Books like The Castle

01

The Trial

Franz Kafka · Literary fiction

On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K.

A kindred literary fiction read.

02

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell · Memoir

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.

A kindred literary fiction read.

03

The Myth of Sisyphus

Albert Camus · Philosophy

The Myth of Sisyphus begins with what Camus calls the only truly serious philosophical question: why not commit suicide?

A kindred literary fiction read.

04

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl · Psychology

Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's account of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and the psychological theory he developed from that experience.

A kindred literary fiction read.

05

Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol · Literary fiction

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov arrives in a provincial Russian town with a plan of remarkable ingenuity: he will travel from estate to estate buying up "dead souls" — serfs who have died since the last census but still appear on the tax rolls, and whose owners are still liable for taxes on them.

Both dig into identity and self-deception.

06

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens · Classics

Great Expectations follows Pip, an orphan boy on the Kent marshes who is yanked from modest obscurity into the orbit of wealth and social aspiration when an anonymous benefactor funds his move to London.

Both dig into identity and self-deception.

07

In the Woods

Tana French · Mystery

Dublin detective Rob Ryan is called to investigate a child's murder at an archaeological dig in Knocknaree — the same woods where, twenty years earlier, two of his childhood friends vanished without a trace and Rob was found clinging to a tree, bloodied and with no memory of what happened.

Both dig into identity and self-deception.

08

The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins · Thriller

Rachel Watson takes the same commuter train every day, passing the house where she used to live with her ex-husband Tom, who now lives there with his new wife.

Both dig into identity and self-deception.

09

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction

A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.

A kindred literary fiction read.

10

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction

A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.

A kindred literary fiction read.

11

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara · Literary fiction

A Little Life follows four men from college into middle age and beyond — Willem, an actor; JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, a lawyer with a past that is revealed in increasingly devastating detail as the novel progresses.

A kindred literary fiction read.

12

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce · Literary fiction

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces the intellectual and spiritual development of Stephen Dedalus from early childhood to the edge of adulthood, when he leaves Ireland to pursue life as an artist.

A kindred literary fiction read.