Books like

Books like Therese Raquin

12 books with a reading profile close to Therese Raquin by Émile Zola. Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

The End of the Affair

by Graham Greene

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Set in London during and after the Blitz, the novel follows Maurice Bendrix, a novelist who begins a physical relationship with Sarah Miles, the wife of a civil servant.
2

The Meek One

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

A middle-aged pawnbroker ponders the corpse of his young wife, who has just committed suicide by jumping from their window while holding an icon.
3

The Heart of the Matter

by Graham Greene

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Henry Scobie, a deputy police commissioner in a West African British colony during the Second World War, is a conscientious Catholic who has been passed over for promotion.
4

Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Emma Bovary, a country doctor’s wife in provincial France, finds her domestic life suffocatingly dull.
5

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

by Yukio Mishima

Also deep and inward-looking · 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.
6

The Seagull

by Anton Chekhov, Laurence Senelick

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Konstantin Treplev, an aspiring playwright, stages an experimental outdoor performance to impress Nina Zarechnaya, a young actress whom he loves.
7

Passing

by Nella Larsen, Matthew Hodgson

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Set in 1920s Harlem and Chicago, the narrative follows the unexpected reunion of two childhood friends, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry.
8

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

by Tennessee Williams

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Set on a Mississippi Delta cotton estate, the narrative centers on the Pollitt family during Big Daddy’s sixty-fifth birthday.
9

Othello

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

In seventeenth-century Venice and Cyprus, a high-ranking Moorish general named Othello secretly marries Desdemona, the daughter of a nobleman.
10

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

by Muriel Spark

Also deep and thought-provoking · psychology, literary

In 1930s Edinburgh, schoolmistress Jean Brodie selects six young pupils to become the Brodie set, her personal elite.
11

A Doll's House

by Henrik Ibsen

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

Nora Helmer lives as a pampered wife and mother under the strict domestic authority of her husband, Torvald.
12

Confessions of a Mask

by Yukio Mishima, Meredith Weatherby

Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary

The novel chronicles the internal struggles of its narrator, Kochan, as he navigates his adolescence and young adulthood in post-war Japan.

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