Recommendations based on Hot Water Musicby Charles Bukowski

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  1. Ham on Rye

    by Charles Bukowski
    A semi-autobiographical novel following a young man's struggles with poverty, violence and mental illness.

    The novel focuses on the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, between the years of 1920 and 1941. , It begins with Chinaski's early memories. As the story progresses the reader follows his life through the ... (Wikipedia)

  2. Women

    by Charles Bukowski
    A collection of stories exploring the lives of various women and their relationships with men.

    Women focuses on the many dissatisfactions Chinaski faced with each new woman he encountered. One of the women featured in the book is a character named Lydia Vance; she is based on Bukowski's ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Factotum

    by Charles Bukowski
    A portrait of a struggling writer, seeking solace in alcohol and women.

    Set in the 1940s, the plot follows Henry Chinaski , Bukowski's perpetually unemployed, alcoholic alter ego , who has been rejected from the World War II draft and makes his way from one menial job to ... (Wikipedia)

  4. Ask the Dust

    by John Fante
    A young writer's journey of self-discovery in 1930s Los Angeles.

    Ask the Dust is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young Italian-American writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to ... (Goodreads)

  5. Wait Until Spring, Bandini

    by John Fante
    An Italian-American family struggles to make ends meet in a small farming community in the 1930s.

    The film follows the Bandini family as they struggle through hard times in 1920s Colorado . Unemployed and broke, Svevo Bandini ( Joe Mantegna ) tries to come up with the money his family needs to ... (Wikipedia)

  6. Tropic of Cancer

    by Henry Miller
    A young writer's journey of self-exploration in Paris, confronting life, love and lust.

    Now hailed as an American classic Tropic of Cancer , Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a ... (Goodreads)

  7. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

    by Hunter S. Thompson
    A wild and hallucinatory journey through the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas.

    The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke ( Hunter S. Thompson ) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo ( Oscar Zeta Acosta ), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 ... (Wikipedia)

  8. Steppenwolf

    by Hermann Hesse
    The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.

    The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)

  9. The Dharma Bums

    by Jack Kerouac
    A journey of self-discovery, fueled by a passion for Buddhism and nature.

    The character Japhy drives Ray Smith's story, whose penchant for simplicity and Zen Buddhism influenced Kerouac on the eve of the sudden and unpredicted success of, On the Road, . The action shifts ... (Wikipedia)

  10. On the Road

    by Jack Kerouac
    A young man's journey across America, seeking adventure and freedom.

    The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Sal Paradise, and his friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense of adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to ... (Wikipedia)

  11. Nine Stories

    by J.D. Salinger
    Nine short stories of insight into the human condition and its mysteries.

    Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger published in April 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for ... (Goodreads)

  12. Choke

    by Chuck Palahniuk
    A darkly humorous story of a man's journey to self-awareness through disruption and chaos.

    Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. , Victor had grown up moving from one foster home ... (Wikipedia)

  13. The Idiot

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    A man's struggle to find his place in society, and the moral dilemmas he faces.

    Prince Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties and a descendant of one of the oldest Russian lines of nobility, is on a train to Saint Petersburg on a cold November morning. He is returning to ... (Wikipedia)

  14. The Subterraneans

    by Jack Kerouac
    A young man's search for love and acceptance in a world of cultural and racial tensions.

    Jack Kerouac, one of the great voices of the Beat generation and author of the classic On the Road , here continues his peregrinations in postwar, underground San Francisco. "The subterraneans" come ... (Goodreads)

  15. Naked Lunch

    by William S. Burroughs
    Surrealist exploration of addiction, delusions, and reality.

    Naked Lunch is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the ... (Wikipedia)

  16. Tropic of Capricorn

    by Henry Miller
    A controversial and candid look into the author's tumultuous personal life in 1920s and 1930s New York.

    The novel covers Miller's growing inability and outright refusal to accommodate what he sees as America's hostile environment. It is autobiographical but not chronological, jumping between Miller's ... (Wikipedia)

  17. Junky

    by William S. Burroughs
    A gritty, autobiographical account of a man's descent into the underworld of addiction.

    Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch , an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky , his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an ... (Goodreads)

  18. Waiting for Godot

    by Samuel Beckett
    Two men wait for a mysterious figure who never arrives, reflecting on their lives and existence.

    Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, have met near a leafless tree. Estragon spent the previous night lying in a ditch and receiving a beating from some unnamed assailants. The two men discuss a variety ... (Wikipedia)

  19. 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)

  20. The Fall

    by Albert Camus
    A man's journey into alienation and despair, driven by a sense of absurdity in life.

    The Fall, ( French :, La Chute, ) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus . First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam , The Fall consists of a series of ... (Wikipedia)

  21. The Clown

    by Heinrich Böll
    A young man's reflective journey through post-war Germany, exploring the consequences of war.

    Hans Schnier is the "Clown" of the novel's title. He is twenty-seven years old from a very wealthy family. At the beginning of the story he arrives in Bonn, Germany. As a clown, he had to travel ... (Wikipedia)

  22. The Baron in the Trees

    by Italo Calvino
    A young boy's journey of self-discovery as he lives among the trees, away from society.

    A landmark new translation of a Calvino classic, a whimsical, spirited novel that imagines a life lived entirely on its own terms Cosimo di Rondó, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, ... (Barnes & Noble)

  23. 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)

  24. Notes from Underground

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    A portrait of the struggles of a troubled man, exploring his inner turmoil.

    The novel is divided into two parts. Serving as an introduction into the mind of the narrator, the first part of Notes from Underground is split into nine chapters: The narrator observes that utopian ... (Wikipedia)

  25. A Coney Island of the Mind

    by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
    A collection of poems exploring human experience and the beauty of nature.

    The title of this book is taken from Henry Miller's "Into the Night Life" and expresses the way Lawrence Ferlinghetti felt about these poems when he wrote them during a short period in the 1950's—as ... (Goodreads)

  26. The Sorrows of Young Werther

    by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    A young man's struggle to reconcile his intense emotions with the realities of society.

    This is Goethe's first novel, published in 1774. Written in diary form, it tells the tale of an unhappy, passionate young man hopelessly in love with Charlotte, the wife of a friend - a man who he ... (Goodreads)

  27. The Sun Also Rises

    by Ernest Hemingway
    A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.

    On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)

  28. 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)

  29. Cannery Row

    by John Steinbeck
    An exploration of the lives of the inhabitants of a small town in California.

    Cannery Row has a simple premise: Mack and his friends are trying to do something nice for their friend Doc, who has been good to them without asking for reward. Mack hits on the idea that they ... (Wikipedia)

  30. 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)