Books like An Instance of the Fingerpost
12 books with a reading profile close to An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
-
1
The Luminaries
Also deep · dense, mystery
In 1866, Walter Moody arrives in the gold-mining town of Hokitika, New Zealand, where he interrupts a secret council of twelve men.
-
2
The Fraud
by Zadie Smith
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
Eliza Touchet is housekeeper and cousin to the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth in Victorian London.
-
3
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and his young apprentice, Adso of Melk, arrive at a wealthy Benedictine monastery in the Italian mountains to attend a theological debate.
-
4
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
In December 1976, seven gunmen stormed Bob Marley’s residence in Kingston, Jamaica, an event that serves as the pivot for this narrative spanning three decades.
-
5
Underworld
by Don DeLillo
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
Nick Shay, a waste management executive, tracks a baseball hit by Bobby Thomson during the 1951 Giants-Dodgers pennant game.
-
6
A Mercy
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
In the 1680s, a Virginia trader named Jacob Vaark takes a small girl, Florens, as payment for a debt, and brings her to his farm.
-
7
-
8
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
Hannah Arendt reports on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi logistics officer prosecuted in Israel for his role in the Holocaust.
-
9
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Also deep and thought-provoking · history, dense
Ailey Pearl Garfield grows up navigating the expectations of her middle-class Black family while spending summers in a small Georgia town.
-
10
The Little Friend
by Donna Tartt
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, mystery
Set in Alexandria, Mississippi, during the 1970s, the story follows twelve-year-old Harriet Cleve Dufresnes as she attempts to solve the decade-old murder of her brother, Robin.
-
11
From Hell
by Alan Moore
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell reconstruct the Whitechapel murders through the lens of the Royal Conspiracy theory.
-
12
The Merchant of Venice
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Bassanio, a young Venetian nobleman, seeks a loan from his friend Antonio to fund a pursuit of the wealthy heiress Portia.
Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.
Get papr
