A Cool Million and The Dream Life of Balso Snell: Two Novels

by Nathanael West · 1931

+ Want to read

A Cool Million (1934) subtitled "The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin", is a satiric Horatio Alger story set in the midst of the Depression and is written in a bracing, mock-heroic style that has lost none of its wit or power. The Dream Life of Balso Snell(1931), West's first work, was described by one delighted critic as "a fantasy about some rather scatalogical adventures of the hero in the innards of the Trojan Horse."

Genre
literary fictionliterary fictionMore like thisLess of thissatiresatireMore like thisLess of this
Setting
1930s1930sMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
short · 192 pages
Form
novellanovellaMore like thisLess of thisshort storiesshort storiesMore like thisLess of this

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

BuyAmazonGoogle Books

BorrowOpen LibraryA library near you

MoreCompare pricesHardcover

Liked A Cool Million and The Dream Life of Balso Snell: Two Novels? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked A Cool Million and The Dream Life of Balso Snell: Two Novels. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time Eavan Boland · 1995
  2. Of the Farm John Updike · 1965 Shares fiction, american, literature
  3. Second Skin John Hawkes · 1965 Shares fiction, literature, american
  4. Captain Maximus Barry Hannah · 1985 Shares fiction, short stories
See more recommendations →

“People who read A Cool Million and The Dream Life of Balso Snell: Two Novels tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry Ernest Fenollosa · 1919
  2. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice · 2010
  3. The Oxford Book of Short Stories · 1981
  4. Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations · 1975

“If you want more of the same (literary fiction), start with these.”

  1. Gog Giovanni Papini · 1931
  2. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding Julia Strachey · 1932
  3. Free onlineFree The Virgin and the Gipsy D.H. Lawrence · 1930
  4. Making Conversation Christine Longford · 1931

“If it was the american literature that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Duluth Gore Vidal · 1983
  2. Lucy Crown Irwin Shaw · 1956
  3. The John Updike Audio Collection John Updike · 2003
  4. Man in the Dark Paul Auster · 2008

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. We Are Still Married: Stories & Letters Garrison Keillor · 1989
  2. Star of the Unborn Franz Werfel · 1946
  3. Near + Far Cat Rambo · 2012
  4. Free onlineFree Seventeen Booth Tarkington · 1915

Report a problem