LitQueuelitqueue

After

Reservoir 13

Jon McGregor2017

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Oxygen

    Andrew Miller2001

    Two brothers return to England to care for their dying mother while a playwright in Paris reflects on his past. The story focuses on end-of-life care.

    Same meditative register, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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

  • 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.

    meditative → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

meditative → warm

3 more ↓

  • Sugar Cookie Murder

    Joanne Fluke2003

    During a community Christmas buffet in Minnesota, a man's ex-wife is found stabbed to death. A bakery owner investigates while sharing recipes.

    meditative → playful

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • This Girl

    Colleen Hoover2013

    A husband retells the story of his early relationship to his wife. It uses dual timelines to revisit events from the first book in the series.

    meditative → earnest

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Score

    Elle Kennedy2016

    A college senior has a one-night stand with a hockey player to get over a breakup. They continue the arrangement as graduation approaches.

    meditative → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·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.

    meditative → 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.

    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

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • 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