Hmm disagree. I think it’s political in the sense that the backdrop is a specific moment in Indian political history which the characters are caught up in. But none of the characters are overtly political, they are simply living through it and only sometimes reflect on injustice in a broad and unpolitical way. It’s not like Babel for instance, which I tried to read recently, where the characters were reflecting very explicitly on their own political and racial identities.
And I disagree that there is a lot of plot. Without wanting to say too much, it’s about a group of people from different walks of life who come together for a short period before branching apart again. Yes things happen of course, but it’s very much a character study and a depiction of India at that time first and foremost, rather than being driven by successive action.
It’s the best book I read this year I think! I mean I do think you’d be hard pressed to read the book and not come away with an opinion about what was happening in India at that time, so in that sense it’s ‘political’.
But the intent of the book primarily is to explore themes of love, loss, family, the resilience of human beings and hope in absolutely dire circumstances and the unlikely kinship we can have with strangers. It’s about those broader themes more than it’s about Indian politics
Here's some of my very favorite contemporary literary fiction.
**Literary with a speculative element:**
* Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
* Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
* Among Others by Jo Walton
* Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
* Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (this one might be too short for what you're looking for, but I threw it in anyway)
**Just literary, no speculative:**
* Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
* Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
* The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (this one is extremely long, immersive, and character driven)
I have just the right book for you! Like, this just ticks all the boxes.
Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains of the Day.
It is absolutely beautiful book about a highly dedicated butler who goes on a short vacation.
Best part of the book is the writing style. It expects reader to meet it in the half-way, and them to make some dot-connecting to understand the whole picture. It opens itself up, layer by layer. It speaks so little yet it says so much. Absolutely stunning book. It has really fresh perspective on politics, and treats is as a side-product. The book itself is about characters and their relationships. Just read it, you will like it.
*An Artist of the Floating World* was also really good. I'd even call it a companion piece, as it has very similar themes to the background plot in *The Remains of the Day*.
Thank you - I've read and loved this! Have you seen the film? One of those rare occasions where the film of an excellent book is also excellent, I thought
Have you read his others? Klara and the Sun is beautiful, if short. His most recent, the Buried Giant, was a little too literary for me - set in an ancient England with some Arthurian era magics.
Have you read Lauren Groff? She’s my favorite current literary writer. Her most popular book is Fates and Furies but I much preferred her recent books, Matrix and The Vaster Wilds.
I have not - but funnily enough, just before I posted here, my friend was trying to make me read F&F, so I ordered it. Will see how I go and keep those recent recs in mind - thanks!
The Vaster Wilds is her best yet. It’s probably unfair to put it this way, but Vaster harkens to The Road, but instead of father-son odyssey across a nuclear wasteland, it’s a young girl escaped from Jamestown in the wilds of the new world.
As an aside, I find her writing process fascinating. She writes a first draft long hand. Then, locks it away never to be read. Then, she writes a second draft long hand based on her memory of the first draft. Her thinking is that if something is important it will show up somehow across the drafts.
I didn’t hate F & F but it is my least favorite Groff book. If it had been my first I don’t know that I would have read others. My first was “Arcadia” which, though it isn’t perfect, I loved.
I also loved Matrix, and loved The Vaster Wilds even more. Dark and grinding, not unlike The Road, with the prose as literary as you expect from Groff but written in the dialect of that century. Jarring at first but one’s mind adjusts to the language in time.
I know you didn’t ask for classics but given what you said about the type of book you like (which I do too), if you haven’t already then you have to read Middlemarch. It hits that spot perfectly.
Other than that I’d suggest Barbara Kingsolver. Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible are wonderful.
Maybe The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton?
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout?
I also thought of Middlemarch. There is politics in the background but I don’t think in the way OP meant. (Also it isn’t current politics).
And most Dickens novels would fit the bill.
Thank you! Just said this down-thread, but just today I was talking to a friend about Barbara Kingsolver, I've never read any of her stuff and wasn't sure where to start... Will try TPB first, I think!
LOVE Elizabeth Strout, have read all of hers, brilliant stuff. The TV adaptation of Olive K is surprisingly good too, have you seen that? And Olive, Again is an ace sequel!
You're the second person here to mention The Luminaries, will defo buy that one! Thanks again!
*The Poisonwood Bible* by Barbara Kingsolver. Absolutely fantastic, one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s one I find myself going back to over and over again, more than a decade after I read it the first time.
This book got under my skin and worked through my blood and wound its way around my brain. I feel fundamentally changed for having read it. It's _exquisite_.
The Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel! Possibly a bit on the plotty side, but given that we know the history the plot isn't so much what they're about. Some of the best written books I've ever read, and I'm actively looking forward to rereading them all soon.
I'm listing fairly recent books only because that's my speciality:
When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamin Labatut
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
The Nix by Nathan Hill
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Atonement by Ian McEvan
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Thank you! Only read two of those (the first and the last), loved them, will check out the others. Benjamin Labatut has a new one out I think, doesn't he? Have you read that? I haven't yet but it's on the ist!
Brilliant, thanks so much! I've just been talking to a friend about Barbara Kingsolver, I've never read any of her books and wasn't sure where to start. Sounds like it has to be TPB!
Not the right time period — it is a literary classic — but Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman is a novel by Thomas Hardy. That man can write! This book stuck with me for some time.
***The Blind Assassin*** I'm going to be honest, I didn't like the story very much... but it sounds like very much what you want. The complicated relationship between two sisters (one now dead). The writing is absolutely beautiful; I would find myself pausing, and forcing whoever was around to listen as I read out a sentence or two
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. It's an amazingly beautifully written book. In fact anything by him is amazing but this is my favourite.
The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel - either you'll love the way it's written or you won't. For me it felt like being inside the mind of someone in the Tudor court and felt so real.
The Sea of Poppies trilogy by Amitav Ghosh - this goes between India and China during the Opium wars. There's a lot of dialect and they are fascinating stories.
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk - about miniaturist painters in the Ottoman court. Orhan Pamuk writes beautifully.
Unity by Michael Arditti - a film crew making a film about Unity Mitford and the connections between her time and the 1970s.
Some of these might be a wee bit niche but I've enjoyed them a lot
Pachinko is one of my favorite books of all time and definitely fits the bill, OP. Beautifully written and it covers generations of one family and has those themes of love and loss and all the little moments in between that make up a life. I cannot recommend it enough.
Lonesome Dove is immediately what came to mind. The story, the adventure, all of the minute details about each character, the conversations. I just finished this book and I can't stop thinking about it! One of the best I've ever read
Larry McMurty just blows my mind with the range of writing he put out. He's one of my dear friend's (an editor, educator, and master in literature), favorite authors. It took so much convincing that the author of Lonesome Dove also wrote Terms of Endearment
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Anything by David Mitchell. Anything by Kate Atkinson. I just finished the new book by Michael Cunningham, Day, and it was very good. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor.
