In Search of Lost Time, Volume II: Within a Budding Grove (Vol 2), MARCEL PROUST

This volume continues Proust’s introspective exploration of memory, time, and desire. The narrator, now a teenager, travels to the seaside town of Balbec, where he meets Albertine—a mysterious girl who becomes the central figure in his emotional and romantic awakening. The prose is famously rich, layered, and meditative, making it a cornerstone of 20th-century literatureme