swap_horiz Steppenwolf Alternatives

1

Stoner

John Williams’ *Stoner* chronicles the life of Edwin “Stoner” Grant, a Midwestern student at Midwestern State Teachers C...

1960S Literary Fiction Tragic Professorial

9.4 Excellent

2

Kokoro

Kokoro is a significant literary work by Natsume Soseki set in Japan’s Meiji Era. The novel centers on the evolving rela...

Literary Fiction 1910S Meiji Era Japanese University

9.1 Excellent

3

Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus is Thomas Mann’s sprawling 1947 novel exploring themes of ambition and morality through the story of Adri...

Intellectual Literary Fiction 1940S German Music School

8.9 Great

4

Possession: A Romance

Possession explores a complex romantic mystery set within the academic world of 1990s Britain. The novel centers on lite...

Romance 1990S Literary Fiction UK University

8.8 Great

5

Fifth Business

Fifth Business explores themes of memory and consequence through the recollections of Rearrangement Phillips, a retired...

1970S Literary Fiction Professorial Robertson Davies

8.8 Great

6

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving's 1989 novel set partly at a New Hampshire prep school and college, in which an extraordinary boy convinces...

Coming Of Age 1980S Literary Fiction Boarding School

8.7 Great

7

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai's 1948 semi-autobiographical Japanese novel tracing a young man's alienation, alcoholism, and moral collapse...

Coming Of Age Literary Fiction 1940S Japanese University

8.7 Great

8

Villette

Charlotte Brontë's 1853 novel drawing on her years as a teacher in Brussels, following an Englishwoman who forges an ind...

Coming Of Age Victorian Literary Fiction Bronte

8.6 Great

9

Sanshiro

Natsume Soseki's 1908 novel following a naive provincial youth who arrives at Tokyo Imperial University and is gradually...

Coming Of Age Literary Fiction Meiji Era Japanese University

8.6 Great

10

The Glass Bead Game

Hermann Hesse's 1943 German novel set in a future intellectual utopia called Castalia, for which Hesse was awarded the N...

Intellectual Literary Fiction 1940S Hesse

8.5 Great

11

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath's 1963 semi-autobiographical novel follows a young woman's mental breakdown, first published under the pseu...

Coming Of Age 1960S Literary Fiction Us College

8.5 Great

12

The Corrections

The Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen that won the National Book Award and frequently util...

Family Drama 2000S Literary Fiction Us University Adjacent

8.5 Great

13

Sentimental Education

Gustave Flaubert's 1869 French novel following a young provincial student's romantic and political disillusionment acros...

19TH Century Coming Of Age Literary Fiction Paris Student

8.4 Great

14

Franny and Zooey

J.D. Salinger's 1961 novel, comprising two linked stories first published in The New Yorker, depicts Franny Glass's spir...

1960S Literary Fiction Student Life Us College

8.4 Great

15

Narcissus and Goldmund

Hermann Hesse's 1930 novel set in medieval Germany, contrasting the contemplative monastic life of Narcissus with the se...

Philosophical 1930S Literary Fiction Hesse

8.4 Great

16

Demian

Demian is a 1919 coming-of-age novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse that explores Jungian psychoanalytic themes an...

Coming Of Age Literary Fiction 1910S Hesse

8.4 Great

17

The History Man

1975 novel by Malcolm Bradbury following radical sociologist Howard Kirk at fictional University of Watermouth, later ad...

1970S Literary Fiction Academic Satire UK University

8.3 Great

18

Look Homeward, Angel

Thomas Wolfe's 1929 autobiographical debut novel traces Eugene Gant's youth in rural North Carolina through his first ye...

Coming Of Age Literary Fiction 1920S Thomas Wolfe

8.1 Great

19

The Mandarins

Simone de Beauvoir's 1954 Prix Goncourt–winning novel depicting the postwar Parisian left-wing intellectual milieu, with...

Philosophical 1950S Literary Fiction French Intellectual Milieu

8.0 Great

20

This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 debut novel set at Princeton University depicts postwar American youth disillusionment and la...

Fitzgerald Coming Of Age Literary Fiction 1920S

7.8 Good