Orfeo

Orbital

Samantha Harvey2024

Six astronauts orbit Earth over twenty-four hours. The narrative focuses on their routine tasks and observations of the planet below.

pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Moby Dick

Herman Melville1851

A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

Same meditative register, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf1927

A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

meditative → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

The Sea

John Banville2005

A widower returns to a coastal resort to reflect on a childhood summer and his wife's death. The narrator's memory is fluid and dense.

meditative → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Walking Disaster

Jamie McGuire2013

This novel retells the events of 'Beautiful Disaster' from the perspective of Travis Maddox. It follows his college years and obsession with Abby.

meditative → propulsive

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

This Man

Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

meditative → tense

pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline2008

A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

meditative → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

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.

meditative → sardonic

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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.

meditative → propulsive

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

meditative → wry

pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Orbital

Samantha Harvey2024

Six astronauts orbit Earth over twenty-four hours. The narrative focuses on their routine tasks and observations of the planet below.

Same meditative register, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak0

The Waters of Kronos

Conrad Richter1960

An elderly man travels back in time to his childhood Pennsylvania town, which in his present day is submerged beneath a reservoir.

meditative → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak0

The story of a brief marriage

Anuk Arudpragasam2016

Two refugees enter an arranged marriage in a Sri Lankan camp during the final days of the civil war. It focuses on the physical details of survival.

Same meditative register, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose0·bleak+2

A Distant Shore

Caryl Phillips2003

A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

meditative → bleak, still literary fiction

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A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara2015

Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.

meditative → bleak, still literary fiction

pace0·prose0·bleak+2

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead2019

A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

meditative → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace+1·prose0·bleak+2