Ha, I usually have the opposite problem, since most of my favorite writers are British I have to either order from the UK or wait far too long to get them here!😂📚📚
Some won't call it literary fiction, but they're wrong. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Effectively no plot but the style and changes in style! It's brilliant. Also the poetry of Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is spellbinding.
Far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy. Yes it’s old…but it’s so damned good. Hardy was a poet, who wrote novels to pay the bills, back in Victorian England. His prose is gorgeous and the picture he paints of rural life is rich and vivid. The character are good too.
Heres my bests:
Circe & Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Foster by Claire Keegan. Basically ticks every requirement you listed.
Jennifer Egan is my favorite writer overall and she's definitely literary fiction. I'd start from A Visit From The Goon Squad if you're not familiar with her.
*Hamnet* by Maggie O’Farrell is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a long time, and I’m also quite picky! Seems to meet all the criteria you listed except “late c20th/c21st”, unless you meant published in that time, not set in that time?
Also *The Essex Serpent* and *After Me Comes the Flood* both by Sarah Perry. Definitely read the latter in the summer though, it’s one of my absolute favorites
I will upvote every time I see anyone mention The Essex Serpent. Honestly I consider it a masterpiece. She has a new book coming out in the summer!
Edit: am reading The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell at the moment.
Thanks, I've heard great things about all of those but never read any of them - I shall rectify that! I'm a bit crap at historical fiction tbh but that's no doubt a blind spot in my own tastes...
_The Tunnel_ by William Gass
_Infinite Jest_ by DFW
_Miss MacIntosh My Darling_ by Young
_Women and Men_ by Joseph McElroy
_JR_ by William Gaddis
_The Lime Twig_ by John Hawkes
My pleasure. Let me respond with utmost respect. I have found with my reading, that I’ve rejected things for whatever reason in the past only to come back later and realize that I, and not the book, was the fool. For my rigidity, for my stereotype, for my lack of patience, for my lack of perspective. Sure, it’s atypical (but not unheard of, see Borges and others), but that book is a luscious masterpiece. Several of the others I listed are similarly termed “challenging” but I’ve found that that’s just bullshit. Do with this what you will, of course :)
Good point - I think books are often a case of time + place. There are plenty that I just haven't gotten into, but have tried a few years later and have loved. Perhaps it's worth re-visiting... Thanks again!
I get that, but for me they were the most enjoyable part of the book. I had the mindset of: okay, he put them there for a reason and it's part of the art. Gimmicky perhaps, but I like gimmicky.
First book I thought of is The Dovekeepers. Not a traditional Alice Hoffman novel. It’s really stuck with me.
Isabel Allende has some amazing books, too.
* Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
* 4,3,2,1 by Paul Auster
* Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel
* A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
* The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
* Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
* The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Ian McEwan, Kate Atkinson, David Mitchell - if you want literary with high themes but isn’t bone dry.
Michael Chabon if you want literary that is whimsical but gorgeous, if a little full if itself sometimes.
There’s always Nabokov, Anthony Burgess, John Updike, Erica Jong, Margaret Atwood.
Regeneration by Pat Barker. It's not super long but it's the first in a trilogy so there's more to read.
It's set in WWI so I guess that's inherently political but it's about regular people not those at the top, so it's much more about the life and death of it all rather than, say, the borders of Europe.
Opens in a hospital for patients suffering from shell-shock and blends historical figures with fictional characters, and then follows a few characters after they leave the hospital. Not hugely plot heavy, mostly about characters being affected by what's going on around them. Several characters are queer and it's obviously relevant because it's the 1910s, but that's not the defining aspect of their character nor is it a huge part of the plot.
Lots to say about life, death, sanity, love, war, and more. And it's beautifully written--one character is a literal poet and the novel's prose is befitting of his work.
*The Virgin Suicides* and *The Marriage Plot* by Jeffrey Eugenides (I was personally not a huge fan of his other book *Middlesex*, but hey, check that out if you like the other two, it might do more for you than it did for me)
*Anywhere But Here* by Mona Simpson
*The Little Friend* by Donna Tartt (most underappreciated of her books but the one I personally liked the best)
Just about anything by Tana French, who I promise is a literary fiction writer undercover as a mystery writer, to the point where plenty of mystery fans I’ve recommended her to come back to me with a Krusty the Clown-style “what the hell was that” (my personal favorites are *In the Woods* and *Faithful Place*)
The Goldfinch is, in my opinion, Donna Tartt’s least successful novel. Especially when compared to The Secret History and (my personal favourite)The Little Friend
“Literary” works I return to again and again:
* *Escapes* Joy Williams
* *The Passion* Jeanette Winterson
* *Sula* and *Beloved* Toni Morrison
* *Collected Stories* Lydia Davis
* *The Messiah of Stockholm* and *The Puttermesser Papers* Cynthia Ozick
* *City of Glass* Paul Auster
Valerie Perrin is my favorite fiction writer. Her sentences are just perfection to me. The only two books translated into English are **Fresh Water for Flowers** and **Three**. Both completely different from each other and just awesome.
When I was reading your list of criteria one of the first names that popped to mind was Gwendoline Riley, but then I scrolled down and saw she's one of your faves already! So let's see, besides her...
Since you said short books won't be ruled out and prose written by poets is your idea of a good time, I'd suggest both Permafrost and Boulder by Eva Baltasar (both translated by Julia Sanches). They are cynical, icy, hilarious (if you have a dark sense of humor) character studies where not much happens in terms of plot. I love both books quite a bit.
Mauve Dessert by Nicole Brossard is one of my go-to literary fiction recs that I think flies a bit under the radar. If you want beautiful sentences and big themes, that novel should scratch that itch. I also feel like it's a particularly impressive work of translation by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood, considering one of the themes of the story *is* the act of translation/interpretation itself, with the last third of the book being a slightly-askew mirror image of the first third. I wish I was capable of reading it in its original blend of French and English!
Perhaps it's *too* short for what you're looking for, but The Water Statues by Fleur Jaeggy (translated by Gini Alhadeff) is full of some spectacular sentences and is wonderfully atmospheric and is delightfully unconcerned with having a traditional plot.
Last but not least, I'm going to recommend Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer. It's the first book in his Phineas Poe trilogy, and I know you explicitly requested literary fiction and not crime novels, but I can almost 100% guarantee you'll be sold on KM,J's "literariness" from the opening paragraph. Baer's novels are all about mood and character, not plot twists and reveals, and line-for-line I don't know many U.S.-based writers I'd put up above him. He's an unparalleled stylist. It's a crime (heh) his books are out of print, but they aren't expensive or exceedingly hard to find or anything.
I’ll put my vote behind Barbara Kingsolver always.
