Books like

Books like Paradise Regained

12 books with a reading profile close to Paradise Regained by John Milton. Deep, contemplative and open-ended; a demanding read.

1

The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone

by Sophocles

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

These three plays by Sophocles follow Thebes' royal family through its curse.
2

Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

Dante Alighieri narrates his descent through nine concentric circles of hell under the guidance of the Roman poet Virgil.
3

The Bhagavad Gita

by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

The Bhagavad Gita documents a dialogue between Prince Arjuna and the deity Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.
4

Works [37 plays, 6 poems, sonnets]

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

This 1730 collection organizes the complete dramatic and poetic output of William Shakespeare, encompassing comedies, histories, and tragedies alongside his lyrical sequences.
5

The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso

by Dante Alighieri

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

Dante Alighieri narrates his own passage through the three realms of the afterlife, beginning in a dark forest where the Roman poet Virgil meets him.
6

The Holy Bible: King James Version

by Anonymous

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

The King James Version presents the foundational narrative of the Christian faith, beginning with the creation of the world and the fall of humanity in Genesis.
7

The Hymns of the Ṛgveda

by Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith, Jagdish Lal Shastri

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

This volume presents the complete English translation of the oldest Sanskrit text, a collection of over one thousand sacrificial hymns addressed to deities such as Indra, Agni, and Varuna.
8

Moby-Dick

by Herman Melville

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

Ishmael, a schoolmaster seeking relief from a melancholy spirit, joins the crew of the Pequod, a whaling vessel departing from Nantucket.
9

The Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

Hans Castorp, a young engineer, visits his cousin at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, intending to stay for three weeks.
10

Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

Alonso Quijano, an elderly man from La Mancha, loses his grip on reality after consuming a constant diet of chivalric tales.
11

Faust, First Part

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

Heinrich Faust, a disenchanted scholar, abandons traditional medicine, theology, and philosophy after realizing that intellectual mastery has failed to reveal the secrets of the universe.
12

The novels and other works of Lyof N. Tolstoï

by Лев Толстой

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, dense

This 1899 multivolume collection compiles the major literary output of Count Lev Tolstoy, encompassing his psychological epics, shorter fiction, and philosophical treatises.

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