Books like

Books like The Lover

12 books with a reading profile close to The Lover by Marguerite Duras. Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

Set in 1970s Harlem, the story follows nineteen-year-old Tish Rivers and her fiancé, Fonny Hunt, an aspiring sculptor.
2

Love in the Time of Cholera

by Gabriel García Márquez

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

In the twilight of the nineteenth century, Florentino Ariza falls into a lifelong obsession with Fermina Daza, a woman who eventually rejects his youthful advances to marry Dr.
3

Lettres portugaises

by Gabriel de Guilleragues, Mariana Alcoforado

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

Published anonymously in 1669, this epistolary novel consists of five letters written by a Portuguese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, to an absent French officer named Noël Bouton de Chamilly.
4

Bilinmeyen Bir Kadının Mektubu

by Stefan Zweig

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

A famous Viennese novelist receives a long letter on his birthday from a woman he does not remember.
5

This Side of Paradise

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

Set in the years surrounding World War I, the narrative follows Amory Blaine, a wealthy and egoistic Midwesterner, from his pampered childhood through his education at Princeton University.
6

Corinne

by Germaine de Staël, Isabel Hill

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · romance, literary

Set against the backdrop of an eighteenth-century Grand Tour, this novel centers on the intense intellectual and emotional connection between Lord Oswald Nelvil, a grieving Scottish aristocrat, and Corinne, a celebrated…
7

The House of Mirth

by Edith Wharton

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

Lily Bart is a beautiful but impoverished socialite navigating the rigid hierarchy of Gilded Age New York.
8

Bonjour tristesse

by Françoise Sagan

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · romance, literary

Seventeen-year-old Cécile spends a restless summer on the French Riviera with her widowed father, Raymond, and his current mistress, Elsa.
9

Maurice

by E.M. Forster

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · romance, literary

Maurice Hall is a middle-class young man who goes to Cambridge, where he falls in love with Clive Durham, a fellow student.
10

The Painted Veil

by W. Somerset Maugham

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · romance, literary

In 1920s Hong Kong, Kitty Fane enters a loveless marriage with Walter, a reserved bacteriologist, to escape her demanding mother.
11

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

Set against the desolate Yorkshire moors, this novel follows the volatile connection between Catherine Earnshaw and the foundling Heathcliff.
12

A Farewell to Arms

by Ernest Hemingway

Also deep and inward-looking · romance, literary

Frederic Henry, an American paramedic serving with the Italian army during World War I, experiences the collapse of the front following the retreat from Caporetto.

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