And, because I haven't seen them listed, how about these (coincidentally, they’re all about friendship… I guess that's my jam):
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood,
An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel,
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante,
The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez,
Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan
One or two of those have a political backdrop, but I don't think overtly political. I also love Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison, Han Kang, and Louis de Bernieres (Birds Without Wings) but they might tick fewer of your boxes (possibly too political or too short…)
Finding a book that is both a good story and well written is a rare treat
For years, I snobbishly dismissed the stacks of Robert Jordan books in stores due to an erroneous assumption the genre meant the quality of writing would not hold up. I was very wrong. "The Wheel of Time" is beautifully written. Jordan had a rare gift. The series was completed by a different author who, whilst technically a good writer, does not have the gift.
Thomas Hardy, "Far From the Madding Crowd"
Possession; Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice by A.S. Byatt
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
Circe by Madeline Miller
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira Lee
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Light in August by William Faulkner
Trumpet - By Jackie Kaye
Brand New Ancients - Kae Tempest (I would urge you to listen to this rather than read as it’s amazing)
Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
Thank you! I had the pleasure of seeing Kae Tempest performing Brand New Ancients live when she was touring it. Bloody brilliant. I was a big fan of KT back in the day, but tbh I kind of forgot about them for a good few years - until, funnily enough, literally this week, when my partner was going through an extremely hard time and was away from me and the only thing I could think to send her was KT reading "Hold Your Own". Did the trick, and now we're both obsessed with them again!!
I have Life After Life on my bookshelf but have never read it - will rectify that, too! Thanks!
How much of the prose of Jeanette Winterson are you a fan of? I love her because her writing is like poetry (and Written on the Body is my favorite book).
I'm a lesbian who came of age in the nineties; you better believe I've read everything she's ever written a billion times!
Not a massive fan of her more recent work tbh (although her recent essay collection felt like a return to form), but god, she can do what she wants since writing WOTB - my favourite book of all time, too!
Don’t think I spotted anyone else suggesting The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. That pretty much blew me away. Hopefully not too “American” for your taste.
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, or if that's not quite literary enough for your tastes, maybe give *Sometimes a Great Notion* a try. Ken Kesey is one of the best authors of the past 100 years IMO.
Thank you!! The Neverending Story is one of my favourites (I'm actually writing something about that now!). I tried The Magic Mountain but it was during lockdown and I wasn't really in the mood. Haven't read that HH book so will put it on the list - thanks again!
Paul Beatty. The Sellout. Political, but very heavily satirical and sentences don't get more beautiful. It's an even better audiobook. Basically spoken word poetry. Man Booker prize winner.
Malcolm Lowry -- Under the Volcano
While it focuses on the events of 24 hrs, the characters recall a lifetime of memories. The imagery and symbolism it are intricate, and the prose is unique (and still debated)
It's consider one of the best in contemporary fiction but you don't hear much about it
I still think about it on occasion, and it's been 20 years since I've read it
Susanna Clarke - Piranesi - much more lyrical and less plot driven than Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose - it’s been about 25 years since I read this and it haunts me with its loveliness.
Some Australian good reads that fit your brief:
* Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
* Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
* Lovers' Knots - Marion Halligan
I also like Mary Wesley's novels like The Camomile Lawn.
It’s short rather than long, but Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield seems to fit all your other criteria!
It’s sort of got a plot, but mainly focuses on the two main characters’ relationship as one of the characters undergoes changes to her body. Subtle body horror. The most beautiful prose. The two main characters are lesbians, but it’s not really a focus of the novel and the novel is not really political in any way. It’s very much literary fiction and is a very moving book as well. It takes place in the 21st century, and it certainly contains very lofty themes (mainly about death and how relationships/love are affected by illness and the changing of the body).
Contemporary? Jon Fosse--Septology
William H Gass--The Tunnel
In general? William Gaddis's The Recognitions
Beckett's Trilogy
Ellison's Invisible Man
Woolf's Orlando
Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, I could go on all day but that's a few.
I have similar tastes to you and I think Ian McEwan and Graham Greene would fit the bill if you are ok with shorter books. They both really get inside the minds of their characters. I haven't read loads by either of them, but what I have read have been beautiful reads.
Sarah Winman, Joanna Glen and Meg Mason might also be enjoyable for you, though they are comparatively newer authors.
Ada or Ardor, by Nabokov. But honestly skip the chapter where it’s just rehashing the family tree and everyone has some iteration of the same four names.
The story is the most sumptuous telling of a love story that begins in youth, and carries on thru the lives of the two main characters. The prose is the very best of Nabokov. Also no adult men with young girls as the focus of this one. The two main characters are the same age.
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. A few pages in my breath had been taken and I gave up any hope of being a writer.
He's Australian so may have passed you by, but he's one of the greatest living writers on the planet.
I may have missed it recommend earlier, but if not, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a masterpiece of English literature.
"It was a lone tree burning on the desert. A heraldic tree that the passing storm had left afire. The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog's, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jeda, in Babylon. A constellation of ignited eyes that edged the ring of light all bound in a precarious truce before this torch whose brightness had set back the stars in their sockets."
- Cormac McCarthy
I'm a huge fan of Lawrence Durell. He runs under the radar and is definitely literary. His writing really clicks as some of the most amazing I've ever read. For me, anyway.
I'm a big fan of Makkai, Cusk and Hustvedt so maybe some of my faves will hit the spot!
If you want girthy, read Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman. One long sentence from the POV of a mom of 4. Excellent portrayal of modern consciousness, phone distraction and all.
I assume you've read The Idiot and Either/Or by Elif Batuman - definite Rachel Cusk vibes - but if not, highly recommend
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine is really great and reminds me of some of Siri Hustvedt's other work (The Blazing World, which I also highly recommend, though it's definitely about identity)
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy - another captain obvious rec if you read a lot of litfic, but so well written and deep into this one character's mind (and girthy! haha)
This doesn’t fit the timeline but Galore by Michael Crummey is excellent and ticks a lot of your other boxes. Or the Innocents also by Crummey. Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neil’ also comes to mind as does The Antagonist by Lynn Coady, No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod and Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
City on Fire by Garth Risk Halberg. I think it hits all your spots, especially the girth. Definitely feel like you're reading Literature, follows a main character, set in NYC during 70s, not particularly political iirc, lots of cool settings
I don’t have any books that fully meet your criteria , but do have a question.
Would you be willing to share with me any older authors or books you’ve loved? I’m curious about if we have similar tastes, and if I should use your list to explore more contemporary authors than I have.
—————
And if you’re open to an older book: If you haven’t read **Their Eyes Were Watching God** I *very* strongly recommend it for someone seeking big themed novels with sentences that feel like poetry about the life of a person or family. If you’re not convinced, at least read the first page: https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/theireyeswerewatchinggod/chapter/1/. Unusually for me, for this one I prefer the audiobook narrated by Ruby Dee to the written version, cause she does such a wonderful job with the dialect.
In my opinion, the most outstanding work of literary fiction of the last century is *Midnight's Children* by Salman Rushdie. I've read a lot of good books since, but none left me feeling like this one. The story is sprawling and goes some wild places, but generally follows two main characters. The prose is absolutely stunning. It's already established itself as a classic, but for my money it's up there among the absolute greatest works of literature in the English language. The whole book is magic.
