Books like

Books like Peter Camenzind

12 books with a reading profile close to Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse. Inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

The Great Divorce

by C.S. Lewis

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

A narrator boards a flying bus in a grey, rainy city and travels to the foothills of Heaven.
2

Zorba the Greek

by Nikos Kazantzakis

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

Set in rural Crete, the narrative follows an unnamed intellectual who attempts to reopen a lignite mine while escaping his bookish existence.
3

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

by Thornton Wilder

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · philosophy, narrative

In 1714, a rope bridge in Peru collapses, sending five travelers to their deaths in the chasm below.
4

Narcissus and Goldmund

by Hermann Hesse

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

Set in medieval Germany, the novel follows two antithetical men who begin as student and teacher at Mariabronn monastery.
5

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

Set in the Salinas Valley between the Civil War and World War I, the narrative tracks the interconnected fates of the Trask and Hamilton families.
6

Silence

by Shūsaku Endō

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

In seventeenth-century Japan, Father Sebastião Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit, enters the country secretly to locate his former mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira, who reportedly committed apostasy under torture.
7

Wise Blood

by Flannery O'Connor

Also thought-provoking · philosophy, narrative

Hazel Motes returns from war to a rural Tennessee landscape and establishes the Church Without Christ.
8

Interpreter of Maladies

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary

In this collection of nine short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri depicts the domestic lives of Indian immigrants and their first-generation children navigating the friction between traditional heritage and American secularism.
9

The Picture of Dorian Gray Illustrated

by Oscar Wilde

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · philosophy, narrative

In Victorian London, the young Dorian Gray sits for a portrait by artist Basil Hallward, who captures the youth's extraordinary beauty on canvas.
10

Out Stealing Horses

by Per Petterson

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary

Trond Sander, a sixty-seven-year-old man, has moved to a remote cabin in eastern Norway to live alone with his dog.
11

The Pilgrim's Progress

by John Bunyan

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

The narrative follows Christian, a man fleeing the City of Destruction after reading a book that reveals his impending doom.
12

The Plague

by Albert Camus

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · philosophy, narrative

Set in the coastal city of Oran, the narrative begins when rats emerge from the shadows to die in the streets, signaling an outbreak of bubonic plague.

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