Book Recommendations Based on Other Books

After enjoying a book, it’s common to want to read similar ones. They don’t have to necessarily have an almost equivalent plot or include characters who have the same personalities, but it’s appealing when they share a couple of features. Wanting to read comparable books is also a good opportunity to discover ones that are not as renowned. Having three worldwide famous books as a starting point, I have three book recommendations for you. They are not necessarily unknown or obscure, particularly not in the countries that their authors are from. However, they are not as universally celebrated.

 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante ⇒ Nada by Carmen Laforet

The first book in The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, is well known and loved by many. It explores the first years of Elena and Lila’s convoluted friendship. They are two underprivileged girls who met at primary school in a problematic neighbourhood in Naples. As we are being presented with their story, we also learn more about the Italian society of the time, since Elena Ferrante explored themes connected with equality, class, social mobility and the role of education.

Other novel that isn’t only character focused, but that also delves into social issues is Nada by Carmen Laforet. The main character is Andrea, a young woman who is trying to lead an independent life in Barcelona, the city she moved to in order to attend university. She struggles to reconcile her family’s poverty with the way of life of her new friends. It is an involving read about female friendship and a broken family.

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My Penguin English Library Collection II

It’s so satisfying to look at the colourful and stripy spines of the Penguin English Library classics lined on my shelves that I’m always eager to add more copies to my collection. I obviously have to be interested in the story as well. I don’t buy them solely for the covers and overall design by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Since I revealed the classics that I had in these editions almost four years ago, I bought a few more. I have now sixteen in total. Most of my latest acquisitions were written by Charles Dickens, but there are other authors amongst the seven books mentioned in this post.

 

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Despite being full of unpleasant characters, Wuthering Heights is a gripping and convincing novel, which explores obsession and revenge in a believable way. Mr Earnshaw found Heathcliff on the streets of Liverpool when he was just a boy and took him to Wuthering Heights to live with him and his children. While he was looked down on by Hindley, he grew very close to Catherine. His unhealthy fascination with her led him to seek revenge.

Favourite Book Covers VI

It has been almost two years since I last shared with you a few of my favourite book covers. Since then I added to my shelves various books that were not only worthy reads, but whose covers are also a feast for the eyes. All of them are paperback editions, which is unsurprising. I mostly only buy paperbacks, as they are cheaper, lighter, and I have a complicated relationship with dust jackets.

Let’s get a good look at my five new favourite covers!

 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Cover design: Leanne Shapton

Publisher: Vintage

Collection: Vintage Classics Austen

Favourite Books I Read in 2019

2019 was a complicated reading year. I read various praiseworthy novels, short story and poetry collections. In terms of genres, my reading was as varied, featuring classics, literary fiction, fantasy and myth retellings, for example. So far, I’ve read 34 books and will probably finish another one in the following days. However, I decided not to finish eight books, a number higher than ever before, if I’m not mistaken.

This was also the year when I chose to reread a book again after probably decades without doing so. Thus, I had to decide whether to include rereads in my favourite books of the year or not from now on. I decided against it. This post only includes books that I read for the first time during the year, irrespective of date of publication.

I don’t tend to rate books with five stars very often, because they need to be completely flawless for that to happen. This year I only rated one book with five stars, and it was the one that I reread – O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis) by José Saramago. The majority of the books that I rate with four stars are still great, though. Some of the five books that I selected as my favourites of 2019 are indeed almost perfect, in my opinion. In reverse order, they are:

Monthly Favourites – November 2019

This instalment of my monthly favourites is, unfortunately, as short as the one from October. I finished reading four books in November and enjoyed three of them. But I didn’t dedicate much time to my other interests.

My favourite book from the ones that I read last month is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It’s an enthralling gothic novel about obsession and revenge. Although many of the characters are despicable, they are fully believable. One of them is Heathcliff. He spent good part of his life trying to take vengeance on those whom he believed had wronged him in the past. When he was a homeless boy, Mr Earnshaw found him on the streets of Liverpool and decided that he was going to live with him and his children at Wuthering Heights. He was from the beginning looked down on by Hindley, while growing very close to Catherine.

The only TV series that I watched in November was the third season of The Crown. Despite the acting being really good, I didn’t like it as much as previous seasons, for reasons that I can’t pinpoint for sure… Nevertheless, I loved and was heartbroken by episode 3, which is about a disaster in the Welsh town of Aberfan.

‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë

My rating: 4 stars

More than a love story, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a tale of demented obsession and revenge. Despicable characters are enthrallingly brought to life in a gothic novel that is narrated in the first person from the points of view of two secondary characters – Mr Lockwood and Mrs Dean. Past and present generations become either willingly or inadvertently embroiled in a long-term reprisal scheme that stems from an unhealthy fascination.

Mr Lockwood became Mr Heathcliff’s tenant in 1801. He paid two visits to his landlord at Wuthering Heights but was never properly welcomed. That is not surprising, however, seeing that he was too intrusive and inconvenient. He didn’t consider himself so, though. Lockwood had to stay at Wuthering Heights after his second visit because of a snowstorm. One of the servants, Zillah, took him to a room where he found some writings by a Catherine Earnshaw. He realised then that there was a mystery involving that household.

When Lockwood returned home, his housekeeper, Mrs Dean, who had been living there for 18 years, told him the story of his neighbours. Before she moved there, she used to work at Wuthering Heights. At the time her employer was Mr Earnshaw, who had two children – Catherine and Hindley. Once, after a journey to Liverpool, he returned home taking with him a homeless boy, whom he called Heathcliff. Hindley didn’t like him, and a conflict soon erupted between the two. The situation deescalated when Hindley was sent to college. Catherine and Heathcliff became close friends and supported one another when Mr Earnshaw died.

Book Haul – September / October 2019

I was not expecting to buy as many books as I did during September and this month. However, after deciding not to finish four novels in the latest months, I was running out of books to read. I usually keep a relatively small number of unread books on my shelves. I tend to only buy new ones once I’ve finished a few of those that I already owned.

So, I acquired nine new books!

 

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Set in Paris and in London, it was described by Dickens as his best story. A French aristocrat and a dissolute English lawyer face chaos and fall in love with the same woman. I’m expecting it to delve into a variety of social issues that characterised the 19th century.