Books like Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
12 books with a reading profile close to Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
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1
The Unconsoled
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, psychology
Ryder, a world-famous pianist, arrives in an unnamed European city to give a performance that the local citizens believe will solve their collective social crises.
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2
The Magus
by John Fowles
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, psychology
Nicholas Urfe, a restless British schoolteacher, takes a job on the remote Greek island of Phraxos to escape a stagnant life in London.
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3
Mrs. Dalloway
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, psychology
Clarissa Dalloway spends a June Wednesday in 1925 London purchasing flowers and preparing her home for an evening gala.
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4
How to be Both
by Ali Smith
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
This novel connects two distinct eras through a dual-narrative structure that can be read in either order.
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5
Milkman
by Anna Burns
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Middle sister lives in an unnamed city under the shadow of paramilitary violence and state surveillance, reminiscent of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
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6
The Vegetarian
by Han Kang
Also deep and inward-looking · psychology, literary
Yeong-hye, a South Korean housewife, suddenly stops eating meat after a series of visceral, bloody dreams.
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7
To Paradise
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, literary
This novel follows three distinct narratives set in a reimagined New York City across different centuries.
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8
Number9Dream
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Nineteen-year-old Eiji Miyake travels from rural Yakushima to the neon-drenched cityscape of Tokyo to find the father he has never met.
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9
As I Lay Dying
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, literary
The Bundren family travels across rural Mississippi to transport the corpse of their matriarch, Addie, to her ancestral burial ground in Jefferson.
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10
To the Lighthouse
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, literary
The novel centers on the Ramsay family and their guests during two summer visits to the Isle of Skye.
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11
The Sound and the Fury
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, literary
Set in early twentieth-century Mississippi, this novel documents the decline of the Compson family, a former aristocratic household now facing financial and moral ruin.
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12
The Golden Notebook
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, literary
Anna Wulf, an author living in 1950s London, attempts to counter her creative block and mental fragmentation by recording different facets of her life in four colored notebooks.
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