Here are 72 books that Don Quixote fans have personally recommended if you like
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Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by work and the ways that it organizes the rest of life. Mining is one of those activities that brings together economics, politics, gender, class, kinship, and cosmology in especially tight proximity. I am also fascinated by Latin America, a region where mining has been important for thousands of years. These interests led me to become an anthropologist specializing in mining in Mexico and Colombia. It has been my privilege to work in this area for over twenty-five years now, making lifelong friends, learning about their lives and struggles, and sharing that knowledge with students and readers.
I first read this book while I was conducting anthropological fieldwork in the mines of Guanajuato, Mexico. Even though the conditions in the mines I visited were somewhat better, and even though I was in silver and gold mines and not coal mines, I was amazed by the continuity in mining practices and the kinds of conflicts that emerge, such as the danger caused when miners are paid by the amount produced since they don’t want to take the time needed to support the tunnels with wooden timbering.
I also love that it includes descriptions of women and girls as mineworkers, which very few books about mining do.
Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted 'Germinal! Germinal!'. The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the community and eventually leads his fellow-miners in a strike protesting against pay-cuts - a strike which becomes a losing battle against starvation, repression, and sabotage. Yet despite all the violence and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations,…
I am the son of Irish rural immigrants who at the age of nearly eighty already occupies several vanished worlds myself: London in the 1950s and 60s, the old world of the European peasantry, and a time when the greatest war in human history was still a daily presence. I spent most of my life as an academic historian writing books for an academic audience. Then, to my surprise, at the tender age of seventy, I discovered that I could write prose that had a certain grace and dignity and which seemed to move people as well as inform them. So, I began a second career as what is called a “writer.”
Josef Roth is now recognized as one of the greatest German writers of the twentieth century. As a historian myself, I was entranced by reading it by the way in which the book catches the vast temporal arc of the transformation and then fall of a society that had for centuries been a major force in European history, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now forgotten, this was the world of Vienna’s great resplendence, then fall.
The story is told through the generational story of one family, the von Trottas. Impending loss is conveyed alongside great affection as a whole world is lost in the disasters of the First World War. The book was first published in English in 1933. In the words of another of Josef Roth’s books, “I was there,” which he was.
THE RADETSKY MARCH is subtle and touching study of family life at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Writing in the traditional form of the family saga, Roth nevertheless manages to bring to his story a completely individual manner which gives at the same time the detailed and intimate portrait of a life and the wider panorama of a failing dynasty. Not yet well known in English-speaking countries, Joseph Roth is one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, worthy to be bracketed with Musil and Kraus.
I think Zoroastrianism got it right: there's a constant knife-edge balance between good and evil, with neither quite winning; but we shouldn't be overconfident that one day that balance will tip to the bad side because that is always more dominant. Art in all forms has served dictators and tyrants as well as criticised them; few works have ever actually changed anything. If they have, it's been through literature most of all. Zola's 'j'accuse' and Sinclair's 'the jungle' are two obvious examples, but all the books I have chosen are powerful tools for self–examination, and as someone who is particularly interested in man's inhumanity to man I have found them useful.
I think this is a better book than MME Bovary. It's quite in the tradition of Marivaudage but Flaubert has such a light though ruthless touch that at times you just don't know where your sympathies lie. If Flaubert has been a surgeon he's have been an expert with the smallest, finest scalpels! His technique stands in great contrast to the work of Hugo and Zola, and he certainly outmanoeuvres Balzac! I often wish he'd written more, but what he's left us is pure gold. You might like to compare this book with Fontane's Effi Briest – another stunning novel–of–manners. I was hard put to it to make a choice between these two novels for my 4th choice.
"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation—or, more accurately, the history of their feelings," declared Gustave Flaubert, who envisioned "a book about love, about passion; but passion such as can exist nowadays—that is to say, inactive." First published in 1869, this novel fulfills Flaubert's conception with a realistic, ironic portrait of bourgeois lives played out against France's tumultuous revolution of 1848 and the founding of its Second Empire. Frédéric Moreau, a law student in Paris, dreams of achieving success in art, business, journalism, and politics. His aspirations take a romantic turn upon a chance…
Twelve-year-old supernatural sleuth Dotty Morgan becomes embroiled in an ancient conflict between rival Japanese factions, and the timing couldn't be worse. A new girl in town creates jealousy between Dotty and her girlfriend, and her mother invites a nightmare houseguest to stay with them. She must put the drama aside…
As a leader of mountaineering and field science programs, I learned that Mother Earth knows a thing or two about magic. When I see the magic of nature under attack, I have the same response as when witnessing a helpless person being bullied: I want to join the fight. As a writer, my most powerful weapons are my words. And the best use of my words is in the telling of riveting stories—that both entertain and educate—in defense of the wild.
