LitQueuelitqueue

After

This Tender Land

William Kent Krueger2019

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Now Is Not the Time to Panic

    Kevin Wilson2022

    Two teenagers create an anonymous, cryptic poster that sparks a town-wide panic in 1996. Decades later, the secret threatens to resurface.

    earnest → wry, 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.

    earnest → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    earnest → playful

    pace-2·prose+2·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.

    earnest → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • The Lodge on Holly Road

    Sheila Roberts2014

    Three families spend Christmas at a lodge in Washington. They navigate personal setbacks and unexpected romantic developments over the holiday.

    earnest → warm

    pace-1·prose-1·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.

    earnest → warm, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-1

  • The Jane Austen Society

    Natalie Jenner2020

    In post-WWII England, a group of villagers tries to save Jane Austen's former home. They bond over their shared grief and love for her novels.

    earnest → warm, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·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.

    earnest → sardonic, still picaresque

    pace+1·prose0·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.

    earnest → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    earnest → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·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.

    earnest → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace-2·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.

    earnest → playful

    pace-2·prose+2·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.

    earnest → clinical

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

Heavier

earnest → 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.

    earnest → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    earnest → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    earnest → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2