete Poems, 1927-1979. This ... (Barnes & Noble)

  19. 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)

  20. Ulysses

    by James Joyce
    Epic narrative following a day in the life of an Irishman living in Dublin.

    It is 8 a.m. Buck Mulligan , a boisterous medical student, calls Stephen Dedalus (a young writer encountered as the principal subject of, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ) up to the roof of ... (Wikipedia)

  21. Infinite Jest

    by David Foster Wallace
    A journey through the absurdist world of entertainment, drugs, addiction & death.

    There are four major interwoven narratives: , These narratives are connected via a film, Infinite Jest , also referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat ". The film is so ... (Wikipedia)

  22. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories

    by Leo Tolstoy
    A collection of short stories exploring human mortality and the power of morality.

    With an Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B.Cook Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He ... (Goodreads)

  23. Sons and Lovers

    by D.H. Lawrence
    A young man's struggle between his loyalty to his family and his desire for independence.

    The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family," Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner, Walter Morel, at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterised by physical ... (Wikipedia)

  24. Home

    by Marilynne Robinson
    A family's saga of tragedy and redemption, narrated in a lyrical and thought-provoking manner.

    Home parallels the story told in Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead. It is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and ... (Goodreads)

  25. High-Rise

    by J.G. Ballard
    In a high-rise building, social boundaries begin to break down as the inhabitants descend into chaos and violence.

    Following his divorce, doctor and medical-school lecturer Robert Laing moves into his new apartment on the 25th floor of a recently completed high-rise building on the outskirts of London. This tower ... (Wikipedia)

  26. The Children Act

    by Ian McEwan
    A family court judge must make a difficult decision between the law and her conscience.

    Fiona Maye is a respected High Court Judge specialising in Family Law and living in Gray's Inn Square. While reviewing a case, she is approached by her husband, Jack, who tells her that because of ... (Wikipedia)

  27. Season of Mists

    by Neil Gaiman
    A supernatural journey through various mythologies and realms, a quest to reclaim a lost soul.

    This collection begins with an Endless family meeting, wherein Desire taunts Morpheus about his intolerant treatment of a former lover, the African queen 'Nada' ("Nada" is "Nothing" in Spanish ), ... (Wikipedia)

  28. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction

    by J.D. Salinger
    Examination of family relationships, growing pains, and human connections.

    The author writes: The two long pieces in this book originally came out in The New Yorker ? RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS in 1955, SEYMOUR ? An Introduction in 1959. Whatever their differences ... (Goodreads)

  29. The Iliad

    by Homer
    Epic tale of the Trojan War, depicting heroism and tragedy.

    Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, ... (Goodreads)