Abby’s best novel is the primer, the bible, the fountainhead of fiction addressing the destruction of nature for profit. In this case, damming the Colorado River. In fact, “monkeywrenching,” as a verb defining an action in defense of nature, has a much broader current applicability thanks to Abbey’s novel.
'Revolutionary ... An extravagant, finely written tale of ecological sabotage' The New York Times
Audacious, controversial and hilarious, The Monkey Wrench Gang is Edward Abbey's masterpiece - a big, boisterous and unforgettable novel about freedom and commitment that ignited the flames of environmental activism.
Throughout the vast American West, nature is being vicitimized by a Big Government / Big Business conspiracy of bridges, dams and concrete. But a motley gang of individuals has decided that enough is enough. A burnt-out veteran, a mad doctor and a polygamist join forces in a noble cause: to dismantle the machinery of progress through…
I have always been drawn to the weird, fantastic, supernatural, and unexplained. Whether it’s film or TV (The Twilight Zone, the X-files, Ingmar Bergman) or gothic and speculative literature, I become mesmerized by the mysteries involved. I have written 10 books (poetry and fiction). Of the fiction, most is either speculative, as in magical realism, or somewhat gothic in nature. My newest novel, due out in 2025, is pure gothic and takes place in a haunted abbey inhabited by ghosts and the devil himself. And yet, behind it all is an exploration of human faith and frailty and a search for answers about our beliefs.
I love being taken to places I’ve never been before and being exposed to leaps in imagination. Marquez, the most famous of the school of magical realism, takes the reader on a journey through time and history in an unforgettable tale. The style of writing captures me in this book and has also influenced me. If you read no other book, read this one.
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Life is stories, man. Telling stories. Listening to stories. One day, somebody had the brilliant idea to start writing these stories down. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Trading yarns. Figuring things out. Reading and writing. I wrote my first story in middle school. My first novel in college. My first published novel (This Way Madness Lies) in my late twenties. Now it’s thirty years, twenty-five novels, fifty short stories, and three books of poetry later, and I’m still as obsessed with and passionate about storytelling as I was as a young buck backpacking around Europe with a notebook and a beat-up copy of Down and Out in London and Paris stuffed into my leather satchel.
I’m the youngest of six sons. Our father read this book aloud to each of us. By the time I came along, he’d had lots of practice. He had distinct voices for all the characters. I can still hear him doing Jim’s voice after Jim gets whacked by the rattlesnake. I had nightmares for a week.
Your grasp of reality is altered when you read Huck Finn as a kid. Twain sweeps you out onto the Mississippi, where you mentally, emotionally, and physically, yes, physically, endure the journey with Huck and Jim.
I didn’t realize until I read the novel years later that this book was the first to blow my mind. And what was I? Nine? Maybe ten?
Thanks, Dad!
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
I am passionate about the subject of suicide because I have lived with suicidal thinking all of my life, have made multiple suicide attempts, have lost loved ones to suicide, and have so many new friends who are survivors of suicide attempts. I am a philosophy professor and writer who spends a lot of his time thinking about the meaning of life, and reading other philosophers, writers, and thinkers who have taught us about the meaning of life. I think the Buddha is especially smart and helpful on this question, as are the existentialist philosophers.
If you only read one book by Dostoevsky, this should be the one. The psychiatrist who directed the Mayo Clinic’s mental health division for years often had his patients read all of Dostoevsky’s works.
The Idiot is about a truly innocent and good man, Prince Myshkin, who is thrust into the highest levels of Russian aristocratic society. Although he understands that deception is essential to thrive in this world, he refuses to give up his guilelessness.
He is always as honest as he can be with everyone around him, and as kind as he can be, and as caring as he can be (he is a Christ figure, also a child figure). This all turns out very badly, unsurprisingly, and results in heartbreak and murder.