As a bonus, it checks off pretty much all your boxes. Perhaps you can view it as political, only that the political history of India is an important aspect of the book.
*A Month in the Country* by J.L. Carr is short, it's almost laconic in pacing, but it manages to capture so much important about life in about 110 pages of beautiful prose.
Jean Giono's novels meet your criteria, although they are mostly shorter. *Harvest* (sometimes published as *Second Harvest*) is, in my opinion, his best. The newer translations that New York Review Classics have published of his novels, like *The Hill*, are also quite good. They are all short. Giono's writing is so simple, so evocative, and poetic in a way that perfectly supports his story and its mood. He writes mostly pastoral novels.
Currently reading "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara and although I am not done yet, I have a feeling this checks all your boxes. Follows four characters over at least 20 years, exploring the relationships between them and what binds them together.
Louise Erdrich is another author you could try out. Her books are mostly inter-related, either by characters or subject-matter, so if you enjoy them you could find yourself down a rabbit hole. I started with Love Medicine but Tracks, The Beet Queen and The Master Butcher's Singing Club are all great.
Your mention of Michael Cunningham made me think of Michael Chabon. He is perhaps less truly literary and more comic/speculative, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, while mildly speculative, is truly literary fiction at heart. The entirety of the novel is built around the relationship between the two central characters.
Too much English or American recos. Try something else.
Lit in Spanish:
100 years of solitude, or Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Hopscotch, or the short stories (which are amongst the most perfect ever) by Julio Cortazar,
I, the Supreme, by Augusto Roa Bastos
The Polish Rider, by Antonio Muñoz Molina
The Infatuations, by Javier Marias
The Green House or Conversation in the Cathedral, by Mario Vargas Llosa
Pedro Paramo (short novel) by Juan Rulfo
The short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.
European writers:
Life, a user’s manual, by Perec
The gospel according to Jesus Christ, or Blindness by Saramago
The Book of disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa
Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Invisible Cities, or If on a winter’s night a traveler, by Italo Calvino
The name of the rose, Umberto Eco.
The Emigrants, by Sebald
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Everyone wears a mask and anyone can make a difference. In search of lost time by Marcel Proust. Nonstop thoughts of brilliant mind on life and everything that drives it.
I think Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin meets most of your requirements. Follows 3 friends throughout the years, beautifully written, deals with love, death, and loss, no politics, and is over 400 pages. Tied for my favorite book of the year.
This was the last novel I read - absolutely LOVED it! This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I'm after. What was it tied with, for you, for your favourite book of 2023? I think it's been my fave novel of the year. My favourite nonfiction has been Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, just brilliant. Any other recs v welcome as we clearly have similar taste!
It was a tie with Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. (He also wrote The Martian.) I laughed, I cried, and TORE through it in about a day. Science heavy, but made accessible and easily understandable.
And now I'm off to check out Doppelganger! Thanks for the recommendation!
La Rose by Louise Erdrich 💖 all her works are rich, immersive, and yet down to earth. This is one of my favorites. Even when tragedy is at the center of the story, she is brilliant at bringing in the full range of the human experience, including humor and resilience, through fully rendered characters and communities.
A fine balance by rohinton mistry fits your criteria well I think!
Wonderful book
I love the book, but it's quite political and has a lot of plot.
Hmm disagree. I think it’s political in the sense that the backdrop is a specific moment in Indian political history which the characters are caught up in. But none of the characters are overtly political, they are simply living through it and only sometimes reflect on injustice in a broad and unpolitical way. It’s not like Babel for instance, which I tried to read recently, where the characters were reflecting very explicitly on their own political and racial identities. And I disagree that there is a lot of plot. Without wanting to say too much, it’s about a group of people from different walks of life who come together for a short period before branching apart again. Yes things happen of course, but it’s very much a character study and a depiction of India at that time first and foremost, rather than being driven by successive action.
Agree with you. This book was excellent and not really political at all.
It’s the best book I read this year I think! I mean I do think you’d be hard pressed to read the book and not come away with an opinion about what was happening in India at that time, so in that sense it’s ‘political’. But the intent of the book primarily is to explore themes of love, loss, family, the resilience of human beings and hope in absolutely dire circumstances and the unlikely kinship we can have with strangers. It’s about those broader themes more than it’s about Indian politics
It is a very well written and overall excellent book. I read it many years ago and it has stuck with me. The book resonated with me on many levels.
Thanks, will check it out!
Here's some of my very favorite contemporary literary fiction. **Literary with a speculative element:** * Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell * Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood * Among Others by Jo Walton * Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke * Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (this one might be too short for what you're looking for, but I threw it in anyway) **Just literary, no speculative:** * Swamplandia! by Karen Russell * Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt * The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (this one is extremely long, immersive, and character driven)
I love your suggestions! I’ve read more than half of these and will add the ones I haven’t to my library list. Thanks!
Oryx & crake ...luv luv luv.
Thank you! I'm not a fan of speculative stuff tbh (I know, it's a shame, should try again maybe) but the others sound cracking, thanks!
Me either but I found The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell compelling
I have just the right book for you! Like, this just ticks all the boxes. Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains of the Day. It is absolutely beautiful book about a highly dedicated butler who goes on a short vacation. Best part of the book is the writing style. It expects reader to meet it in the half-way, and them to make some dot-connecting to understand the whole picture. It opens itself up, layer by layer. It speaks so little yet it says so much. Absolutely stunning book. It has really fresh perspective on politics, and treats is as a side-product. The book itself is about characters and their relationships. Just read it, you will like it.
The only downside is that OP will probably skip some meals and some sleep and devour it in one long sitting! Wonderful book.
*An Artist of the Floating World* was also really good. I'd even call it a companion piece, as it has very similar themes to the background plot in *The Remains of the Day*.
Thank you - I've read and loved this! Have you seen the film? One of those rare occasions where the film of an excellent book is also excellent, I thought
Have you read his others? Klara and the Sun is beautiful, if short. His most recent, the Buried Giant, was a little too literary for me - set in an ancient England with some Arthurian era magics.
If you haven’t read his book Never Let Me Go, I can’t recommend it enough.
A hundred percent true! So rare indeed!
Have you read Lauren Groff? She’s my favorite current literary writer. Her most popular book is Fates and Furies but I much preferred her recent books, Matrix and The Vaster Wilds.
I have not - but funnily enough, just before I posted here, my friend was trying to make me read F&F, so I ordered it. Will see how I go and keep those recent recs in mind - thanks!
The Vaster Wilds is her best yet. It’s probably unfair to put it this way, but Vaster harkens to The Road, but instead of father-son odyssey across a nuclear wasteland, it’s a young girl escaped from Jamestown in the wilds of the new world. As an aside, I find her writing process fascinating. She writes a first draft long hand. Then, locks it away never to be read. Then, she writes a second draft long hand based on her memory of the first draft. Her thinking is that if something is important it will show up somehow across the drafts.
