Books like Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
12 books with a reading profile close to Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. Deep, inward-looking and open-ended; a moderate read.
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1
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Presented as an anthropological field report, the text follows Carlos Castaneda’s apprenticeship under a Yaqui shaman named don Juan Matus.
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2
The Memory Police
by Yōko Ogawa
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
On an unnamed island, objects disappear from public life and collective memory.
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3
Flights
Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, narrative
Olga Tokarczuk’s work is a constellation of short stories, historical anecdotes, and anatomical observations centered on the physical reality of the human body in motion.
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4
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Toru Okada is an unemployed man in suburban Tokyo whose mundane life fractures after his cat vanishes and his wife, Kumiko, leaves him without explanation.
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5
Orbital
Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, narrative
Set over twenty-four hours aboard the International Space Station, the narrative follows six astronauts—Roman, Pietro, Shaun, Nell, Chie, and Anton—as they complete sixteen orbits around Earth.
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6
The Wall
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
A woman is staying at a hunting lodge in the Austrian Alps with relatives when she wakes to find that an invisible, impassable wall has cut off the valley, and everything beyond it appears dead.
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7
The Guest Cat
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
A married couple in a Tokyo suburb, both freelance writers with no children, live in a small rented cottage.
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8
Kafka on the Shore
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
The narrative follows fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home to escape an Oedipal curse prophesied by his father.
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9
No One Is Talking About This
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, experimental
The first half of the narrative follows a woman who has achieved minor celebrity status within a digital landscape called the portal.
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10
Trust Exercise
by Susan Choi
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, experimental
Set in a highly competitive arts high school during the 1980s, the narrative begins with Sarah and David, two drama students entangled in a pressurized romance under the watchful eye of their charismatic teacher, Mr.
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11
The Topeka School
by Ben Lerner
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, experimental
Adam Gordon, a poet who first appeared in Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station, is now married to a psychologist, Jane, and the father of two daughters.
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12
The Nix
by Nathan Hill
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, experimental
Samuel Andresen-Anderson, a disappointed English professor who is addicted to an online video game, sees his mother Faye on the news after decades of absence: she has been arrested for throwing gravel at a right-wing pr…
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