Books like

Books like The Nose

12 books with a reading profile close to The Nose by Nikolai Gogol. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Catch-22. A Dramatization

by Joseph Heller

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

In this 1971 dramatic adaptation, Joseph Heller reconfigures his World War II novel into a stage play centered on Captain Yossarian and his desperate attempts to be grounded from combat duty.
2

Heart of a Dog

by Mikhail Bulgakov

Also deep and thought-provoking · literary, classic literature

In 1920s Moscow, the surgeon Professor Preobrazhensky performs a radical medical experiment by transplanting a human pituitary gland and testicles into a stray dog named Sharik.
3

Clevinger's trial (from 'Catch-22')

by Joseph Heller

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

Joseph Heller’s standalone play, Clevinger’s Trial, adapts the eighth chapter of his novel Catch-22 into a rhythmic, one-act script.
4

Tropic of Cancer

by Henry Miller

Also deep and thought-provoking · literary, classic literature

Henry Miller's first published novel is a loose, first-person account of an American writer living in Paris in the early 1930s with little money and a great appetite for food, sex, talk, and ideas.
5

Amerika

by Franz Kafka

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

Karl Rossmann is a teenager banished by his parents to America after a scandal with a maid.
6

Orlando

by Virginia Woolf

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

The narrative follows Orlando, a young Elizabethan nobleman who begins as a favorite of the court and lives for over three centuries without aging significantly.
7

Woyzeck

by Georg Büchner

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

Franz Woyzeck is a low-ranking soldier stationed in a provincial German town, struggling to provide for his common-law wife, Marie, and their infant son.
8

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

The poem recounts a sailor’s harrowing sea voyage that spirals into disaster after he shoots an albatross without provocation.
9

Ojos de perro azul

by Gabriel García Márquez

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

This collection of short stories documents the early development of Gabriel García Márquez’s narrative style before his shift into Macondo.
10

Howl and Other Poems

by Allen Ginsberg

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

Published in 1956, this collection centers on the title poem, a frantic catalog of mid-century American struggle.
11

Naked Lunch

by William S. Burroughs, William Burroughs

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

William Lee, a drug addict and fugitive, flees a narcotics investigation in the United States to seek refuge in the Interzone, a hallucinatory territory located in North Africa.
12

Mother Night

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Also deep and open-ended · literary, classic literature

Howard W.

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