Books like Down and Out in Paris and London
12 books with a reading profile close to Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Contemplative; a moderate read.
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1
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
history, memoir
Edmund de Waal traces a collection of 264 netsuke—tiny Japanese ivory and wood carvings—to reconstruct his ancestors’ history.
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2
Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
history, narrative
Natalie Haynes re-examines the foundations of Western mythology by tracking how female figures were systematically marginalized or vilified through centuries of translation and artistic interpretation.
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3
Relato de un náufrago
memoir, narrative
Luis Alejandro Velasco, a sailor on the destroyer Caldas, falls into the Caribbean Sea after heavy cargo breaks loose during a storm.
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4
Marvels
by Kurt Busiek
history, narrative
Phil Sheldon, a news photographer, witnesses the emergence of the superhero era in mid-twentieth-century New York.
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5
War's Unwomanly Face
Also contemplative · history, memoir
Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of Soviet women who served in the Red Army during World War II as snipers, tank drivers, pilots, and field surgeons.
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6
The Book of Negroes
history, narrative
Aminata Diallo is eleven when slavers seize her from her village in West Africa and force her across the Atlantic.
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7
Blue Highways
Also contemplative · memoir, narrative
After losing his teaching job and his marriage in the same day, William Least Heat-Moon outfitted a Ford Econoline van to navigate the United States exclusively via backroads—the thin blue lines on old Rand McNally maps.
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8
Shrines of Gaiety
history, narrative
Set in 1926 London, the narrative centers on Nellie Coker, a ruthless matriarch who operates a profitable empire of underground nightclubs in Soho.
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9
El infinito en un junco: La invención de los libros en el mundo antiguo
Also contemplative · history, narrative
Irene Vallejo chronicles the evolution of the written word from oral traditions to the codex, focusing on the Mediterranean civilizations of Rome and Greece.
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10
Island Beneath the Sea
history, narrative
Zarité, a young girl sold into slavery in eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue, navigates the brutal sugar plantations owned by Toulouse Valmorain.
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11
Horse
history, narrative
Geraldine Brooks tracks the history of Lexington, a record-breaking 19th-century Thoroughbred, across three distinct timelines.
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12
Caleb's Crossing
history, narrative
Set in the 1660s on Martha's Vineyard, then called Great Harbor, the novel follows Bethia Mayfield, a minister’s daughter who forms a secret friendship with Caleb, the son of a Wampanoag chieftain.
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