Books like The Bonfire of the Vanities
12 books with a reading profile close to The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Deep and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
Vanity Fair
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the narrative follows Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley as they navigate British high society.
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2
Bleak House
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
In nineteenth-century London, the protracted legal battle of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags through the Court of Chancery, eroding the inheritance and sanity of those caught in its wake.
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3
The Aeneid
by Virgil
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
Virgil’s epic poem follows Aeneas, a Trojan prince who escapes the ruins of Troy to establish a new lineage in Italy.
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4
The Odyssey of Homer
by Homer
Also deep · dense, narrative
Following the conclusion of the Trojan War, Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, begins a decade-long struggle to reach his home.
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5
Doctor Zhivago
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, the narrative follows Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet who struggles to maintain his medical ethics and artistic integrity amidst social…
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6
American Pastoral
by Philip Roth
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
Seymour "Swede" Levov represents the fulfillment of the mid-century American dream as a successful Newark businessman, star athlete, and family man.
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7
The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews
Also deep and thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature
The narrative follows Joseph Andrews, a virtuous footman who is dismissed from service after resisting the aggressive sexual advances of his mistress, Lady Booby.
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8
Kim
Also deep · narrative, classic literature
Set against the backdrop of late nineteenth-century British India, the story follows Kimball O’Hara, an orphaned white boy living as a street-wise urchin in Lahore.
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9
Pygmalion
Also deep and thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature
Professor Henry Higgins, a specialist in phonetics, bets that he can pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a duchess by altering her speech and manners.
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10
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11
Assommoir
by Émile Zola
Also deep and thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature
L’Assommoir documents the physical and moral decline of Gervaise Macquart, a laundress striving for domestic stability in the slums of Second Empire Paris.
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12
Hard Times
Also thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature
In the industrial settlement of Coketown, Thomas Gradgrind raises his children, Louisa and Tom, according to a philosophy of cold rationalism and "Facts." He rejects imagination, emotion, and the arts, viewing human bei…
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