Books like Breathing Lessons
12 books with a reading profile close to Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler. Inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
French Braid
by Anne Tyler
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
The Garrett family of Baltimore are followed over several decades, starting in 1959 when Mercy and David Garrett go on a family vacation to a lakeside spot.
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2
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Deesha Philyaw’s short story collection centers on the private lives of Black women navigating the tension between traditional Christian morality and their own physical desires.
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3
Indian Horse
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
Saul Indian Horse is an Ojibway man telling the story of his life from a treatment centre.
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4
A Spool of Blue Thread
by Anne Tyler
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
Redniss Street in Baltimore is where the Whitshank family history anchors itself, centered on a wooden house built by their patriarch.
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5
The Kitchen God's Wife
by Amy Tan
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
Winnie Louie has kept her past secret from her Chinese American daughter, Pearl, who in turn is hiding her own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
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6
Another Brooklyn
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
In the 1970s, August moves from Tennessee to Bushwick, Brooklyn, after the death of her mother.
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7
And the Mountains Echoed
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
The narrative begins in 1952 in the Afghan village of Shadbagh, centered on the separation of two siblings, Pari and Abdullah.
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8
Same As It Ever Was
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Julia Ames is fifty-seven when her life begins to unravel through a series of unexpected encounters in a grocery store and the complicated return of her adult son.
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9
Drown
by Junot Díaz
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Drown is a debut short story collection told mostly by Yunior, who grows up between a poor neighborhood in the Dominican Republic and the industrial towns of New Jersey.
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10
Mayflies
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
The story begins in 1986, following teenager James Noble and his charismatic friend Tully Dawson in a small Scottish town.
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11
Dream Count
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
The novel centers on Chiamaka, a Nigerian travel writer living in America during the pandemic, as she examines the intersections of her past romances and her current desires.
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12
We the Animals
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Three brothers, the youngest of whom narrates, grow up in upstate New York with a Puerto Rican father and a white mother who love them fiercely and also hurt them.
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