Books like

Books like Middlesex

12 books with a reading profile close to Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

The Sea

by John Banville

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

Max Morden, a retired art historian, returns to the Irish seaside town of Ballyless following the death of his wife, Anna.
2

We Do Not Part

by Han Kang

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

The narrative follows Gyeong-ha, a novelist in Seoul struggling with the psychological aftermath of writing a book about a historical massacre.
3

The People in the Trees

by Hanya Yanagihara

Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative

Norton Perina, an ambitious young immunologist, travels to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in 1950 to investigate a lost tribe.
4

Great Circle

by Maggie Shipstead

Also deep · dense, narrative

Marian Graves is a prohibited female aviator who disappears in 1950 while attempting a north-south circumnavigation of the globe.
5

Atonement

by Ian McEwan

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

On a sweltering English day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis observes a series of adult interactions she lacks the emotional maturity to interpret.
6

The God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

Set in Ayemenem, Kerala, during the late 1960s, the story follows fraternal twins Rahel and Estha as they navigate a rigid social hierarchy.
7

Song of Solomon

by Toni Morrison

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

Macon "Milkman" Dead III grows up in a wealthy but emotionally stifled Black household in Michigan, isolated from the struggles of his community and the history of his ancestors.
8

4 3 2 1

by Paul Auster

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

Archie Ferguson is born in Newark in 1947, the son of a Jewish furniture-store owner.
9

The Corrections

by Jonathan Franzen

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

The narrative centers on the Lambert family as they converge on their suburban Midwestern home for a final Christmas.
10

Middlemarch

by George Eliot

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

Set in a fictional Midlands town during the 1830s, the narrative tracks the interconnected lives of Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate.
11

The Complete Stories

by Flannery O'Connor

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

This 1971 collection brings together thirty-one stories set largely in the rural American South.
12

Girl, Woman, Other

by Bernardine Evaristo

Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative

This collective narrative tracks the interconnected lives of twelve characters, mostly Black British women, spanning different generations, social classes, and gender identities.

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