Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Discomfort
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
by Sam Harris
An exploration of religion, its implications for our world and how it can be replaced with reason.
In The End of Faith , Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in ... (Goodreads)
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
by Carmen Maria Machado
Collection of surreal stories exploring the complexities of gender, sexuality and identity.
In Her Body and Other Parties , Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her ... (Goodreads)
Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert A. Heinlein
A human raised by Martians must find his place in a hostile Earth society.
The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post- Third World War United States, where organized religions are ... (Wikipedia)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by Tennessee Williams
A family struggling to confront hidden resentments and repressions that lurk beneath the surface.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband Brick and wife Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and their interaction with Brick's ... (Wikipedia)
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
by David Foster Wallace
Collection of stories exploring male relationships and the complexities of human behavior.
In his startling and singular new short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Venturing inside minds and ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Stories
by Flannery O'Connor
A collection of stories that explore aspects of the human condition through surreal and darkly comedic lenses.
This is the original cover edition of, ISBN: 0374515360, (ISBN13: 9780374515362 Winner of the National Book Award The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's ... (Goodreads)
The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception
by Emmanuel Carrère
A personal exploration of the life of a notorious criminal and the implications of his actions.
«Il 9 gennaio 1993 Jean-Claude Romand ha ucciso la moglie, i figli e i genitori, poi ha tentato di suicidarsi, ma invano. L'inchiesta ha rivelato che non era affatto un medico come sosteneva e, cosa ... (Goodreads)
In One Person
by John Irving
A coming-of-age story of a bisexual man fighting for acceptance in a world of intolerance.
A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual ... (Goodreads)
Evelina
by Frances Burney
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, navigating the world of high society.
The novel opens with a distressed letter from Lady Howard to her longtime acquaintance, the Reverend Arthur Villars, in which she reports that Mme (Madame) Duval, the grandmother of Villars' ward , ... (Wikipedia)
A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
Exploring imperial tensions between colonial India and Britain in the early 20th century.
A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India . Adela is to decide if she wants to marry Mrs. Moore's son, ... (Wikipedia)
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
by Michel Foucault
Examination of the changing attitudes towards mental illness over time and the implications of social control.
Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found, here,. Michel Foucault examines the archeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 – from the late Middle Ages, when insanity ... (Goodreads)
Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance
by Kelly Starrett
A comprehensive guide to improving athletic performance and preventing injuries through mobility exercises and proper movement mechanics.
Updated and expanded with more than 80 pages of new content! Improve your athletic performance, extend your athletic career, treat stiffness and achy joints, and prevent and rehabilitate injuries—all ... (Barnes & Noble)
Regarding the Pain of Others
by Susan Sontag
An exploration of the power and impact of photographic images of war and suffering.
Twenty-five years after her classic On Photography , Susan Sontag returns to the subject of visual representations of war and violence in our culture today. How does the spectacle of the sufferings ... (Goodreads)
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
by Nikolai Gogol
Collection of humorous and dark stories exploring the absurd and surreal.
Hailed by Nabokov as "the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced," Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) left his mark as a playwright, novelist, and writer of short stories. Gogol's works remain popular ... (Goodreads)
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?
by Roz Chast
A graphic memoir about a daughter's relationship with her aging parents.
The book's storyline, spanning an eight-year period from 2001 to 2009, concerns Roz Chast's parents living in Brooklyn . The book describes various interactions between Chast and her parents. Chast, ... (Wikipedia)
The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson
A small English town on the brink of World War I, as lives and loves intertwine.
The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love and war that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set. East Sussex, 1914. It is ... (Goodreads)
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes
Women of Greece uniting to end the Peloponnesian War through a sex strike.
These lines, spoken by the Athenian Lysistrata and her friend Calonice at the beginning of the play, , set the scene for the action that follows. Women, as represented by Calonice, are sly hedonists ... (Wikipedia)
Fear and Trembling
by Søren Kierkegaard
Philosophical essay exploring the importance of faith, and the human struggle for faith.
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious author interested in human psychology. He is regarded as a leading pioneer of existentialism and one of the greatest philosophers ... (Goodreads)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas S. Kuhn
An analysis of how scientific progress is made, and the role of paradigms and paradigmatic shifts.
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, ... (Goodreads)
Citizen: An American Lyric
by Claudia Rankine
Poetic exploration of racial injustice, highlighting the everyday experiences of racism.
A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting ... (Goodreads)
Everyone Poops
by Taro Gomi
A children's book that teaches that everyone, no matter who they are, poops.
Since we all eat, we all must poop. All of us! Everyone! This wonderful, modern-day toddler classic presents information that children both want and need in a refreshingly honest, informative, and ... (Goodreads)
Everything's Eventual
by Stephen King
A collection of short stories exploring the darker themes of life.
The first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nightmares & Dreamscapes nine years ago, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four ... (Goodreads)
What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]
by Zoë Heller
An intriguing tale of a manipulative teacher and a forbidden affair, told through a colleague's perspective.
