Books like

Books like Fathers and Sons

12 books with a reading profile close to Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev. Deep, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

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.
2

Alcestis

by Euripides

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

In this tragedy, King Admetus is granted a reprieve from his impending death on the condition that someone else dies in his place.
3

The Wall

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

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

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.
6

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.
7

The power and the Glory

by Graham Greene

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.
8

No Exit

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

Set in a single room furnished with Second Empire sofas, the play follows three deceased individuals—Garcin, Inès, and Estelle—as they realize they are their own torturers.
9

Metamorphoses

by Ovid

Also deep · philosophy, literary

Ovid’s hexameter narrative tracks the history of the world from its chaotic origins to the assassination of Julius Caesar.
10

Medea

by Euripides

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

Euripides depicts the psychological collapse and subsequent vengeance of Medea, a Colchian princess abandoned by her husband, Jason.
11

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

Duke Vincentio departs Vienna under a pretext of travel, leaving the puritanical Angelo to enforce long-ignored moral laws.
12

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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