Books like

Books like Nights at the Circus

12 books with a reading profile close to Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.

1

The Tin Drum

by Günter Grass

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Oskar Matzerath, an inmate in a mental institution, narrates his life through his toy tin drum.
2

Midnight’s Children

by Salman Rushdie

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Saleem Sinai is born at the exact stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, linking his life to the birth of independent India.
3

The Satanic Verses

by Salman Rushdie

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Two Indian expatriates, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, survive a mid-air plane explosion over the English Channel and undergo startling physical transformations.
4

Pedro Páramo

by Juan Rulfo

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Juan Preciado travels to Comala to fulfill a deathbed promise to his mother: find his father, the ruthless cacique Pedro Páramo.
5

Journey to the End of the Night

by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Ferdinand Bardamu, a cynical and nihilistic protagonist, begins his odyssey in the trenches of World War I, where he observes the senseless brutality of mechanized slaughter.
6

The Golden Notebook

by Doris Lessing

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Anna Wulf, an author living in 1950s London, attempts to counter her creative block and mental fragmentation by recording different facets of her life in four colored notebooks.
7

The Waste Land and Other Poems

by T.S. Eliot

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Published in the wake of the First World War, this collection centers on the psychological and cultural fragmentation of Western society.
8

As I Lay Dying

by William Faulkner

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

The Bundren family travels across rural Mississippi to transport the corpse of their matriarch, Addie, to her ancestral burial ground in Jefferson.
9

Hopscotch

by Julio Cortázar

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine intellectual living in Paris, wanders with a group of artist friends, the Serpent Club, and his lover La Maga, discussing jazz, art and metaphysics.
10

Pale Fire

by Vladimir Nabokov

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel is structured as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire," written by the fictional American poet John Shade, followed by a lengthy line-by-line commentary.
11

Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

by Cormac McCarthy

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

The story follows a nameless teenager known only as the kid, a runaway from Tennessee who joins the Glanton gang along the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the late 1840s.
12

The Waste Land

by T.S. Eliot

Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature

The Waste Land presents a fragmented vision of Europe following the First World War, utilizing a collage of classical mythology, religious texts, and urban vignettes.

Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.

Get papr

Your library, beautifully understood.