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- Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Tom Robbinsstandalone novel1976
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurywhimsical
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.
- Nights at the Circus
Angela Carterstandalone novel1984
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurywhimsical
Nights at the Circus is a novel by British writer Angela Carter, first published in 1984 and the winner of the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. The novel focuses on the life and exploits of Sophie Fevvers, a woman who is – or so she would have people believe – a Cockney virgin, hatched from an egg laid by unknown parents and ready to develop fully fledged wings. At the time of the story, she has become a celebrated aerialiste. She captivates the young journalist Jack Walser, who runs away with the circus and falls into a world that his journalistic exploits had not prepared him to encounter.
- Hawksmoor
Peter Ackroydstandalone novel1985
similar byliterary & generaleerielate 20th centurybig city
Hawksmoor is a 1985 novel by English writer Peter Ackroyd. It won Best Novel at the 1985 Whitbread Awards and the Guardian Fiction Prize. It tells the parallel stories of Nicholas Dyer, who builds seven churches in 18th-century London for which he needs human sacrifices, and Nicholas Hawksmoor, detective in the 1980s, who investigates murders committed in the same churches. Hawksmoor has been praised as Peter Ackroyd's best novel and an example of postmodernism.
- Kleinzeit
Russell Hobanstandalone novel1974
similar byliterary & generaleeriewhimsicalbig city
Kleinzeit is a metaphysical novel by Russell Hoban.
- The Edible Woman
Margaret Atwoodstandalone novel1969
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century+1 more
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.
- The Day of Creation
J. G. Ballardstandalone novel1987
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century+1 more
Dr. John Mallory has spent six purposeless months running a WHO clinic in a corner of Central Africa gutted by guerrilla war, with almost no patients to treat, when he throws himself into a project: bringing water to the parched land, with dreams of blooming the Sahara. When his drilling improbably succeeds and unleashes a river, Mallory's fixation curdles into obsession -- he begins to identify with the river as an extension of himself, and assembles an expedition, including a girl he takes for a water spirit and a half-blind documentary filmmaker, to follow it upstream toward its source. A visionary novel by J. G. Ballard.
- The Third Policeman
Flann O'Brienstandalone novel1967
similar byliterary & generaleeriewhimsical
The Third Policeman is a novel by Irish writer Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It was written in 1939 and 1940, but after it initially failed to find a publisher, the author withdrew the manuscript from circulation and claimed he had lost it. The book remained unpublished at the time of his death in 1966. It was published by MacGibbon & Kee in 1967.
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
村上春樹standalone novel1995
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryeerieeast asia
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a novel published in 1994–1995 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" (English), are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997. For this novel, Murakami received the Yomiuri Literary Award, which was awarded to him by one of his harshest former critics, Kenzaburō Ōe.
- Mother London
Michael Moorcockstandalone novel1988
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurybig city+1 more
Mother London is a novel by Michael Moorcock. Published in 1988, it was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. Although the city of London itself is perhaps the central character, it follows three outpatients from a mental hospital—a music hall artist, a reclusive writer and a woman just awoken from a long coma —who experience the history of the city from the Blitz to the late eighties through chaotic experience and sensory delusions. The novel is a non-chronological compilation of episodes, snippets and sidelines, rather than a single cohesive narrative. A piece in The Guardian called it 'a great, humane document'.
- The Hereafter Gang
Neal Barrett & Jr.standalone novel1991
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurywhimsical
From the front flap of the Ziesing first edition: "On a hot summer Texas afternoon, Cindy Nance introduces young Doug Hoover to the two great secrets of life. Doug likes the first secret a lot. The second, that guys grow up and go to work, doesn't appeal to him at all. A series of meaningless marriages and do-nothing jobs prove Cindy was right. Turned off by the present, Doug tries to recapture the joys of his past - Captain Marvel and cinnamon squares, Dr. Pepper and window-peeking fun. Nothing goes right until Doug meets Sue Jean, the culmination of a lifetime enchantment with mean-eyed Southern girls, his all-time carhop queen. Reality takes a hard right and never slows down. Doug, Sue Jean, and readers who can hang on tight are swept through an indescribable romp that gives new meaning to life, death, and roadside romance. There are enough bizarre characters here to fill several institutions: Crime czars, proctologists, Western outlaws, dog-fighting aviators and trout-fishing Huns. The Hereafter Gang is a literary accomplishment of rare insight and pure pleasure. Barrett"s sense of humor is unexcelled. His ability to stir fantasy and reality into a delightful souffle redefines the term "magic realism.""
- Girlfriend in a Coma
Douglas Couplandstandalone novel1998
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurybig city
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.
- Peaces
Helen Oyeyemistandalone novel2021
similar byliterary & generalwhimsical+1 more
Peaces is a 2021 novel by Helen Oyeyemi. The novel takes place on a train with several passengers.
- The Lovely Bones
Alice Seboldstandalone novel2001
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century
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.
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jacksonstandalone novel1962
similar byliterary & generaleerie
A young woman lives with her older sister and sickly uncle in their old family house, after a mysterious tragedy turns the townsfolk against them.
- King of the City
Michael Moorcockstandalone novel2000
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurybig city
King of the City (2000) is a novel by Michael Moorcock. It is a satire on modern London and its literary scene and, in part, a sequel to Mother London. Narrated by celebrity photographer and erstwhile rock star Dennis Dover, it charts a chaotic ride through London from the sixties to the end of the century.
- Every Day Is Mother's Day
Hilary Mantelstandalone novel1985
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century+1 more
Every Day is Mother's Day is the first novel by British author Hilary Mantel, published in 1985 by Chatto and Windus. It was inspired in part by Hilary Mantel's own experiences as a social work assistant at a geriatric hospital which involved visits to patients in the community and access to case notes, the loss of which play an important part in the novel.
- Phases of Gravity
Dan Simmonsstandalone novel1989
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century
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.
- White Noise
Don DeLillostandalone novel1985
similar byliterary & generallate 20th century
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.
- Gingerbread
Helen Oyeyemistandalone novel2019
similar byliterary & generalwhimsical+1 more
Gingerbread is a 2019 novel by Helen Oyeyemi.
- The Hearing Trumpet
Leonora Carringtonstandalone novel1976
similar byliterary & generaleeriewhimsical
The Hearing Trumpet is a 1974 surrealist novel by Mexican-British author Leonora Carrington. It follows the hard-of-hearing nonagenarian Marian, who is sent off to a peculiar old-age home by her family.
- Super-Cannes
J. G. Ballardstandalone novel2000
similar byliterary & generaleeriebig city
Super-Cannes is a novel by the British author J. G. Ballard, published in 2000. It picks up on the same themes as his earlier Cocaine Nights, and has often been called a companion piece to that book. This is the third time that the author has used the concept of a closed society, a privileged community completely shut off from the outside world, as the theme for one of his novels, after High-Rise and Running Wild (novella).
- The Sea Came in at Midnight
Steve Ericksonstandalone novel1999
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centuryeerie
The Sea Came in at Midnight (1999) is the sixth novel by Steve Erickson. It has been translated into French, German, Italian, Russian and Japanese. It was named one of the year's best novels by The New York Times Book Review and shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award.
- Wolf
Gillian Crossstandalone novel1990
similar byliterary & generallate 20th centurybig city
Wolf is a young-adult novel by Gillian Cross, published by Oxford in 1990. Set in London, it features communal living, terrorism, and wolves and a teenage girl in relation to her mother, father, and paternal grandmother.
