Books like

Books like Alcestis

12 books with a reading profile close to Alcestis by Euripides. Deep, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Songs of innocence and of experience

by William Blake

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

William Blake’s hand-colored collection contrasts two differing states of the human soul.
2

Eugene Onegin

by Alexander Pushkin

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse follows Eugene Onegin, a cynical aristocrat weary of Saint Petersburg’s high society.
3

Fathers and Sons

by Ivan Turgenev

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

Arkady Kirsanov returns from university to his father's estate in 1859, bringing his friend Yevgeny Bazarov, a medical student and self-declared nihilist who rejects authority, art, and tradition.
4

Island

by Aldous Huxley

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

The story follows Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who shipwrecks on the forbidden Pacific island of Pala.
5

Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

After receiving a prophecy from three witches that he will become King of Scotland, a general named Macbeth murders King Duncan to seize the throne.
6

Death in Venice

by Thomas Mann

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

Gustav von Aschenbach, a disciplined German writer who has prioritized rigorous intellect over sensory pleasure, travels to Venice to escape a creative drought.
7

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Duke Vincentio departs Vienna under a pretext of travel, leaving the puritanical Angelo to enforce long-ignored moral laws.
8

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

A magistrate runs a small frontier town in an unnamed empire.
9

The Wall

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Sartre's collection takes its name from the title story, set during the Spanish Civil War.
10

Poems by John Keats

by John Keats

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

John Keats’s debut collection, published in March 1817 rather than 1800, organizes lyrical meditations on the restorative capacity of the natural world and the permanence of classical mythology.
11

Medea

by Euripides

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Euripides depicts the psychological collapse and subsequent vengeance of Medea, a Colchian princess abandoned by her husband, Jason.
12

The Tartar Steppe

by Dino Buzzati

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

Giovanni Drogo, a young officer, is posted to the Bastiani Fortress, an isolated outpost on the northern frontier overlooking a barren plain.

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