Others: Positive This novel, supposedly based on the life of an acquaintance of Maugham, follows the fortunes of an American pilot who, traumatized by war, rejects his former conventional life to search for a more meaningful existence. After studying in Paris for two years he decides to travel, taking various menial jobs. Although being influenced by some of the people he meets it is not until he reaches India that he begins to find peace.
Lists: …
James Baldwin
1956 · 224 pages · 10 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveConsidered an 'audacious' second novel, GIOVANNI'S ROOM is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.
What made the match, strongest first
Jules Verne
1988 · 224 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveA man makes a bet that he can travel the world in 80 days.
What made the match, strongest first
Annie Ernaux
1993 · 96 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveA collection of stories set in Paris. One is on the attitude of the inhabitants to the street people, another is on the daily commute into Paris from dormitory cities, a third is on the queer characters in the metro.
What made the match, strongest first
Henry Miller
1934 · 321 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveA stream-of-consciousness story of a poverty-stricken young American, living in Paris.
Emily Brontë
1846 · 312 pages · 32 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveWuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with Earnshaw's adopted son, Heathcliff. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction.
What made the match, strongest first
Sally Rooney
2018 · 273 pages · 26 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveAt school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itthis will make you want to book the next flight to Paris it follows a bunch of people who ultimately realize that their goals and aspirations whether that's marriage or wealth or notoriety or spiritual enlightenment maybe won't actually bring them fulfillment and satisfaction in the end and you know that's a gross simplification of what this book is about but it is brilliant so I like it a lot.
