LitQueuelitqueue

After

News of the World

Paulette Jiles2016

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Night Watchman

    Louise Erdrich2020

    A night watchman fights a 1950s federal bill to terminate his tribe's status. The story follows his family and community on a North Dakota mission.

    Same tender register, 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.

    tender → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace0·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.

    tender → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    tender → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • One Perfect Kiss

    Jaci Burton2018

    A high school English teacher and a football coach navigate a relationship in a small Oklahoma town. Both characters deal with past failures.

    tender → warm

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Immortal Rising

    Lynsay Sands2022

    A unique vampire and a genetically altered man become neighbors in a secluded sanctuary. They navigate their mutual attraction and past traumas.

    tender → warm

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Montana

    Debbie Macomber1997

    A single mother moves to her grandfather's Montana ranch and falls for a mysterious farmhand while investigating his past.

    tender → warm, still western

    pace0·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.

    tender → 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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    tender → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

tender → elegiac, still historical fiction

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    tender → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·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.

    tender → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Confessions of Nat Turner

    William Styron1967

    A fictionalized confession of the leader of an 1831 slave revolt while he awaits execution in a Virginia jail cell.

    tender → bleak, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • The Crossing

    Cormac McCarthy1994

    A teenager makes three trips between New Mexico and Mexico, starting with an attempt to return a trapped wolf to the wild. The prose is dense.

    tender → elegiac, still western

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2