LitQueuelitqueue

After

Girl in White Cotton

Avni Doshi2020

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Shroud

    John Banville2002

    An aging scholar with a stolen identity meets a woman who knows his secret. They travel to Turin to confront his past.

    Same cold register, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Denser prose

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.

    cold → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Tinkers

    Paul Harding2009

    An elderly clock repairman lies dying while his thoughts drift through his father's life as a peddler. The prose focuses on nature and mechanics.

    cold → meditative, still psychological 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.

    cold → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • The Overdue Life of Amy Byler

    Kelly Harms2019

    An overworked single mother takes a summer break in New York City for a makeover and a dating life. She rediscovers her identity apart from her kids.

    cold → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection

    Carol Burnett2010

    The comedian shares anecdotes from her career in television and film. The book is a series of short chronological reflections.

    cold → warm

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Redshirts

    John Scalzi2012

    Low-ranking crew members on a starship realize they are disposable characters in a sci-fi television show. They attempt to escape their fate.

    cold → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

    cold → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • 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.

    cold → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    cold → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • February

    Lisa Moore2009

    A widow in Newfoundland moves between her quiet daily routines and the memory of her husband's death on a sunken oil rig decades earlier.

    cold → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

  • The Wilderness

    Samantha Harvey2009

    An architect with Alzheimer's attempts to reconstruct his life story. The narrative fragments as his memory and sense of time dissolve.

    cold → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

  • Study for Obedience

    Sarah Bernstein2023

    A woman moves to a remote northern country to care for her brother. The local community grows hostile as she observes them.

    Same cold register, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • No Longer Human

    太宰 治2024

    A man describes his life through three notebooks, detailing his inability to connect with others and his social alienation.

    cold → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • The Lighthouse

    Alison Moore2012

    A recently separated man takes a walking tour of Germany while reflecting on his childhood abandonment and his failing marriage.

    cold → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • The White Hotel

    D. M. Thomas1981

    A woman's life is told through poems, a Freudian case study, and a narrative. It moves from her sexual fantasies to her death in the Holocaust.

    cold → dreamlike, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1