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Recommendations based on The Water-Method Manby John Irving
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The Hotel New Hampshire
by John Irving
A family's uproarious journey of growth and transformation, set in a series of hotels.
This novel is the story of the Berrys, a quirky New Hampshire family composed of a married couple, Win and Mary, and their five children, Frank, Franny, John, Lilly, and Egg. The parents, both from ... (Wikipedia)
The World According to Garp
by John Irving
A humorous and heart-wrenching journey of life, love and literature.
This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a ... (Goodreads)
Setting Free the Bears
by John Irving
Two young men release the animals from the Vienna Zoo, embarking on a journey of self-discovery and rebellion.
The book's central plot concerns a plan to liberate all the animals from the Vienna Zoo , as happened just after the conclusion of World War II . Irving's two protagonists—Graff, a young Austrian ... (Wikipedia)
Kill Decision
by Daniel Suarez
A thrilling techno-thriller about autonomous drones and the race to control them. Fast-paced and action-packed.
The book opens with a video feed from predator drones in Karbala , Iraq, where it is observed that an unmarked drone with American colors fires a missile on the dense crowd during a religious ... (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)
The Music of Chance
by Paul Auster
Two men's struggle for survival in a world of wealth and privilege.
Jim Nashe is a fireman with a two-year-old daughter and wife who has just left him. Knowing he cannot work and raise a child at the same time, he sends her to live with his sister. Six months of ... (Wikipedia)
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
by T.S. Eliot
Collection of whimsical poems about cats, each one unique in its own way.
These loveable cat poems were written by T.S. Eliot for his godchildren and friends in the thirties. They have delighted generations of children since, and inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber's brilliant ... (Goodreads)
Death of Kings
by Bernard Cornwell
A historical epic of betrayal, revenge, and redemption set during the war-torn Middle Ages.
It is 899 AD. Alfred the Great is dying. Rivals for his throne are poised to tear his kingdom apart. Uhtred, a Saxon who has been raised by a Danish warlord, wants more than anything else to go and ... (Wikipedia)
The Brooklyn Follies
by Paul Auster
An aging man's journey of self-discovery, revealing the beauty and complexity of life.
60-year-old Nathan Glass returns to Brooklyn after his wife has left him. He is recovering from lung cancer and is looking for "a quiet place to die". In Brooklyn he meets his nephew , Tom, whom he ... (Wikipedia)
The Swarm
by Frank Schätzing
A thrilling tale of a giant creature from the deep wreaking havoc on a world unprepared.
The book follows an ensemble of protagonists who are investigating what at first appear to be freak events related to the world's oceans . The book has several sub-plots and will occasionally follow ... (Wikipedia)
Homo Faber
by Max Frisch
A middle-aged engineer's rational worldview is challenged when he embarks on a journey of self-discovery and falls in love with a young woman.
Walter Faber is an emotionally detached engineer forced by a string of coincidences to embark on a journey through his past. The basis for director Volker Schlšndorff’s movie Voyager . Translated by ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Plague
by Albert Camus
A small town in Algeria is struck by a deadly plague, testing the courage and faith of its citizens.
The book begins with an epigraph quoting Daniel Defoe , author of, A Journal of the Plague Year, . In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the ... (Wikipedia)
The Kindly Ones
by Jonathan Littell
A former Nazi officer's reminiscences of World War II and his role in the Holocaust.
The book is a fictional autobiography, describing the life of Maximilien Aue, a former officer in the SS who, decades later, tells the story of a crucial part of his life when he was an active member ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Then We Came to the End
by Joshua Ferris
A satirical take on office life, exploring the relationships and dynamics of a group of coworkers facing layoffs.
This wickedly funny, big-hearted novel about life in the office signals the arrival of a gloriously talented new writer. The characters in Then We Came To The End cope with a business downturn in the ... (Goodreads)
The Lords of Discipline
by Pat Conroy
A young man's struggle to survive the brutal hazing rituals of a Southern military college.
Will McLean, returning to the Carolina Military Institute in Charleston, South Carolina an unknown number of years after his graduation, tells the story of his life at the Institute. In 1966, Will ... (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)
The Nest
by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Four adult siblings anxiously await their inheritance, but a family crisis threatens to unravel their plans and relationships.
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives. Every family has its problems. But ... (Goodreads)
Asylum
by Patrick McGrath
A psychiatrist falls in love with a patient in a decaying mental institution, leading to a spiral of obsession and madness.
A beautiful woman, Stella Raphael, lives an unimaginative family life: she runs the household and takes care of her son Charlie while her husband Max works as a deputy superintendent at a maximum ... (Wikipedia)
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
by Paulo Coelho
A woman reunites with her childhood love and embarks on a spiritual journey to discover her true self and purpose in life.
From Paulo Coelho, author of the bestselling The Alchemist , comes a poignant, richly poetic story that reflects the depth of love and life. Rarely does adolescent love reach its full potential, but ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Girls
by Emma Cline
An exploration of the dark side of teenagehood, as a young girl is drawn into a cult.
Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their ... (Goodreads)
Our Souls at Night
by Kent Haruf
An elderly couple's exploration of love, loneliness, and companionship.
A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future. In ... (Goodreads)
Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
by Thomas Mann
A story of a family's decline, tracing four generations of a wealthy German family.
In 1835, the wealthy and respected Buddenbrooks, a family of grain merchants, invite their friends and relatives to dinner in their new home in Lübeck , Germany . The family consists of patriarch ... (Wikipedia)
The Prince of Tides
by Pat Conroy
A man's search for solace and understanding in his troubled family's past.
Tom Wingo is a middle-aged man with a wife and three young daughters who has recently lost his job as a high school English teacher and football coach. He learns that his twin sister, Savannah, has ... (Wikipedia)
Salomé
by Oscar Wilde
A retelling of the Biblical story of a young woman's defiance and seductive power.
Outraged by the sexual perversity of this one-act tragedy, Great Britain's Lord Chamberlain banned Salomé from the national stage. Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice ... (Goodreads)
Johnny Got His Gun
by Dalton Trumbo
A young soldier's harrowing journey through physical and psychological trauma of WWI.
Joe Bonham, a young American soldier serving in World War I , awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell . He gradually realizes that he has lost his ... (Wikipedia)
After Dark
by Haruki Murakami
A night in Tokyo filled with mysterious events and surreal encounters.
Set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night, characters include Mari Asai, a 19-year-old student, who is spending the night reading in a Denny's . There she meets Takahashi Tetsuya, a ... (Wikipedia)
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)
