Books like The Screwtape Letters
12 books with a reading profile close to The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
The Razor’s Edge
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Larry Darrell returns to Chicago from the battlefields of World War I, but find himself unable to settle into a conventional social life or a marriage with his fiancée, Isabel Bradley.
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2
The power and the Glory
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Set in 1930s Mexico during the Cristero War, the narrative follows a nameless whiskey priest fleeing a paramilitary police force.
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3
The Last Day of a Condemned Man
by Victor Hugo
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Focused on the final six weeks of a prisoner awaiting execution in nineteenth-century France, Victor Hugo’s novel follows an unnamed protagonist from his trial at the Bicêtre Hospital to the guillotine at Place de Grève.
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4
The Old Man and the Sea
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Set in a small Cuban fishing village in 1952, the story follows Santiago, an aging fisherman who has gone eighty-four days without a catch.
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5
La casa de Bernarda Alba
Also deep and inward-looking · theoretical, literary
Bernarda Alba, a stern widow, shuts her five unmarried daughters inside the family home for eight years of mourning after her second husband dies.
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6
The Road Not Taken and Other Poems
by Robert Frost
Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, literary
Robert Frost’s 1916 collection, originally titled Mountain Interval, centers on the rural landscapes and social dynamics of New England.
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7
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, theoretical
The Tao Te Ching consists of eighty-one brief chapters outlining the relationship between the individual and the Tao, an underlying natural order that precedes human intervention.
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8
Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Gustav von Aschenbach, a disciplined German writer who has prioritized rigorous intellect over sensory pleasure, travels to Venice to escape a creative drought.
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9
Our Town
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Set in the fictional village of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, between 1901 and 1913, this three-act play strips away traditional theatrical scenery to focus on the daily rhythms of the Gibbs and Webb families.
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10
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
A cynical protagonist, convinced that nothing in the universe possesses objective value, decides to commit suicide.
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11
Resurrection
by Leo Tolstoy
Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary
Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov serves as a juror in a murder trial, only to recognize the defendant as Maslova, a woman he seduced and abandoned years earlier.
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12
Fathers and Sons
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary
Arkady Kirsanov returns from university to his father's estate in 1859, bringing his friend Yevgeny Bazarov, a medical student and self-declared nihilist who rejects authority, art, and tradition.
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