Books like

Books like Mina's Matchbox

12 books with a reading profile close to Mina's Matchbox by Yōko Ogawa. Inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Ethan Frome

by Edith Wharton

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Set in the frozen landscape of Starkfield, Massachusetts, the story follows Ethan Frome, a farmer trapped in a hollow marriage to his sickly, suspicious wife, Zeena.
2

Out Stealing Horses

by Per Petterson

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Trond Sander, a sixty-seven-year-old man, has moved to a remote cabin in eastern Norway to live alone with his dog.
3

Bless Me, Ultima

by Rudolfo Anaya

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature

Six-year-old Antonio Márez grows up in a New Mexico village in the 1940s, in a household divided between his father's wandering family and his mother's farming one.
4

The Mothers

by Brit Bennett

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature

Set in a Black community in Oceanside, California, the story follows Nadia Turner, a grieving seventeen-year-old who begins a secret relationship with the pastor’s son, Luke Sheppard.
5

Winesburg, Ohio

by Sherwood Anderson

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Set in a small Midwestern town at the turn of the century, this collection of interconnected stories centers on George Willard, a young reporter for the local newspaper.
6

The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

The narrative follows the Ganguli family, beginning with Ashoke and Ashima’s arranged marriage and subsequent relocation from Calcutta to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
7

La tregua

by Mario Benedetti

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, classic literature

Martín Santomé, a widowed Montevideo office worker, is nearing retirement.
8

The Shipping News

by Annie Proulx

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Quoyle, a socially inept and physically ungainly third-rate newspaperman, retreats to his ancestral home in Newfoundland following the death of his unfaithful wife and the discovery of his parents’ double suicide.
9

A Month in the Country

by J.L. Carr

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Tom Birkin arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby in 1920, physically scarred and suffering from a nervous facial twitch following his service in the Great War.
10

The Red Pony

by John Steinbeck

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Jody Tiflin is a young boy growing up on his father’s California ranch, where he learns the rigid realities of life and death through his relationship with a red pony named Gabilan.
11

Breath, Eyes, Memory

by Edwidge Danticat

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Sophie Caco is raised by her aunt Atie in a Haitian village until, at twelve, she is sent to New York to join the mother she barely knows.
12

Train Dreams

by Denis Johnson

Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, classic literature

Robert Grainier is a day laborer in the American West during the early twentieth century.

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