The Art of Racing in the Rain

My Name Is Lucy Barton

Elizabeth Strout2016

A woman hospitalized for weeks receives a visit from her estranged mother. They talk about their past and the people from their rural hometown.

Same tender register, still contemporary

pace0·prose0·bleak0

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf1927

A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+2·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.

tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

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

pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

A Ryan Christmas

Sadie Kincaid2022

A woman navigates a holiday with her four Irish mafia husbands. The story focuses on domestic dynamics and a threat from the past.

tender → warm, still contemporary

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

The Manning Brides

Debbie Macomber2008

Two brothers navigate unconventional paths to marriage. One enters a marriage of convenience for a child, while the other finds love after loss.

tender → warm

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

The Takeover

T.L. Swan

A billionaire attempts to acquire a widow's family company but ends up moving into her home. It follows their power struggle and her three sons.

pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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·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.

tender → propulsive

pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

The Martian

Andy Weir2011

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

tender → wry

pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

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.

tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Moby Dick

Herman Melville1851

A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

tender → meditative, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf1927

A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

The story of a brief marriage

Anuk Arudpragasam2016

Two refugees enter an arranged marriage in a Sri Lankan camp during the final days of the civil war. It focuses on the physical details of survival.

tender → meditative, still literary fiction

pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

A Distant Shore

Caryl Phillips2003

A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead2019

A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

tender → elegiac, still literary fiction

pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2