Books like The Secret Agent
12 books with a reading profile close to The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. Deep; a moderate read.
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1
The Quiet American
thriller, literary
Set in 1950s Saigon during the First Indochina War, the narrative follows Thomas Fowler, a cynical British journalist, and Alden Pyle, an idealistic American undercover agent.
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2
Brighton Rock
Also deep · thriller, literary
Pinkie Brown is a seventeen-year-old sociopath leading a small-time criminal gang in the seaside town of Brighton.
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3
The Killer Inside Me
by Jim Thompson
thriller, psychology
Lou Ford is a deputy sheriff in Central City, Texas, who presents himself to the town as a polite, slow-talking, and dull-witted lawman.
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4
The Collector
by John Fowles
Also deep · thriller, psychology
Frederick Clegg, a socially isolated clerk who spends his time identifying and pinning butterfly specimens, wins a large sum of money and uses it to purchase a secluded country estate.
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5
Daisy Miller
by Henry James
psychology, literary
Winterbourne, an American living in Switzerland, becomes obsessed with Daisy Miller, a wealthy young woman from New York who ignores the rigid etiquette of the European expatriate community.
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6
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Muriel Spark
Also deep · psychology, literary
In 1930s Edinburgh, schoolmistress Jean Brodie selects six young pupils to become the Brodie set, her personal elite.
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7
Othello
Also deep · psychology, literary
In seventeenth-century Venice and Cyprus, a high-ranking Moorish general named Othello secretly marries Desdemona, the daughter of a nobleman.
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8
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat
Also deep · literary, classic literature
Set in ancient Athens and an adjacent enchanted forest, this comedy follows four young lovers—Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius—whose romantic entanglements spiral into chaos due to the interference of the fairy k…
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9
Oblomov
Also deep · psychology, literary
Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is a young Russian nobleman who lives in a state of terminal inertia within his dusty St.
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10
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
literary, classic literature
Eliot Rosewater, the alcoholic heir to a massive industrial fortune, abandons high society to relocate to a decaying town in Indiana.
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11
Madame Bovary
Also deep · psychology, literary
Emma Bovary, a country doctor’s wife in provincial France, finds her domestic life suffocatingly dull.
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12
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Also deep · psychology, literary
Noboru, a thirteen-year-old boy in Yokohama, belongs to a secret gang of youths who reject adult morality in favor of a cold, objective nihilism.
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