Books like The wasted vigil by Nadeem Aslam

A dark, passionate tale set on the West Yorkshire moors, following the tumultuous love and revenge between the Earnshaws, Lintons, and the enigmatic Heathcliff.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece examines the glittering yet hollow glamour of the Roaring Twenties as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby pursues love, wealth, and identity across the social divide.

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens’s 1837-39 social novel, follows an orphan raised in a workhouse who flees to London, joins a gang of pickpockets, and uncovers family secrets while exposing child labour and exploitation.

Set in the 1830s Midlands, George Eliot’s Middlemarch intertwines village life, politics, and the struggles of its characters to explore social reform, gender roles, and community hypocrisy.

A daring examination of love and desire set against the backdrop of early twentieth‑century England, where complex relationships between women and the struggle of coal‑miners illuminate social change and intimate psychological conflict.

A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust is a seminal French literary work.

A coming‑of‑age narrative set in 19th‑century England, following young David Copperfield as he navigates orphanhood, hardship and society’s social hierarchies.

Thomas Hardy follows former hunchback Michael Henchard, a merchant turned town mayor, as his pride, regret, and past sins collide in the close‑knit community of Casterbridge.

Thomas Hardy’s bleak final novel follows Jude Fawley, a stonemason from rural Wessex, whose search for faith, love and independence collides with society’s harsh conventions and leads to tragedy.

180 p. ; 21 cm.1010L Lexile

Barchester Towers, the second novel of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire series, follows the clash of ambition, love and clerical politics in the cathedral city of Barchester.

Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son follows the proud industrialist Paul Dombey and his family, exposing how commercial ambition can corrupt personal bonds while hinting at redemption through love.

A twin narrative intertwining Pakistani family life, Muslim cultural identity, and psychological complexity, as characters navigate marriage, faith, and the shadow of crime in England and Pakistan.

Gogol, N. The overcoat. Melville, H. [Billy Budd, sailor](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL102746W) James, H. The Aspern papers. Chopin, K. [The awakening](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL65430W) Conrad, J. Heart of darkness. Joyce, J. [The dead](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073437W) Kafka, F. The metamorphosis. Lawrence, D.H. St. Mawr. Porter, K.A. Pale horse, pale rider. Pynchon, T. The crying of Lot 49.

"A brave, timely, searingly beautiful novel from the acclaimed author of The Blind Man's Garden: set in contemporary Pakistan, the story of a Muslim widow and her Christian neighbors whose community is consumed by violent religious intolerance. When shots ring out on the Grand Trunk Road, Nargis's life begins to crumble around her. Her husband, Massud--a fellow architect--is caught in the cross fire and dies before she can confess her greatest secret to him. Now under threat from a powerful military intelligence officer, who demands that she pardon her husband's American killer, Nargis fears that the truth about her past will soon be exposed. For weeks someone has been broadcasting people's secrets from the minaret of the local mosque, and, in a country where even the accusation of blasphemy is a currency to be bartered, the mysterious broadcasts have struck fear in Christians and Muslims alike. When the loudspeakers reveal a forbidden romance between a Muslim cleric's daughter and Nargis's Christian neighbor, Nargis finds herself trapped in the center of the chaos tearing their community apart. In his characteristically luminous prose, Nadeem Aslam has given us a lionhearted novel that reflects Pakistan's past and present in a single mirror, a story of corruption, resilience, and the disguises that are sometimes necessary for survival--a revelatory portrait of the human spirit"--