More like Catching Fire
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- The Edible Woman
Margaret Atwoodstandalone novel1969
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
The Edible Woman is the first published novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in 1969. It is the story of a young woman, Marian, whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world starts to slip out of focus. Following her engagement, Marian feels her body and her self are becoming separated. Marian begins endowing food with human qualities that cause her to identify with it, and finds herself unable to eat, repelled by metaphorical cannibalism. In a foreword written in 1979 for the Virago edition of the novel, Atwood described it as a protofeminist rather than feminist work.
- Phases of Gravity
Dan Simmonsstandalone novel1989
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
Follows Richard Baedecker, an Apollo astronaut who walked on the moon, through his midlife crisis. He meanders through India, Glen Oak Illinois, the mountains of Colorado, and the coastline of Oregon, checking up on his son and his former Apollo crewmates.
- A Sudden Light
Garth Steinstandalone novel2014
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
A Sudden Light is the fourth novel by American author Garth Stein published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster, set in 1990 in Washington State.
- Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Tom Robbinsstandalone novel1976
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
Sissy Hankshaw was born with unusually oversized thumbs, and instead of seeing them as a flaw turns them into a gift: the greatest hitchhiking thumbs in America, carrying her across the country on a restless road life. Her travels take her to New York, where she becomes star model for the Countess, a feminine-hygiene tycoon, before a stint at a Dakota ranch called the Rubber Rose brings her into the orbit of Bonanza Jellybean's cowgirls and a mountain mystic known only as the Chink. Around Sissy's wandering, Robbins builds a philosophical comedy about freedom and gender, with a flock of endangered whooping cranes crossing her path. Tom Robbins's best-known novel.
- The Lovely Bones
Alice Seboldstandalone novel2001
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by American writer Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from a personal heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received critical praise and became an instant bestseller.
- White Noise
Don DeLillostandalone novel1985
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, published by Viking Press in 1985. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
- The Mad Man
Samuel R. Delanystandalone novel1994
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
The Mad Man is a literary novel by Samuel R. Delany, first published in 1994 by Richard Kasak. In a disclaimer that appears at the beginning of the book, Delany describes it as a "pornotopic fantasy". It was originally published in 1994, republished and slightly revised in 1996, and republished again with significant changes in 2002 and again in an e-book version with further corrections in 2015. Delany considers the 2015 version the definitive edition.
- Hearts in Atlantis
series6 books1994
similar byliterary & generalnorth america+1 more
Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis (1999) is a single book of five linked, chronologically ordered stories rather than a multi-volume series, connected by recurring characters and centered on the Vietnam-era 1960s. The opening novella, Low Men in Yellow Coats, follows young Bobby Garfield's friendship with Ted Brautigan, an old man with psychic powers being hunted by sinister figures called the low men, and sets up the themes of lost innocence and quiet betrayal that run through the rest of the book.
- Arc d'X
Steve Ericksonstandalone novel1993
similar byliterary & generalour worldnorth america+1 more
Arc d'X (1993), by Steve Erickson, is an avant-pop novel. Upon publication in 1993 it received wide attention particularly from other novelists such as Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins and William Gibson, and has been translated into Italian, Japanese and other languages.
- Running Dog
Don DeLillostandalone novel1978
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
Running Dog is a 1978 novel by Don DeLillo. The book concerns Moll Robbins, a reporter for the eponymous magazine – a fictional underground, once-radical magazine which satirizes Rolling Stone – whose investigation into the suspicious activities of a member of the U.S. Senate uncover the possible existence of a pornographic film of Adolf Hitler, purportedly filmed in his bunker in the climactic days of Berlin's fall. As Robbins digs deeper into the film's existence and whereabouts, more and more individuals become obsessed with finding it, including underground art collectors and the Mafia, leading to a surreal and violent series of events.
- VALIS
series4 books1981
completed
similar by+4 more
The VALIS trilogy is a set of science fiction/philosophical novels by author Philip K. Dick which include VALIS (1981), The Divine Invasion (1981), and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). Dick's first novel about the VALIS concept originally titled "VALISystem A", was published as Radio Free Albemuth after Dick's death in 1985.
- Black & White
Lewis Shinerstandalone novel2008
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
When Michael follows his dying father to North Carolina, a lifetime of lies begins to unravel. His pursuit of his father's past--haunted by voodoo, adultery and murder--takes him to a place called Hayti, once the most prosperous black community in the South. Now the mysteries of Michael's own heritage become a matter of life and death, as racial conflicts barely restrained since the 1960s erupt again.
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díazstandalone novel2007
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century+1 more
Dark fantasy novel. A young man who dreams of being “the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien” is doomed by a family curse, traced across generations.
- Beautyland
Marie-Helene Bertinostandalone novel2024
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
Beautyland is a novel by Marie-Helene Bertino. It was published on January 16, 2024, by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book follows Adina, who is sent by aliens before birth to find out if they could live on earth and reports to them via a fax machine. The book starts with Adina's birth, which takes place in 1977 when Voyager 1 was launched.
- Girlfriend in a Coma
Douglas Couplandstandalone novel1998
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
Girlfriend in a Coma is a novel by Canadian writer and artist Douglas Coupland. It was first published by HarperCollins Canada in 1998. The novel tells the story of a group of friends growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in the late 1970s. On the night of a teenage house-wrecking party, one of the protagonists, Karen, falls into a coma. Peculiarly, she seemed to expect it, having given her boyfriend, Richard, a letter detailing the vivid dreams of the future she had experienced and how she wanted to sleep for a thousand years to avoid that dystopia.
- Monkey-Wrench Gang
series2 books1975
completed
similar byliterary & generalnorth america+1 more
Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang follows four misfit environmentalists who take up sabotage against dam construction, strip mining, and highway building across the American Southwest, becoming an early touchstone for radical environmentalism. Abbey returned to an older version of the same characters in the 1990 sequel Hayduke Lives!
- Tangerine
Edward Bloorstandalone novel1997
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eyesight.
- Duluth
Gore Vidalstandalone novel1983
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurynorth america
Duluth is a 1983 novel by Gore Vidal. He considered it one of his best works, as did Italo Calvino, who wrote, "Vidal's development along that line, from Myra (Breckenridge) to Duluth, is crowned with great success, not only for the density of comic effects, each one filled with meaning, not only for the craftsmanship in construction, put together like a clock-work which fears no word processor, but because this latest book holds its own built-in theory, that which the author calls 'après-post-structuralism'. (...) I consider Vidal to be a master of that new form which is taking shape in world literature and which we may call the hyper-novel or the novel elevated to the square or the cube."
- Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story
Lewis Shinerstandalone novel1999
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryour worldnorth america
"Laurie Moss seemed to come out of nowhere, but behind those songs, behind that powerful voice lies a history. This book takes you from her Texas roots to her first recording contract, from her struggling days in L.A. to her final tour - and beyond. It's also the story of her relationship with the legendary guitarist Skip Shaw, whose passion for self-destruction illuminated her career like a bonfire."--BOOK JACKET. "The battlefield for Say Goodbye may be the music industry, but the novel's themes are universal: success and failure, love and loss, obsession and forgiveness."--BOOK JACKET.
