Recommendations based on "No Longer Human (Junji Ito)"

Donna Tartt, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her most recent novel, The Goldfinch, established herself as a major talent with The Secret History, which has become a contemporary classic.Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War“Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of BrassFrom award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Now in a gift cloth edition, No Longer Human ponders profound alienation Mine has been a life of much shame. I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a “clown” to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness. Still one of the ten bestselling books in Japan, No Longer Human is an important and unforgettable modern classic: “The struggle of the individual to fit into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at the time of writing.” (The Japan Times)

Six dangerous outcasts and one impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction, if the crew members don't kill each other first.

I was supposed to be having the time of my life.When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The novel is partially based on Plath's own life and has become a modern classic. The Bell Jar has been celebrated for its darkly funny and a razor sharp portrait of 1950s society and has sold millions of copies worldwide.

"A do not miss for fans of Eleanor and Park and The Fault in Our Stars, and basically anyone who can breathe."--Justine MagazineA New York Times bestsellerA 2016 Zoella Book Club Pick!Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Gayle Forman, Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.“At the heart—a big one—of “All the Bright Places” lies a charming love story about this unlikely and endearing pair of broken teenagers.”— New York Times Book Review“…this heartbreaking love story about two funny, fragile, and wildly damaged high school kids named Violet and Finch is worth reading. Niven is a skillful storyteller who never patronizes her characters—or her audience.”— Entertainment Weekly

"One of the most pristine, delightful attacks on popular girls since Clueless. Made me cackle and nod in terrified recognition." - Lena DunhamThe Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls who seem to move and speak as one."We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?"Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more different from the other members of her master's program at New England's elite Warren University. A self-conscious scholarship student who prefers the company of her imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight it seems their bodies might become permanently fused.But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' exclusive monthly "Smut Salon," and finds herself drawn as if by magic to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, an audacious art school dropout, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into Bunny world, and starts to take part in the off-campus "Workshop" where they devise their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision.A spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale about loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and female friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from an author with tremendous "insight into the often-baffling complexities of being a woman" (The Atlantic).

#1 bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes's fast-paced, full-throttle mystery with to-die-for romance is now available in a stunning deluxe hardcover edition! Featuring: An updated, shining foiled cover Stenciled sprayed edge design Lush endpapers A ribbon book marker A brand new introduction and behind-the-scenes Q&A from the author Cold Cases heat up in the Naturals, a Tiktok favorite, unputdownable series with over 1 million copies sold! Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people, piecing together the tiniest details to know who a person is, and what they want. But it's not a skill she takes seriously until the FBI come knocking--they've begun a classified program that uses exceptional teens to crack infamous cold cases, and they want her to join. What Cassie doesn't realize is that there's more at risk than a few unsolved homicides. Sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own, she quickly realizes no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. Emotion-reader Michael is a wild card--and far too perceptive for Cassie's good. The resident deception-detector is a pathological liar, and the program's perky, blonde statistician is far better with numbers than with people. And then there's Dean--a profiler like Cassie but with a much darker gift. When a new killer strikes, danger looms close. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive. Perfect for fans of Criminal Minds and Holly Jackson, Jennifer Lynn Barnes delivers a suspense-ridden psychological thriller with killer appeal, a love triangle to die for, and a gorgeous new design that will stand out on any shelf. **Catch every thrilling twist and turn of The Naturals series in The Naturals, Killer Instinct, All In, Bad Blood, and the enovella, Twelve! And don't miss Jennifer Lynn Barnes's beloved The Inheritance Games Saga! Best reading order: The Inheritance Games, The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit, The Brothers Hawthorne, The Grandest Game, Games Untold, Glorious Rivals and The Same Backward as Forward. Then dive into her The Debutantes duet (Little White Lies, Deadly Little Scandals), and The Lovely and the Lost.

THE FANTASY BOOKTOK SENSATION! For fans of Uprooted and For the Wolf comes a dark, lushly gothic fantasy about a maiden who must unleash the monster within to save her kingdom--but the monster in her head isn't the only threat lurking. Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her. Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom she calls home--she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets. But nothing comes for free, especially magic. When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King's own nephew, Captain of the Destriers...and guilty of high treason. He and Elspeth have until Solstice to gather twelve Providence Cards--the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.

A novel for secondary school English classes with great writing and important themes.