Books like

Books like Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

12 books with a reading profile close to Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.

1

The Crying of Lot 49

by Thomas Pynchon

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Oedipa Maas is appointed executor of the estate of Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul and her former lover.
2

The Waste Land and Other Poems

by T.S. Eliot

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Published in the wake of the First World War, this collection centers on the psychological and cultural fragmentation of Western society.
3

The Satanic Verses

by Salman Rushdie

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Two Indian expatriates, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, survive a mid-air plane explosion over the English Channel and undergo startling physical transformations.
4

Midnight’s Children

by Salman Rushdie

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Saleem Sinai is born at the exact stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, linking his life to the birth of independent India.
5

The Tin Drum

by Günter Grass

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Oskar Matzerath, an inmate in a mental institution, narrates his life through his toy tin drum.
6

Gravity’s Rainbow

by Thomas Pynchon

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Set against the end of World War II, the narrative tracks Tyrone Slothrop, an American lieutenant in London whose sexual encounters appear to predict the landing sites of German V-2 rockets.
7

2666

by Roberto Bolaño

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

The narrative follows five interconnected parts, beginning with four European academics tracking the reclusive German novelist Benno von Archimboldi.
8

Pedro Páramo

by Juan Rulfo

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Juan Preciado travels to Comala to fulfill a deathbed promise to his mother: find his father, the ruthless cacique Pedro Páramo.
9

Hopscotch

by Julio Cortázar

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine intellectual living in Paris, wanders with a group of artist friends, the Serpent Club, and his lover La Maga, discussing jazz, art and metaphysics.
10

Absalom, Absalom!

by William Faulkner

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Thomas Sutpen arrives in Mississippi in 1833 with a group of enslaved people and a plan to create a vast plantation called Sutpen’s Hundred.
11

Pale Fire

by Vladimir Nabokov

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel is structured as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire," written by the fictional American poet John Shade, followed by a lengthy line-by-line commentary.
12

Ulysses

by James Joyce

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Set in Dublin on June 16, 1904, the narrative follows Leopold Bloom, an ordinary Jewish advertisement canvasser, as he moves through the city’s streets, pubs, and cemeteries.

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