Book cover of Peter Camenzind

Book description

Peter Camenzind, a young man from a Swiss mountain village, leaves his home and eagerly takes to the road in search of new experience. Traveling through Italy and France, Camenzind is increasingly disillusioned by the suffering he discovers around him; after failed romances and a tragic friendship, his idealism fades…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Peter Camenzind as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

There are times when I sense a need for works that are spiritual in nature, works that dramatize a quest for meaning and authenticity in life.

When a friend suggested that we read Hermann Hesse’s first novel Peter Camenzind and discuss it, it was serendipitous, exactly answering that need this past summer. The 1946 Nobel Laureate’s superbly written first novel reads like a memoir and is the story of a quest not only for meaning in life but also for deep spiritual connection. 

From the heights of an Alpine mountain, a young Peter sees the world laid out before him—and…

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A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.

The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…

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