Books Like “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck

With the publication of her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the New York Times. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.

Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.

Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence-a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?

Originally published in 1932, Caldwell's novel told the story of the Lester family, poor Georgia sharecroppers who no longer farmed the land, but lived by whatever means possible. Caldwell's picture of the rural South challenged notions of the dignified and polite Antebellum South and depicted an image that was grotesque, violent, and morally bankrupt. Southern readers immediately found Caldwell's novel needlessly exaggerated and offensive, while Northern critics read his story as an indictment upon a failed Southern economic system in dire need of reform.

On the eighty-fifth day of no catches, old Cuban fisherman Santiago sets out past the shallows of his usual fishing grounds to break his streak of bad luck. Without his younger apprentice Manolin to help him, Santiago struggles to reel in the biggest catch of his life—a giant marlin that pulls his boat along for three days and three nights. Once his prey is captured, Santiago must fight off other dangers to make his way home again.