Books like How to be Both
12 books with a reading profile close to How to be Both by Ali Smith. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
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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2
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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3
Ghostwritten
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
David Mitchell’s debut novel connects nine disparate characters across the globe through a series of interlocking narratives.
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4
To Paradise
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
This novel follows three distinct narratives set in a reimagined New York City across different centuries.
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5
Pedro Páramo
by Juan Rulfo
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Juan Preciado travels to Comala to fulfill a deathbed promise to his mother: find his father, the ruthless cacique Pedro Páramo.
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6
The Magus
by John Fowles
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
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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7
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Milan Kundera's novel is composed of seven parts which are linked by themes of memory, forgetting and the exercise of power.
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8
NW
by Zadie Smith
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
NW focuses on four Londoners—Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan—who grew up in the Caldwell council estate in the NW6 postcode.
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9
Immortality
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
A woman in her sixties waves goodbye to a lifeguard at a pool, and the gesture is enough to give Kundera's narrator the idea for Agnès, a character he follows through the whole book.
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10
The Savage Detectives
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
The story begins in 1970s Mexico City through the diary of Juan García Madero, a law student drawn into a circle of radical poets known as the visceral realists.
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11
Journey to the End of the Night
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Ferdinand Bardamu, a cynical and nihilistic protagonist, begins his odyssey in the trenches of World War I, where he observes the senseless brutality of mechanized slaughter.
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12
The Tin Drum
by Günter Grass
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Oskar Matzerath, an inmate in a mental institution, narrates his life through his toy tin drum.
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