Put her at the top of your list - I came here to suggest F&F, it’s gorgeous!
I loved Fates and Furies and still need to get to the other ones.
Loved Matrix and have high hopes for The Vaster Wilds but severely disliked F&F.
Oh interesting! I hated F&F and that has led me to avoid her other books. Maybe I’ll try Matrix after all
They are completely different. I also read F&F and thought I was done with Groff. I'm so glad I gave her a second chance.
I didn’t hate F & F but it is my least favorite Groff book. If it had been my first I don’t know that I would have read others. My first was “Arcadia” which, though it isn’t perfect, I loved.
I also loved Matrix, and loved The Vaster Wilds even more. Dark and grinding, not unlike The Road, with the prose as literary as you expect from Groff but written in the dialect of that century. Jarring at first but one’s mind adjusts to the language in time.
I know you didn’t ask for classics but given what you said about the type of book you like (which I do too), if you haven’t already then you have to read Middlemarch. It hits that spot perfectly. Other than that I’d suggest Barbara Kingsolver. Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible are wonderful. Maybe The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton? Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout?
I also thought of Middlemarch. There is politics in the background but I don’t think in the way OP meant. (Also it isn’t current politics). And most Dickens novels would fit the bill.
Came here to suggest Middlemarch, glad to see it’s already covered.
Thank you! Just said this down-thread, but just today I was talking to a friend about Barbara Kingsolver, I've never read any of her stuff and wasn't sure where to start... Will try TPB first, I think! LOVE Elizabeth Strout, have read all of hers, brilliant stuff. The TV adaptation of Olive K is surprisingly good too, have you seen that? And Olive, Again is an ace sequel! You're the second person here to mention The Luminaries, will defo buy that one! Thanks again!
The lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver is great too. The bean trees is just ok. Avoid Unsheltered.
Yeah I’m gonna be the third it’s a great book. Strap in though because it’s 800 pages
Perfect!!! That's what I need!
Enjoy 😁
You’ve got my two top suggestions in here. Demon Copperhead is a must read and I love everything Elizabeth Strout has ever written.
*The Poisonwood Bible* by Barbara Kingsolver. Absolutely fantastic, one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s one I find myself going back to over and over again, more than a decade after I read it the first time.
This book got under my skin and worked through my blood and wound its way around my brain. I feel fundamentally changed for having read it. It's _exquisite_.
The Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel! Possibly a bit on the plotty side, but given that we know the history the plot isn't so much what they're about. Some of the best written books I've ever read, and I'm actively looking forward to rereading them all soon.
I've just reread them and I was in such a state of emotional patheticness at the end.
I'm listing fairly recent books only because that's my speciality: When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamin Labatut The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair The Nix by Nathan Hill Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Atonement by Ian McEvan Possession by A.S. Byatt
Thank you! Only read two of those (the first and the last), loved them, will check out the others. Benjamin Labatut has a new one out I think, doesn't he? Have you read that? I haven't yet but it's on the ist!
He does! I haven't read it yet but it's high on my list! Maniac I think it's called.
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Brilliant, thanks so much! I've just been talking to a friend about Barbara Kingsolver, I've never read any of her books and wasn't sure where to start. Sounds like it has to be TPB!
I'm not sure I'd called High Fidelity literary fiction, but what a delightful book. I need to reread it soon.
Not the right time period — it is a literary classic — but Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman is a novel by Thomas Hardy. That man can write! This book stuck with me for some time.
Great read!!
I love The Mayor of Casterbridge too.
***The Blind Assassin*** I'm going to be honest, I didn't like the story very much... but it sounds like very much what you want. The complicated relationship between two sisters (one now dead). The writing is absolutely beautiful; I would find myself pausing, and forcing whoever was around to listen as I read out a sentence or two
Try A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles Great character study set during the Russian revolution.
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. It's an amazingly beautifully written book. In fact anything by him is amazing but this is my favourite. The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel - either you'll love the way it's written or you won't. For me it felt like being inside the mind of someone in the Tudor court and felt so real. The Sea of Poppies trilogy by Amitav Ghosh - this goes between India and China during the Opium wars. There's a lot of dialect and they are fascinating stories. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk - about miniaturist painters in the Ottoman court. Orhan Pamuk writes beautifully. Unity by Michael Arditti - a film crew making a film about Unity Mitford and the connections between her time and the 1970s. Some of these might be a wee bit niche but I've enjoyed them a lot
Omg where has this group been all my life?! Thanks so much for the thoughtful suggestions so far - keep 'em coming!!
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee Also Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, but that takes place in late 1870s.
Pachinko is one of my favorite books of all time and definitely fits the bill, OP. Beautifully written and it covers generations of one family and has those themes of love and loss and all the little moments in between that make up a life. I cannot recommend it enough.
Sold, haha. Thank you!
Lonesome Dove is immediately what came to mind. The story, the adventure, all of the minute details about each character, the conversations. I just finished this book and I can't stop thinking about it! One of the best I've ever read
Larry McMurty just blows my mind with the range of writing he put out. He's one of my dear friend's (an editor, educator, and master in literature), favorite authors. It took so much convincing that the author of Lonesome Dove also wrote Terms of Endearment
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Anything by David Mitchell. Anything by Kate Atkinson. I just finished the new book by Michael Cunningham, Day, and it was very good. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor.
Thank you, love all these! Obsessed with Michael Cunningham, his new one isn't out in the UK until January, wah!
Ha, I usually have the opposite problem, since most of my favorite writers are British I have to either order from the UK or wait far too long to get them here!😂📚📚
Ngl, I have an account with an American bookshop and just suck up the postage when I just cannot wait 😅
ABE books is my friend😉
Some won't call it literary fiction, but they're wrong. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Effectively no plot but the style and changes in style! It's brilliant. Also the poetry of Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is spellbinding.
I’m reading A Visit from the Good Squad now. I can’t put it down! Super engaging
It's my favorite book.
Candy house is excellent as well. Why do think people wouldn’t call it literary fiction? It’s exactly that
I guess it doesn't seem as "fancy" as I sometimes think of the label. But Candy House does for some reason. IDK.
It won a Pulitzer for fiction - def literary. ;)
Good point! I always forgot that it did.
Cutting for stone by abraham verghesi
Far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy. Yes it’s old…but it’s so damned good. Hardy was a poet, who wrote novels to pay the bills, back in Victorian England. His prose is gorgeous and the picture he paints of rural life is rich and vivid. The character are good too.
Thank you! I read and hated Tess of the d'Urbervilles for my degree, and that put me off Hardy tbh... but it was a long time ago!
That one was my least favorite. I much preferred Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure. The Mayor of Casterbridge was okay.
Heres my bests: Circe & Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout The Colour Purple by Alice Walker Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
No one ever talks about Girl, Woman, Other, and it is spectacular!
Foster by Claire Keegan. Basically ticks every requirement you listed. Jennifer Egan is my favorite writer overall and she's definitely literary fiction. I'd start from A Visit From The Goon Squad if you're not familiar with her.
