Books like Invisible Man
12 books with a reading profile close to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
Silence
by Shūsaku Endō
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
In seventeenth-century Japan, Father Sebastião Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit, enters the country secretly to locate his former mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira, who reportedly committed apostasy under torture.
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2
Narcissus and Goldmund
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Set in medieval Germany, the novel follows two antithetical men who begin as student and teacher at Mariabronn monastery.
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3
East of Eden
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Set in the Salinas Valley between the Civil War and World War I, the narrative tracks the interconnected fates of the Trask and Hamilton families.
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4
The Plague
by Albert Camus
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative
Set in the coastal city of Oran, the narrative begins when rats emerge from the shadows to die in the streets, signaling an outbreak of bubonic plague.
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5
The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant Don Quixote of the Mancha
by Thomas Shelton, Charles-Antoine Coypel
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative
This massive four-volume set reproduces the classic narrative of Alonso Quijano, a country gentleman who loses his mind from reading romances.
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6
Wise Blood
Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, narrative
Hazel Motes returns from war to a rural Tennessee landscape and establishes the Church Without Christ.
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7
Housekeeping
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary
In the isolated town of Fingerbone, Idaho, sisters Ruth and Lucille are raised by a succession of female relatives following their mother’s suicide.
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8
The Great Divorce
by C.S. Lewis
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
A narrator boards a flying bus in a grey, rainy city and travels to the foothills of Heaven.
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9
Poems by John Keats
by John Keats
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
John Keats’s debut collection, published in March 1817 rather than 1800, organizes lyrical meditations on the restorative capacity of the natural world and the permanence of classical mythology.
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10
Zorba the Greek
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Set in rural Crete, the narrative follows an unnamed intellectual who attempts to reopen a lignite mine while escaping his bookish existence.
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11
The Picture of Dorian Gray Illustrated
by Oscar Wilde
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative
In Victorian London, the young Dorian Gray sits for a portrait by artist Basil Hallward, who captures the youth's extraordinary beauty on canvas.
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12
Peter Camenzind
Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, narrative
The story follows Peter Camenzind, a boy born into a secluded Swiss mountain village who leaves his rural environment to pursue an intellectual life in Zurich.
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