Books like At the Back of the North Wind
12 books with a reading profile close to At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald. Deep, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
Grendel
by John Gardner
Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary
Grendel is told from the point of view of the monster from the Old English poem Beowulf.
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2
Till We Have Faces
by C.S. Lewis
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
In this reimagining of the Cupid and Psyche myth, Orual, the queen of Glome, writes a legalistic grievance against the gods.
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3
The Farthest Shore
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
In Earthsea, magic is failing as equilibrium gives way to a sterile void.
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4
Earthsea
philosophy, literary
In the archipelago of Earthsea, magic functions through the knowledge of True Names, which grant a sorcerer command over objects and living things.
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5
The Road Not Taken and Other Poems
by Robert Frost
Also contemplative · philosophy, literary
Robert Frost’s 1916 collection, originally titled Mountain Interval, centers on the rural landscapes and social dynamics of New England.
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6
The power and the Glory
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
Set in 1930s Mexico during the Cristero War, the narrative follows a nameless whiskey priest fleeing a paramilitary police force.
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7
Il visconte dimezzato
Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary
During a war against the Turks in Bohemia, a young nobleman, Viscount Medardo of Terralba, is split down the middle by a cannonball.
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8
Antigone
by Jean Anouilh
Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary
Jean Anouilh's play, first staged in occupied Paris in 1944, retells Sophocles.
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9
The Razor’s Edge
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
Larry Darrell returns to Chicago from the battlefields of World War I, but find himself unable to settle into a conventional social life or a marriage with his fiancée, Isabel Bradley.
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10
The Old Man and the Sea
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
Set in a small Cuban fishing village in 1952, the story follows Santiago, an aging fisherman who has gone eighty-four days without a catch.
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11
The Last Day of a Condemned Man
by Victor Hugo
Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary
Focused on the final six weeks of a prisoner awaiting execution in nineteenth-century France, Victor Hugo’s novel follows an unnamed protagonist from his trial at the Bicêtre Hospital to the guillotine at Place de Grève.
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12
Songs of innocence and of experience
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
William Blake’s hand-colored collection contrasts two differing states of the human soul.
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