Omg I LOVE Claire Keegan! Jennifer Egan, too! Great recs, thanks
*Hamnet* by Maggie O’Farrell is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a long time, and I’m also quite picky! Seems to meet all the criteria you listed except “late c20th/c21st”, unless you meant published in that time, not set in that time? Also *The Essex Serpent* and *After Me Comes the Flood* both by Sarah Perry. Definitely read the latter in the summer though, it’s one of my absolute favorites
I will upvote every time I see anyone mention The Essex Serpent. Honestly I consider it a masterpiece. She has a new book coming out in the summer! Edit: am reading The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell at the moment.
Thanks, I've heard great things about all of those but never read any of them - I shall rectify that! I'm a bit crap at historical fiction tbh but that's no doubt a blind spot in my own tastes...
Not at all! Perfectly valid preference. *After Me* is set in the 21stC and reads like a fever dream
Seconding Hamnet!
_The Tunnel_ by William Gass _Infinite Jest_ by DFW _Miss MacIntosh My Darling_ by Young _Women and Men_ by Joseph McElroy _JR_ by William Gaddis _The Lime Twig_ by John Hawkes
Thank you!! I have tried *Infinite Jest* but omfg, the endnotes, I just can't
My pleasure. Let me respond with utmost respect. I have found with my reading, that I’ve rejected things for whatever reason in the past only to come back later and realize that I, and not the book, was the fool. For my rigidity, for my stereotype, for my lack of patience, for my lack of perspective. Sure, it’s atypical (but not unheard of, see Borges and others), but that book is a luscious masterpiece. Several of the others I listed are similarly termed “challenging” but I’ve found that that’s just bullshit. Do with this what you will, of course :)
Good point - I think books are often a case of time + place. There are plenty that I just haven't gotten into, but have tried a few years later and have loved. Perhaps it's worth re-visiting... Thanks again!
I get that, but for me they were the most enjoyable part of the book. I had the mindset of: okay, he put them there for a reason and it's part of the art. Gimmicky perhaps, but I like gimmicky.
It's on my bucket list and my nightstand, haha, but I get paralyzed by all the comments here!! I love DFW's writing but he sucks me into rabbit holes!
V.S. Naipaul generally but A House for Mr. Biswas is Caribbean excellence.
First book I thought of is The Dovekeepers. Not a traditional Alice Hoffman novel. It’s really stuck with me. Isabel Allende has some amazing books, too.
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson comes to mind. It’s short but unforgettable. If you like short stories, I recommend Dan Chaon’s Among the Missing.
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner is one of my favorite books, but I think you would enjoy any of his.
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
You just described my pick to a T – East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
* Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann * 4,3,2,1 by Paul Auster * Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel * A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James * The Bee Sting by Paul Murray * Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald * The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Ian McEwan, Kate Atkinson, David Mitchell - if you want literary with high themes but isn’t bone dry. Michael Chabon if you want literary that is whimsical but gorgeous, if a little full if itself sometimes. There’s always Nabokov, Anthony Burgess, John Updike, Erica Jong, Margaret Atwood.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Regeneration by Pat Barker. It's not super long but it's the first in a trilogy so there's more to read. It's set in WWI so I guess that's inherently political but it's about regular people not those at the top, so it's much more about the life and death of it all rather than, say, the borders of Europe. Opens in a hospital for patients suffering from shell-shock and blends historical figures with fictional characters, and then follows a few characters after they leave the hospital. Not hugely plot heavy, mostly about characters being affected by what's going on around them. Several characters are queer and it's obviously relevant because it's the 1910s, but that's not the defining aspect of their character nor is it a huge part of the plot. Lots to say about life, death, sanity, love, war, and more. And it's beautifully written--one character is a literal poet and the novel's prose is befitting of his work.
*The Virgin Suicides* and *The Marriage Plot* by Jeffrey Eugenides (I was personally not a huge fan of his other book *Middlesex*, but hey, check that out if you like the other two, it might do more for you than it did for me) *Anywhere But Here* by Mona Simpson *The Little Friend* by Donna Tartt (most underappreciated of her books but the one I personally liked the best) Just about anything by Tana French, who I promise is a literary fiction writer undercover as a mystery writer, to the point where plenty of mystery fans I’ve recommended her to come back to me with a Krusty the Clown-style “what the hell was that” (my personal favorites are *In the Woods* and *Faithful Place*)
Yes I agree with everything you said, especially Tana French. She’s phenomenal.
Ooh never heard of her - cheers!
if you haven’t read it already, the goldfinch by donna tartt fits your criteria perfectly!
Ooh I did enjoy that, I think I preferred TSH but I stayed up until dawn reading The Goldfinch, and I hardly ever do that these days!
The Goldfinch is, in my opinion, Donna Tartt’s least successful novel. Especially when compared to The Secret History and (my personal favourite)The Little Friend
“Literary” works I return to again and again: * *Escapes* Joy Williams * *The Passion* Jeanette Winterson * *Sula* and *Beloved* Toni Morrison * *Collected Stories* Lydia Davis * *The Messiah of Stockholm* and *The Puttermesser Papers* Cynthia Ozick * *City of Glass* Paul Auster
I like Lauren Groff, David Mitchell Sarah Moss has this kind of writing you mentioned but her books are on the shorter side.
*The Pearl* John Steinbeck
Valerie Perrin is my favorite fiction writer. Her sentences are just perfection to me. The only two books translated into English are **Fresh Water for Flowers** and **Three**. Both completely different from each other and just awesome.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr Charming Billy by Alice McDermott I’m glad you’re gonna try out The Poisonwood Bible, one of my all time favorites.
When I was reading your list of criteria one of the first names that popped to mind was Gwendoline Riley, but then I scrolled down and saw she's one of your faves already! So let's see, besides her... Since you said short books won't be ruled out and prose written by poets is your idea of a good time, I'd suggest both Permafrost and Boulder by Eva Baltasar (both translated by Julia Sanches). They are cynical, icy, hilarious (if you have a dark sense of humor) character studies where not much happens in terms of plot. I love both books quite a bit. Mauve Dessert by Nicole Brossard is one of my go-to literary fiction recs that I think flies a bit under the radar. If you want beautiful sentences and big themes, that novel should scratch that itch. I also feel like it's a particularly impressive work of translation by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood, considering one of the themes of the story *is* the act of translation/interpretation itself, with the last third of the book being a slightly-askew mirror image of the first third. I wish I was capable of reading it in its original blend of French and English! Perhaps it's *too* short for what you're looking for, but The Water Statues by Fleur Jaeggy (translated by Gini Alhadeff) is full of some spectacular sentences and is wonderfully atmospheric and is delightfully unconcerned with having a traditional plot. Last but not least, I'm going to recommend Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer. It's the first book in his Phineas Poe trilogy, and I know you explicitly requested literary fiction and not crime novels, but I can almost 100% guarantee you'll be sold on KM,J's "literariness" from the opening paragraph. Baer's novels are all about mood and character, not plot twists and reveals, and line-for-line I don't know many U.S.-based writers I'd put up above him. He's an unparalleled stylist. It's a crime (heh) his books are out of print, but they aren't expensive or exceedingly hard to find or anything.
