LitQueuelitqueue

After

Playground

Richard Powers2024

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Under the Eye of the Big Bird

    Hiromi Kawakami2025

    In a future where humanity is nearing extinction, the narrative follows the slow evolution and decline of the species over centuries.

    meditative → dreamlike, still speculative fiction

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Denser prose

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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To recover

3 more ↓

  • Modern Romance

    Aziz Ansari2015

    A comedian and a sociologist analyze how technology and culture have changed dating. It uses data and interviews to compare eras.

    meditative → playful

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  • Building a Second Brain

    Tiago Forte2022

    A guide to a digital organization system designed to store and retrieve ideas, notes, and information for long-term projects.

    meditative → earnest

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  • The Last Question

    Isaac Asimov2007

    A short story told in seven vignettes spanning billions of years. Humanity asks a supercomputer if the heat death of the universe can be avoided.

    Same meditative register

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Faster

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    meditative → wry

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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

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  • 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

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  • 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.

    meditative → elegiac

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Heavier

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  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

    Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.

    meditative → bleak

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  • Oryx and Crake

    Margaret Atwood2003

    A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.

    meditative → sardonic

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1