Books like

Books like The Wall

12 books with a reading profile close to The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

No Exit

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Set in a single room furnished with Second Empire sofas, the play follows three deceased individuals—Garcin, Inès, and Estelle—as they realize they are their own torturers.
2

Medea

by Euripides

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Euripides depicts the psychological collapse and subsequent vengeance of Medea, a Colchian princess abandoned by her husband, Jason.
3

Fathers and Sons

by Ivan Turgenev

Also deep and thought-provoking · 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.
4

Island

by Aldous Huxley

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

The story follows Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who shipwrecks on the forbidden Pacific island of Pala.
5

Eugene Onegin

by Alexander Pushkin

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

Alexander Pushkin’s novel in verse follows Eugene Onegin, a cynical aristocrat weary of Saint Petersburg’s high society.
6

Alcestis

by Euripides

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

In this tragedy, King Admetus is granted a reprieve from his impending death on the condition that someone else dies in his place.
7

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Duke Vincentio departs Vienna under a pretext of travel, leaving the puritanical Angelo to enforce long-ignored moral laws.
8

In the Penal Colony

by Franz Kafka

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

In Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," an explorer witnesses a brutal execution machine in a remote penal colony.
9

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

A magistrate runs a small frontier town in an unnamed empire.
10

Antigone

by Jean Anouilh

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, literary

Jean Anouilh's play, first staged in occupied Paris in 1944, retells Sophocles.
11

The Tartar Steppe

by Dino Buzzati

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Giovanni Drogo, a young officer, is posted to the Bastiani Fortress, an isolated outpost on the northern frontier overlooking a barren plain.
12

Death in Venice

by Thomas Mann

Also deep and thought-provoking · 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.

Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.

Get papr

Your library, beautifully understood.