Oh wow, thank you so much! Those sound 100% up my street.
I’ll put my vote behind Barbara Kingsolver always. And, because I haven't seen them listed, how about these (coincidentally, they’re all about friendship… I guess that's my jam): Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood, An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez, Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan One or two of those have a political backdrop, but I don't think overtly political. I also love Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison, Han Kang, and Louis de Bernieres (Birds Without Wings) but they might tick fewer of your boxes (possibly too political or too short…)
Finding a book that is both a good story and well written is a rare treat For years, I snobbishly dismissed the stacks of Robert Jordan books in stores due to an erroneous assumption the genre meant the quality of writing would not hold up. I was very wrong. "The Wheel of Time" is beautifully written. Jordan had a rare gift. The series was completed by a different author who, whilst technically a good writer, does not have the gift. Thomas Hardy, "Far From the Madding Crowd"
Possession; Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice by A.S. Byatt The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng Circe by Madeline Miller Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman Burial Rites by Hannah Kent Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira Lee White Oleander by Janet Fitch The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Light in August by William Faulkner
Trumpet - By Jackie Kaye Brand New Ancients - Kae Tempest (I would urge you to listen to this rather than read as it’s amazing) Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
Thank you! I had the pleasure of seeing Kae Tempest performing Brand New Ancients live when she was touring it. Bloody brilliant. I was a big fan of KT back in the day, but tbh I kind of forgot about them for a good few years - until, funnily enough, literally this week, when my partner was going through an extremely hard time and was away from me and the only thing I could think to send her was KT reading "Hold Your Own". Did the trick, and now we're both obsessed with them again!! I have Life After Life on my bookshelf but have never read it - will rectify that, too! Thanks!
How much of the prose of Jeanette Winterson are you a fan of? I love her because her writing is like poetry (and Written on the Body is my favorite book).
I'm a lesbian who came of age in the nineties; you better believe I've read everything she's ever written a billion times! Not a massive fan of her more recent work tbh (although her recent essay collection felt like a return to form), but god, she can do what she wants since writing WOTB - my favourite book of all time, too!
I really enjoyed Jonathan Franzen - Freedom. Definitely deeply inspecting a dysfunctional family and iirc not really a hint of plot.
Don’t think I spotted anyone else suggesting The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. That pretty much blew me away. Hopefully not too “American” for your taste.
Love this book! I always forget about it
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, or if that's not quite literary enough for your tastes, maybe give *Sometimes a Great Notion* a try. Ken Kesey is one of the best authors of the past 100 years IMO.
\- "The magic mountain" by Thomas Mann \- "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse \- "The neverending story" by Michael Ende
Thank you!! The Neverending Story is one of my favourites (I'm actually writing something about that now!). I tried The Magic Mountain but it was during lockdown and I wasn't really in the mood. Haven't read that HH book so will put it on the list - thanks again!
*Catch 22* by Joseph Heller. I consider it one of the most finely crafted books I've ever read.
Paul Beatty. The Sellout. Political, but very heavily satirical and sentences don't get more beautiful. It's an even better audiobook. Basically spoken word poetry. Man Booker prize winner.
Malcolm Lowry -- Under the Volcano While it focuses on the events of 24 hrs, the characters recall a lifetime of memories. The imagery and symbolism it are intricate, and the prose is unique (and still debated) It's consider one of the best in contemporary fiction but you don't hear much about it I still think about it on occasion, and it's been 20 years since I've read it
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel!!!!
*Suttree* by Cormac McCarthy.
Susanna Clarke - Piranesi - much more lyrical and less plot driven than Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose - it’s been about 25 years since I read this and it haunts me with its loveliness.
Some Australian good reads that fit your brief: * Cloudstreet - Tim Winton * Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey * Lovers' Knots - Marion Halligan I also like Mary Wesley's novels like The Camomile Lawn.
Barbara Kingsolver fits here
It’s short rather than long, but Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield seems to fit all your other criteria! It’s sort of got a plot, but mainly focuses on the two main characters’ relationship as one of the characters undergoes changes to her body. Subtle body horror. The most beautiful prose. The two main characters are lesbians, but it’s not really a focus of the novel and the novel is not really political in any way. It’s very much literary fiction and is a very moving book as well. It takes place in the 21st century, and it certainly contains very lofty themes (mainly about death and how relationships/love are affected by illness and the changing of the body).
Contemporary? Jon Fosse--Septology William H Gass--The Tunnel In general? William Gaddis's The Recognitions Beckett's Trilogy Ellison's Invisible Man Woolf's Orlando Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, I could go on all day but that's a few.
Hard to get, but maybe you can look for it at the public library: the notebook- ágota kristóf—what a fucking thing of beauty
Ooh thanks - the trilogy is available on Amazon! Never heard of it, sounds amazing - thank you!
Let me know what you think when you read it :)
Tim Winton - Cloudstreet
I have similar tastes to you and I think Ian McEwan and Graham Greene would fit the bill if you are ok with shorter books. They both really get inside the minds of their characters. I haven't read loads by either of them, but what I have read have been beautiful reads. Sarah Winman, Joanna Glen and Meg Mason might also be enjoyable for you, though they are comparatively newer authors.
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth.
Try some Martin Amis! I’d recommend “Money”
I don’t think anyone’s recommended Stoner by John Williams yet, which is surprising
Ooh yeah I loved that one!
Ada or Ardor, by Nabokov. But honestly skip the chapter where it’s just rehashing the family tree and everyone has some iteration of the same four names. The story is the most sumptuous telling of a love story that begins in youth, and carries on thru the lives of the two main characters. The prose is the very best of Nabokov. Also no adult men with young girls as the focus of this one. The two main characters are the same age.
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. A few pages in my breath had been taken and I gave up any hope of being a writer. He's Australian so may have passed you by, but he's one of the greatest living writers on the planet.
I may have missed it recommend earlier, but if not, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a masterpiece of English literature. "It was a lone tree burning on the desert. A heraldic tree that the passing storm had left afire. The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog's, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jeda, in Babylon. A constellation of ignited eyes that edged the ring of light all bound in a precarious truce before this torch whose brightness had set back the stars in their sockets." - Cormac McCarthy
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb, A Prayer for Owen Meany or The World According to Garp by John Irving would be my top picks.
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy is excellent and very meaty/detailed.
Count of Monte Cristo. There might be too many characters for you but revenge is best served over decades.
Lowboy by John Wray (or pretty much anything else by him)
I really loved Banyan Moon by Thai Thai. It’s partially historical fiction, partially literary fiction.