Barbara, a veteran history teacher at a comprehensive school in London , is a lonely, unmarried woman in her early sixties, and she is eager to find a close friend. However, she reveals that she has ... (Wikipedia)
Cathedral
by Raymond Carver
An unexpected encounter changes a man's outlook on life and his relationships.
Raymond Carver’s third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. These ... (Goodreads)
In the Miso Soup
by Ryū Murakami
A tour guide leads a mysterious foreigner through the neon-lit nightlife of Tokyo.
Twenty-year-old Kenji is a Japanese "nightlife" guide for foreigners—he navigates, gaijin, men around the sex clubs and hostess bars of Tokyo . On December 29 he receives a phone call from an ... (Wikipedia)
The Violets of March
by Sarah Jio
A woman escapes to a small island to heal from a failed marriage and discovers a mysterious diary that changes her life forever.
A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2011 A heartbroken woman stumbled upon a diary and steps into the life of its anonymous author. In her twenties, Emily Wilson was on top of the world: she had a ... (Goodreads)
Homesick for Another World
by Ottessa Moshfegh
Collection of darkly humorous short stories probing the human condition.
«NO HI HA CAP HISTÒRIA QUE NO SIGUI ORIGINAL I ESTIGUI PERFECTAMENTCONSTRUÏDA. EL TALENT DE MOSHFEGH ÉS ÚNIC.» - NPR Si bé per les sevesnovel·les Ottessa Moshfegh ha rebut tota mena d'elogis i ... (Goodreads)
I Am Not Myself These Days
by Josh Kilmer-Purcell
A young man's journey of self-discovery and acceptance in an open relationship.
The New York Times bestselling, darkly funny memoir of a young New Yorker's daring dual life—advertising art director by day, glitter-dripping drag queen and nightclub beauty-pageant hopeful by ... (Goodreads)
Public Speaking for Success
by Dale Carnegie
A guide to improve public speaking skills, with practical tips and techniques to engage and persuade audiences.
Business, social and personal satisfaction depend heavily upon a person's ability to communicate clearly. Public speaking is an important skill which anyone can acquire and develop. It is also the ... (Barnes & Noble)
Tiger Eyes
by Judy Blume
A teenage girl's journey of healing and self-discovery in the aftermath of her father's death.
Davey Wexler, along with her mother, Gwen, and her little brother, Jason, have just attended the funeral of her father, Adam, who was shot to death in a holdup at their 7-Eleven convenience store in ... (Wikipedia)
The Wave
by Todd Strasser
A high school teacher's experiment to illustrate the dangers of authoritarianism spirals out of control.
The setting of the book is Gordon High School in Spring 1969. The plot revolves around a history teacher Mr. Ben Ross, his high school students, and an experiment he conducts in an attempt to teach ... (Wikipedia)
Fear and trembling
by Amélie Nothomb
A young woman's struggles to fit in at a job in Japan, exploring the cultural divide between East and West.
Amélie, a young Belgian woman who spent the first five years of her life in Japan , returns to Japan as a young adult, signing a one-year contract as a translator at the prestigious company Yumimoto. ... (Wikipedia)
Shame
by Salman Rushdie
Exploring the intricacies of identity and belonging in an ever-changing world.
This story takes place in a town called "Q" which is actually a fictitious version of Quetta, Pakistan . In Q, one of the three sisters (Chunni, Munnee, and Bunny Shakil) gives birth to Omar Khayyám ... (Wikipedia)
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
by Matt Ridley
Examines how evolutionary biology shapes human behavior and sexuality.
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass , a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for ... (Goodreads)
Oblomov
by Ivan Goncharov
A story of a man's struggle to break free from his life of stagnation and inactivity.
The novel focuses on the life of the main character, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. Oblomov is a member of the upper middle class and the son of a member of Russia's nineteenth-century landed gentry. Oblomov's ... (Wikipedia)
Fragments of Horror
by Junji Ito
A collection of short horror stories that will leave you feeling disturbed and unsettled.
The book is a collection of eight short stories: Prior to the publication of Fragments of Horror , Junji Ito had not written horror manga for eight years; his last published collection in the genre ... (Wikipedia)
The Melting
by Lize Spit
An exploration of the social and emotional complexities of being an adolescent in modern society.
This is an alternate cover edition for, 9789082410617, Wat als je wraak kunt nemen op een heel dorp? Dertien jaar na een zomer die volledig uit de hand liep, keert Eva terug naar haar geboortedorp ... (Goodreads)
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
by Robert D. Hare
Examination of psychopaths and their behaviors, and how to protect society from them.
Most people are both repelled and intrigued by the images of cold-blooded, conscienceless murderers that increasingly populate our movies, television programs, and newspaper headlines. With their ... (Goodreads)
Diary of a Provincial Lady
by E.M. Delafield
A humorous and satirical account of the daily life of a middle-class woman in rural England during the 1930s.
When Diary of a Provincial Lady was first published in 1930, critics on both sides of the Atlantic greeted it with enthusiasm. This charming, delightful and extremely funny book about daily life in a ... (Goodreads)
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