There is no greater novel ever written for teaching us about the human capacity and need for human love, and the many obstacles we have…
Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction and Notes by Agnes Cardinal, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent.
Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection and Dostoevsky's own views, afflictions and manners. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh indictment of…
The worst of all deceptions, said Plato, is self-deception. Perhaps it is also the most common. I'm fascinated by the human capacity to believe nonsense, and also by the power of satire to weaken twaddle’s hold on us. As a political science professor, and as a political speechwriter, I often used humor to expose sloppy thinking, debunk untruths, and open minds. Especially today, satire is one of the best ways to show the high price we pay for our delusions. Satire alone will not end our collective folly, but laughing at rather than denying what we're doing to the natural environment can be a step on the road to change.
Candide is wonderful for many reasons, but above all because it is an equal opportunity parody.
Voltaire spares no one as he spoofs the usual suspects, such as religion, colonialism, and the nobility, but also the Enlightenment’s excessive optimism, philosophical speculation, and rationalism. Voltaire’s greatest setups are favored upon young Candide’s mentor, Dr. Pangloss who, in the face of every monstrous, absurd tragedy that befalls Candide, insists that all is well in this “best of all possible worlds.”
I also love that this crazy, tragic farce ends with a cautiously optimistic invitation to “cultivate our garden,” – to leave philosophical speculation to the philosophers, and instead to focus on concrete efforts to make the world a better place
Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.
A classic work of eighteenth century literature, Candide is Voltaire's fast-paced novella of struggle and adventure that used satire as a form of social critique. Candide enlists the help of his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, to help him reunite with his estranged lover, Lady Cunegonde. But the journey welcomes many unexpected challenges, and overcoming or outwitting the…
Life is stories, man. Telling stories. Listening to stories. One day, somebody had the brilliant idea to start writing these stories down. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Trading yarns. Figuring things out. Reading and writing. I wrote my first story in middle school. My first novel in college. My first published novel (This Way Madness Lies) in my late twenties. Now it’s thirty years, twenty-five novels, fifty short stories, and three books of poetry later, and I’m still as obsessed with and passionate about storytelling as I was as a young buck backpacking around Europe with a notebook and a beat-up copy of Down and Out in London and Paris stuffed into my leather satchel.
I first discovered this book as a kid in my early twenties. It was the first novel to really blow my mind, to make me realize just how powerful the written word could be, how simple words on a page could so entirely engage the senses. It was, I tell you, an epiphany.
Loggers in Oregon. A union strike. A stubborn, independent family. Nothing was complex about the plot, but the characters stepped out of the book and wandered around my bedroom like I’d taken hallucinogens. Their attitudes and emotions poured out from between the covers. The growl of chainsaws filled my ears, and the smell of gasoline filled my nostrils. Grease and woodchips somehow found their way under my fingernails.
The magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sailor Song is a wild-spirited and hugely powerful tale of an Oregon logging clan.
A bitter strike is raging in a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers: Henry, the fiercely vital and overpowering patriarch; Hank, the son who has spent his life trying to live up to his father; and Viv, who fell in love with Hank's exuberant machismo but now finds it wearing thin. And then there is Leland, Henry's bookish younger…
I am a retired university professor who taught creative writing at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, and a not-yet-retired author, although I have on several occasions solemnly stated that I have written my last prose book. I believe these two qualities make me competent to create a list of 5 books that I have reread the most often.
I first read this book exactly 50 years ago, back in 1974, when I was 26. Ever since then, I have reread Jaroslav Hašek's masterpiece every single year, always in February. It is the gloomiest month of the year in Europe when our tonus is at its lowest, and we desperately need something to cheer us up.
The hilarious story of the good soldier is precisely that “injection” of optimism, serenity, élan vital that helps me make it through the last winter months till the arrival of the Spring. Although I already know by heart many passages from Svejk, I still laugh aloud while reading them—reading about the instinctive wisdom of an ordinary, small Czech man trying to comically outsmart the demonic forces of History…
The inspiration for such works as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jaroslav Hasek's black satire The Good Soldier Svejk is translated with an introduction by Cecil Parrott in Penguin Classics.
Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk becomes the Austro-Hungarian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards, getting drunk and becoming a general nuisance, the resourceful Svejk uses all his natural cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the doctors, police, clergy and officers…
