LitQueuelitqueue

After

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Haruki Murakami2014

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories

    Isaac Bashevis Singer1974

    Twenty-four stories set in Poland and America. They focus on Jewish life, folklore, and the tension between tradition and modernity.

    Same meditative register, still magical realism

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • A Brief History of Seven Killings

    Marlon James2014

    A large cast of characters recounts the 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life. The narrative spans decades and moves from Jamaica to New York.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    meditative → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • The Sound and the Fury

    William Faulkner1929

    The decline of a Southern family told through four perspectives, including a non-linear stream of consciousness from a man with a disability.

    meditative → elegiac

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Ten Big Ones

    Janet Evanovich2004

    Stephanie Plum witnesses a gang hit and becomes a target herself. She balances the threat with her ongoing romantic indecision.

    meditative → playful

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Another fine myth

    Robert Asprin1978

    A magician's apprentice accidentally summons a demon from another dimension. The two form a partnership to navigate a series of mishaps.

    meditative → playful

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • All Systems Red

    Martha Wells2017

    A self-aware security android hacks its own governor module to watch soap operas while protecting a team of scientists on a distant planet.

    meditative → wry

    pace+2·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.

    meditative → sardonic

    pace+2·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.

    meditative → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    meditative → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    meditative → clinical

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    meditative → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Invisible Cities

    Italo Calvino1972

    Marco Polo describes fifty-five imaginary cities to Kublai Khan. The book is a series of short, prose-poem meditations on urban existence.

    Same meditative register, still magical realism

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Ironweed

    William Kennedy1983

    A homeless alcoholic returns to Albany in 1938. He encounters the ghosts of his past while trying to find a day of work and reconciliation.

    meditative → elegiac, still magical realism

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Summer that Melted Everything

    Tiffany McDaniel2016

    A boy claiming to be the devil arrives in a small Ohio town during a 1984 heatwave. His presence triggers a series of local tragedies.

    meditative → elegiac, still magical realism

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Road

    Cormac McCarthy2006

    A father and son walk through a landscape of ash and scavengers toward the coast. They carry only what fits in a shopping cart.

    meditative → bleak

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2