Books like

Books like Mother Night

12 books with a reading profile close to Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

The Woman in the Dunes

by Kōbō Abe, Machi Abe

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

An entomologist named Niki is drawn into a strange village by a woman who lives in a pit.
2

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

by Tom Stoppard

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Tom Stoppard’s play centers on two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet who find themselves wandering through the wings of a tragedy they do not understand.
3

White Noise

by Don DeLillo

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Jack Gladney is a professor of Hitler studies at a Midwestern college, living with his fourth wife, Babette, and their brood of children from various marriages.
4

Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas

by Machado de Assis

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Brás Cubas begins his narrative after his death, writing as a deceased man who recounts his life from the grave.
5

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

by José Saramago

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

José Saramago retells the life of Jesus, beginning with Joseph, who overhears soldiers talking about a coming massacre of infants in Bethlehem and does not warn the others.
6

Waiting for Godot

by Samuel Beckett

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, stand by a leafless tree on a barren road.
7

Ficciones

by Jorge Luis Borges

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Ficciones consists of seventeen short stories divided into two sections, The Garden of Forking Paths and Artifices.
8

Il visconte dimezzato

by Italo Calvino

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

During a war against the Turks in Bohemia, a young nobleman, Viscount Medardo of Terralba, is split down the middle by a cannonball.
9

Antigone

by Jean Anouilh

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, classic literature

Jean Anouilh's play, first staged in occupied Paris in 1944, retells Sophocles.
10

The Aleph and Other Stories

by Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Jorge Luis Borges' "The Aleph and Other Stories" is a collection of profound and intricate short stories that delve into philosophical themes, labyrinths, mirrors, time, and the nature of reality.
11

Orlando

by Virginia Woolf

Also deep and open-ended · classic literature, literary

The narrative follows Orlando, a young Elizabethan nobleman who begins as a favorite of the court and lives for over three centuries without aging significantly.
12

The Wall

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, classic literature

Sartre's collection takes its name from the title story, set during the Spanish Civil War.

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