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Ravelstein

Saul Bellow · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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The Hours

Michael Cunningham

Terminal IllnessWriter ProtagonistDense ProseCharacter-Driven
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Gilead

Marilynne Robinson · 256 pages

**WINNER OF THE 2005 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION** In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames’s life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He “preached men into the Civi

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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Crossing to Safety

Wallace Stegner · 338 pages

This novel is perfect for anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship, or realized that the majority of their social time is spent with other couples. A great reminder that marriage is a marathon, not a sprint.

Terminal IllnessWriter ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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In One Person

John Irving · 448 pages

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a "sexual suspect," a phrase first used by John Ir

Writer ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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Sputnik Sweetheart

Haruki Murakami · 224 pages

"The scenario is as simple as it is uncomfortable: a college student falls in love (once and for all, despite everything that transpires afterward) with a classmate whose devotion to Kerouac and an untidy writerly life precludes any personal commitments - until she meets a considerably older and far more sophisticated businesswoman. It is through this wormhole that she enters Murakami's surreal ye

Writer ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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This Is How You Lose Her

Junot Diaz · 240 pages

This is a collection of stories that explores the power of love in all its forms, obsessive love, illicit love, fading love, maternal love, as it is shaped by passion, betrayal, and the echoes of intimacy.

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenWriter ProtagonistBittersweet
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The Sportswriter

Richard Ford · 375 pages

In the aftermath of his divorce and the death of his son, Frank Bascombe struggles to come to terms with failure and tries to find consolation in the arms of a new girlfriend. What he hoped would be an idyllic adventure turns into a succession of calamities.

Writer ProtagonistDense ProseCharacter-DrivenBittersweet
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The Untouchable

John Banville · 410 pages

(From the Hardcover edition) Twenty years after his "retirement," ex-spy Victor Maskell attempts to come to terms with what has happened to his life by embarking on his memoirs. This is the plot which fuels Banville's stunning new novel--a story that goes beyond the mere facts of espionage to penetrate the intricate heart of the spy.

Terminal IllnessDense ProseCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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I Loved You More

Tom Spanbauer · 466 pages

Tom Spanbauer’s first novel in seven years is a love story triangle akin to The Marriage Plot and Freedom, only with a gay main character who charms gays and straights alike. I Loved You More is a rich, expansive tale of love, sex, and heartbreak, covering twenty-five years in the life of a striving, emotionally wounded writer. In New York, Ben forms a bond of love with his macho friend and foil,

Terminal IllnessWriter ProtagonistLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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Character-DrivenLiterary FictionDense ProseBittersweet
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Tinkers

Paul Harding · 192 pages

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenDense ProseBittersweet
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Leviathan

Paul Auster · 265 pages

"Leviathan begins when a woman finds an address book and steals a new identity. Or it begins with a sudden, violent death. Or it begins as Peter Aaron sits down to tell the story of his best friend, Benjamin Sachs - to take us, through a life, to the road in rural Wisconsin where Sachs has accidentally blown himself up. Aaron's sole aim is to tell the truth and preserve it, before those who are in

Dense ProseWriter ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald · 256 pages

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the

Writer ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweetDense Prose
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All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren · 490 pages

The story is about Willie Stark, a slick politician of humble birth, who was based on real-life Huey Long, a Louisiana governor, but the real main character is Jack Burden, a reporter who serves to narrate the story and Stark's rise to power.

Dense ProseCharacter-DrivenWriter ProtagonistLiterary Fiction
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Italian Shoes

Henning Mankell

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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The Good Husband

Gail Godwin · 480 pages

Terminal IllnessWriter ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweet
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The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt · 817 pages

"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthra

Dense ProseBittersweetCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko

Scott Stambach · 336 pages

"The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko is comic and staggeringly tragic, often both in a single sentence ... A grittier, Eastern European, more grown-up The Fault in Our Stars."--Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child. Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko is a life-long resident of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. Born deformed, yet mentally keen with a frighteningly sharp wit, strong

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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The Collective

Don Lee · 314 pages

In 1988, Eric Cho, an aspiring writer, arrives at Macalester College. On his first day he meets a beautiful fledgling painter, Jessica Tsai, and another would-be novelist, the larger-than-life Joshua Yoon. Brilliant, bawdy, generous, and manipulative, Joshua alters the course of their lives, rallying them together when they face an adolescent act of racism. As adults in Cambridge, Massachusetts, t

Writer ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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The Art of Racing in the Rain

Garth Stein · 321 pages

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing,

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenBittersweetFirst Person Narrator
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The Epicure's Lament

Kate Christensen · 351 pages

For ten years, Hugo Whittier, upper-class scion, former gigolo, failed belle-lettrist has been living a hermit's existence at Waverly, his family's crumbling mansion overlooking the Hudson. He passes the time reading Montaigne and M.F.K. Fisher, cooking himself delicious meals, smoking an endless number of cigarettes, and nursing a grudge against the world. But his older brother, Dennis, has ret

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenDense ProseLiterary Fiction
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Our Tragic Universe

Scarlett Thomas · 384 pages

Dense ProseWriter ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Aloft

Chang-rae Lee · 368 pages

Terminal IllnessCharacter-DrivenBittersweetLiterary Fiction
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Soldiers of Salamis

Javier Cercas · 224 pages

"In the final moments of the Spanish Civil War, as the remnants of the Republican army retreat north into exile, fifty prominent Nationalist prisoners are taken out to be shot. Among them is Rafael Sanchez Mazas - writer, fascist and founder of the Spanish Falange." "As the machine guns begin to fire, Sanchez Mazas takes advantage of the commotion and escapes into the forest. When his hiding plac

Writer ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenDense ProseLiterary Fiction

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