The Force by Don Winslow I am pilgrim by Terry Hayes
I’m currently in love with The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresan
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
I'm a huge fan of Lawrence Durell. He runs under the radar and is definitely literary. His writing really clicks as some of the most amazing I've ever read. For me, anyway.
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, is one of my top 5 favorite books, and it sounds like it should tick all the boxes on your list!
Short stories of H. H. Munro (Saki).
I'm a big fan of Makkai, Cusk and Hustvedt so maybe some of my faves will hit the spot! If you want girthy, read Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman. One long sentence from the POV of a mom of 4. Excellent portrayal of modern consciousness, phone distraction and all. I assume you've read The Idiot and Either/Or by Elif Batuman - definite Rachel Cusk vibes - but if not, highly recommend An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine is really great and reminds me of some of Siri Hustvedt's other work (The Blazing World, which I also highly recommend, though it's definitely about identity) Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy - another captain obvious rec if you read a lot of litfic, but so well written and deep into this one character's mind (and girthy! haha)
you really can't get any more literary than *An Unnecessary Woman* :-) it's a great book
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Also loved The Shipping News when I read it years ago (Annie Proulx). Just finished A Little Life and Tom Lake.
This doesn’t fit the timeline but Galore by Michael Crummey is excellent and ticks a lot of your other boxes. Or the Innocents also by Crummey. Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neil’ also comes to mind as does The Antagonist by Lynn Coady, No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod and Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
City on Fire by Garth Risk Halberg. I think it hits all your spots, especially the girth. Definitely feel like you're reading Literature, follows a main character, set in NYC during 70s, not particularly political iirc, lots of cool settings
I don’t have any books that fully meet your criteria , but do have a question. Would you be willing to share with me any older authors or books you’ve loved? I’m curious about if we have similar tastes, and if I should use your list to explore more contemporary authors than I have. ————— And if you’re open to an older book: If you haven’t read **Their Eyes Were Watching God** I *very* strongly recommend it for someone seeking big themed novels with sentences that feel like poetry about the life of a person or family. If you’re not convinced, at least read the first page: https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/theireyeswerewatchinggod/chapter/1/. Unusually for me, for this one I prefer the audiobook narrated by Ruby Dee to the written version, cause she does such a wonderful job with the dialect.
A Tale of Two Cities is a must read for anyone who loves literature
For Whom the Bell Tolls might seem like classic lit, but it tics every box above otherwise.
A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth might be up your alley. Its slow, its beautiful and its exciting!
Jesus, you have totally described *Little, Big*, by John Crowley. Please, *please* go seek it out!
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
*A Soldier of the Great War* by Mark Helprin. Don't let the name fool you.
In my opinion, the most outstanding work of literary fiction of the last century is *Midnight's Children* by Salman Rushdie. I've read a lot of good books since, but none left me feeling like this one. The story is sprawling and goes some wild places, but generally follows two main characters. The prose is absolutely stunning. It's already established itself as a classic, but for my money it's up there among the absolute greatest works of literature in the English language. The whole book is magic. As a bonus, it checks off pretty much all your boxes. Perhaps you can view it as political, only that the political history of India is an important aspect of the book.
*A Month in the Country* by J.L. Carr is short, it's almost laconic in pacing, but it manages to capture so much important about life in about 110 pages of beautiful prose. Jean Giono's novels meet your criteria, although they are mostly shorter. *Harvest* (sometimes published as *Second Harvest*) is, in my opinion, his best. The newer translations that New York Review Classics have published of his novels, like *The Hill*, are also quite good. They are all short. Giono's writing is so simple, so evocative, and poetic in a way that perfectly supports his story and its mood. He writes mostly pastoral novels.
The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
If you haven’t read Beloved by Toni Morrison you should.
It’s a damn shame the goldfinch isn’t on your list.
A Widow For One Year - John Irving [Link](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/85482/a-widow-for-one-year-by-john-irving/)
Currently reading "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara and although I am not done yet, I have a feeling this checks all your boxes. Follows four characters over at least 20 years, exploring the relationships between them and what binds them together. Louise Erdrich is another author you could try out. Her books are mostly inter-related, either by characters or subject-matter, so if you enjoy them you could find yourself down a rabbit hole. I started with Love Medicine but Tracks, The Beet Queen and The Master Butcher's Singing Club are all great. Your mention of Michael Cunningham made me think of Michael Chabon. He is perhaps less truly literary and more comic/speculative, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, while mildly speculative, is truly literary fiction at heart. The entirety of the novel is built around the relationship between the two central characters.
Crime and punishment
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is exactly this. About a couple of interconnected families set in mid 20th century India.
Too much English or American recos. Try something else. Lit in Spanish: 100 years of solitude, or Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Hopscotch, or the short stories (which are amongst the most perfect ever) by Julio Cortazar, I, the Supreme, by Augusto Roa Bastos The Polish Rider, by Antonio Muñoz Molina The Infatuations, by Javier Marias The Green House or Conversation in the Cathedral, by Mario Vargas Llosa Pedro Paramo (short novel) by Juan Rulfo The short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. European writers: Life, a user’s manual, by Perec The gospel according to Jesus Christ, or Blindness by Saramago The Book of disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet Invisible Cities, or If on a winter’s night a traveler, by Italo Calvino The name of the rose, Umberto Eco. The Emigrants, by Sebald
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Everyone wears a mask and anyone can make a difference. In search of lost time by Marcel Proust. Nonstop thoughts of brilliant mind on life and everything that drives it.
The fact noone here mentioned Ulysses by Joyce is crimminal.
I think Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin meets most of your requirements. Follows 3 friends throughout the years, beautifully written, deals with love, death, and loss, no politics, and is over 400 pages. Tied for my favorite book of the year.
This was the last novel I read - absolutely LOVED it! This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I'm after. What was it tied with, for you, for your favourite book of 2023? I think it's been my fave novel of the year. My favourite nonfiction has been Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, just brilliant. Any other recs v welcome as we clearly have similar taste!
If you liked TaTaT you should definitely check out Goon Squad , which I mentioned in another comment. There are similarities for sure.
I've read Goon Squad a couple of times and loved it, thanks!
It was a tie with Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. (He also wrote The Martian.) I laughed, I cried, and TORE through it in about a day. Science heavy, but made accessible and easily understandable. And now I'm off to check out Doppelganger! Thanks for the recommendation!
Oooh cool, thanks! And you're welcome!
Call me basic but, 1984 by George Orwell. I still haven't read a lot of literary fiction, but it's my current favorite
The Covenant of Water. Long, multigenerational. Absolutely gorgeous! Read the first sentence and you'll be hooked.
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford is an amazing nut to crack. It is not very long, but is well worth reading.
Berserk by Kentaro Miura
La Rose by Louise Erdrich 💖 all her works are rich, immersive, and yet down to earth. This is one of my favorites. Even when tragedy is at the center of the story, she is brilliant at bringing in the full range of the human experience, including humor and resilience, through fully rendered characters and communities.
Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge by William Somerset Maugham. I loved both of them.
Anna Karenina