Book picks similar to
A Rage to Live by John O'Hara


fiction
american
classics
american-literature

Raintree County


Ross Lockridge Jr. - 1948
    Shawnessy is the epitome of the place and period in which he lives, a rural land of springlike women, shady gamblers, wandering vagabonds, and soapbox orators. Yet here on the banks of the Shawmucky River, which weaves its primitive course through Raintree County, Indiana, he also feels and obeys ancient rhythms. A number-one bestseller when it was first published in 1948, this powerful novel is a compelling vision of 19th-century America with timeless resonance.

Cass Timberlane


Sinclair Lewis - 1945
    This novel was written late in the career of Sinclair Lewis, it explores themes of love, marriage, heartache, trust & redemption in a small Minnesota town.

Ross Poldark


Winston Graham - 1945
    But instead, he discovers that his father has died, his home is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth, having believed Ross dead, is now engaged to his cousin. Ross must start over, building a completely new path for his life, one that takes him in exciting and unexpected directions....Thus begins an intricately plotted story spanning loves, lives, and generations. The Poldark series is the masterwork of Winston Graham, who evoked the period and people like only he could, and created a world of rich and poor, loss and love, that listeners will not soon forget.

Bellefleur


Joyce Carol Oates - 1980
    They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.Bellefleur traces the lives of several generations of this unusual family. At its center is Gideon Bellefleur and his imperious, somewhat psychic, very beautiful wife, Leah, their three children (one with frightening psychic abilities), and the servants and relatives, living and dead, who inhabit the mansion and its environs. Their story offers a profound look at the world's changeableness, time and eternity, space and soul, pride and physicality versus love. Bellefleur is an allegory of caritas versus cupiditas, love and selflessness versus pride and selfishness. It is a novel of change, baffling complexity, mystery.Written with a voluptuousness and startling immediacy that transcends Joyce Carol Oates's early works, Bellefleur is widely regarded as a masterwork—a feat of literary genius.

Set This House On Fire


William Styron - 1960
    The hours leading up to his death were a nightmare for Peter - both in their violence and in their maddening unreality.The blaze of events which followed was, Peter soon realised, ignited by a conflict between two men: Mason Flagg himself and Cass Kinsolving, a tortured, self-destructive painter, a natural enemy and prey to the monstrous evil of Mason Flagg. Three events - murder, rape and suicide - explode in the is relentless and passionate novel, almost overwhelming in its conception of the varieties of good and evil.

The Bostonians


Henry James - 1886
    Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena’s heart and remove her from the limelight? “The Bostonians has a vigor and blithe wit found nowhere else in James,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction. “It is about idealism in a democracy that is still recovering from a civil war bitterly fought for social ideals . . . [written] with a ferocious, precise, detailed—and wildly comic—realism.”

Remembering Laughter


Wallace Stegner - 1937
    Happy in her marriage, she tries to look the other way when her genial husband, Alec, takes to the bottle. When Elspeth, Margaret's sister, comes to live with them, the young woman is immediately captivated by the beauty and vitality of the farm, and by the affection she receives from those around her. But as summer turns into fall, and the friendship between Alec and Elspeth deepens, Margaret finds her spirit tested by a series of events that seem as cruel and inevitable as the endless prairie winters.Long out of print, Remembering Laughter (1937) marked Wallace Stegner's brilliant literary debut.

Tales of the Jazz Age


F. Scott Fitzgerald - 1922
    Icky" "Jemina"

The Moneyman


Thomas B. Costain - 1947
    King Charles VII, Agnes Sorel - his mistress, Jaques Coeur - the king's moneyman - history's first great merchant prince.

The Harbor


Ernest Poole - 1915
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Joy Street


Frances Parkinson Keyes - 1950
    Can Emily and Roger befriend these seeming upstarts without offending their own families and associates?

The Monarch of the Glen


Compton Mackenzie - 1941
    Woe betide those who trespass on this Chieftain's kingdom... So when a hapless bunch of Sassenach hikers invades the glens, camping on Ben Nevis's beloved land and disturbing his prized grouse, they are in for the shock of a lifetime, as the MacDonald clan prepare to do battle with the unfortunate travelers. Kilt swinging and sporran flying, fortified with whisky, with his two stout daughters at his side and the welcome support of American millionaire Chester Royde, Ben Nevis wages war on the hikers in the ancient manner of his ancestors (which involves roasting and dungeons among other dubious punishments), with hilarious results....

The Reef


Edith Wharton - 1912
    This narrative primarily follows George Darrow and Anna Leath, a young gentleman and a widowed lady who plan to marry. Both of them experience doubts about their union, with surprising outcomes. Darrow has a brief liaison with the delicate, generous Sophy Viner, a kind woman of the working class. She later meets Anna's stepson Owen Leath, who wishes to upset social conventions and marry her. When Anna's discovers the intimate history of Darrow and Sophy, she worries about her stepson's affections and feels concerned about the alliance she herself is about to create. Wharton's talent for balancing emotional turmoil and all the social manners of her time is blended into this philosophical work that explores the metaphorical reefs in the hearts of women.

The Arrangement


Elia Kazan - 1967
    He's successful, well-off, with a nice home and an attentive wife. But he's restless. So he has a mistress, and now she wants to change that arrangement. How Eddie got in this mess and how he tries to get out is the story of this best-selling book.Elia Kazan won two Academy Awards for directing before turning to writing."THE ARRANGEMENT is about those 'arrangements' by which we live, in marriage, out of marriage, between marriages. It is an earth-shaking book and the earth it shakes is the plot on which we're standing." (Publisher's Source)

The Judgment of Paris


Gore Vidal - 1952
    In this classic coming-of-age story, Philip journeys through various affairs, misadventures, and cities full of unforgettable characters that prompt his self-discovery and lessons on taking pleasure in both love and life.