LitQueuelitqueue

After

God on the Rocks

Jane Gardam1978

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Go as a River

    Shelley Read2023

    A young woman on a Colorado peach farm falls in love with a displaced drifter. After a tragedy, she flees into the wilderness to live in isolation.

    wry → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Gravity's Rainbow

    Thomas Pynchon1973

    During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.

    wry → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    wry → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Briefing for a Descent into Hell

    Doris Lessing1971

    A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.

    wry → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • I Capture the Castle

    Dodie Smith1948

    A teenager journals about her eccentric, impoverished family living in a ruined castle. Two wealthy American brothers arrive and change their lives.

    wry → warm, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • An Offer From a Gentleman

    Julia Quinn2001

    The illegitimate daughter of an earl works as a servant for her stepmother. She sneaks into a masquerade ball and meets Benedict Bridgerton.

    wry → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Secret Life of Bees

    Sue Monk Kidd2000

    In 1964, a fourteen-year-old girl and her nanny flee to a South Carolina town where they are sheltered by three beekeeping sisters.

    wry → warm, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Candide

    Voltaire

    A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.

    wry → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

  • The Da Vinci Code

    Dan Brown2003

    A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

    wry → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

    A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

    Same wry register

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • The English Patient

    Michael Ondaatje1992

    Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

    wry → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    wry → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Umbrella

    Will Self2013

    A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

    wry → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

wry → bleak, still historical fiction

3 more ↓

  • The Known World

    Edward P. Jones2003

    A black man who was once a slave becomes a slave owner in antebellum Virginia. The story follows the fallout on the plantation after his death.

    wry → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • A Long Long Way

    Sebastian Barry2005

    A young Irishman joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I while his home country moves toward rebellion.

    wry → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • Brotherless Night

    V. V. Ganeshananthan2023

    A young woman in Sri Lanka tries to study medicine while her brothers join militant groups during the civil war. It covers a decade of conflict.

    wry → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2