After surviving a bombing that kills his mother, Theo Decker clings to a stolen Dutch painting through years of grief, crime, and obsession.
Books mentioned in The Goldfinch (29)
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “"I wrote a term paper on The Idiot for my Russian Literature class" / "Back in Vegas you were reading The Idiot for like six months"”
History of Art by H. W. Janson: “"Put down your naked-lady book" (Janson's History of Art)”
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger: “books in German and English including Nabokov's Despair and Heidegger's Being and Time with the cover torn off”
Despair by Vladimir Nabokov: “books in German and English including Nabokov's Despair and Heidegger's Being and Time”
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin: “Nights, I spent reading Eugene Onegin”
Walden by Henry David Thoreau: “Mine was reading Walden; and I hid myself in the coolness and silence of the book”
Silas Marner by George Eliot: “I put down Silas Marner, which we were reading for school”
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: “The other section of Honors English was reading Great Expectations”
Macbeth by William Shakespeare: “My English class had read Macbeth in the fall”
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: “"I'd always pictured him as the Artful Dodger in Oliver" / "Dickens doesn't tell us what happened to the Dodger"”
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: “or even her childhood copy of Black Beauty!”
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: “A first edition of Ozma of Oz”
Our Town by Thornton Wilder: “Forget all this ridiculous 'Our Town' nonsense everyone talks”
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: “Oh, yes. Prince Boris! War and Peace. I'm named like him.”
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “This letter arrived tucked in an old hardcover edition of Wind, Sand and Stars by Saint-Exupéry, which I read and re-read”
Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara: “Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency. I remembered the day she'd...”
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym: “My mother's book (Jane and Prudence, Barbara Pym) face-down on the back of the sofa”
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger: “this neighborhood was Edith Wharton and Franny and Zooey and Breakfast at Tiffany's all rolled into one”
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote: “this neighborhood was Edith Wharton and Franny and Zooey and Breakfast at Tiffany's all rolled into one”
The Rise of the Dutch Republic by John Lothrop Motley: “gray December afternoons reading Tacitus or Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic”
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers: “she'd had some interesting things to say about The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu: “her hair pulled back... like some nobleman in The Tale of Genji”
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis: “the paths were tree-shadowed... like the woods from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “made him look like one of the harpooners from Moby Dick”
The Odd Couple by Neil Simon: “sign-up sheets for tennis lab and cooking classes, tryouts for The Odd Couple”
Lovers and Players by Jackie Collins: “a cardboard box of beat-up trade paperbacks: Your Moon Signs, The South Beach Diet, Caro's Book of Poker Tells, Lovers and Players by Jackie Collins”
Caro's Book of Poker Tells by Mike Caro: “a cardboard box of beat-up trade paperbacks: ... Caro's Book of Poker Tells, Lovers and Players by Jackie Collins”
Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling: “"Hah. Harry Potter," he said, as he looked me over... It was not the first time, in Vegas, I'd heard the Harry Potter comment”