Books like

Books like Solaris

12 books with a reading profile close to Solaris by Stanisław Lem. Deep, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, science fiction

Shevek is a physicist living on Anarres, a barren moon where a society of Odonian anarchists survives through collective labor and the rejection of private property.
2

We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Also deep and thought-provoking · philosophy, science fiction

D-503 is a mathematician and the chief engineer of the Integral, a spacecraft designed to bring the ideology of the One State to other planets.
3

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, science fiction

In a future World State, the population is decanted in hatcheries and predestined into a rigid caste system ranging from Alphas to Epsilons.
4

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

by Philip K. Dick

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, science fiction

Set in a radioactive, post-apocalyptic San Francisco, the narrative follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter tasked with retiring six runaway Nex-7 androids.
5

Slaughterhouse-Five The Children's Crusade

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, science fiction

Billy Pilgrim, an ill-suited American chaplain’s assistant, survives the 1945 firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war held in an underground meat locker.
6

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

A magistrate runs a small frontier town in an unnamed empire.
7

1984

by George Orwell

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, science fiction

In 1948, George Orwell envisioned a future where the Party exercises total dominion over the fictional superstate Oceania.
8

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

Duke Vincentio departs Vienna under a pretext of travel, leaving the puritanical Angelo to enforce long-ignored moral laws.
9

In the Penal Colony

by Franz Kafka

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, literary

In Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," an explorer witnesses a brutal execution machine in a remote penal colony.
10

A Scanner Darkly

by Philip K. Dick

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, science fiction

Bob Arctor is a narcotics agent living undercover in a drug-addicted suburban household in a near-future California.
11

Alcestis

by Euripides

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

In this tragedy, King Admetus is granted a reprieve from his impending death on the condition that someone else dies in his place.
12

The Tartar Steppe

by Dino Buzzati

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, literary

Giovanni Drogo, a young officer, is posted to the Bastiani Fortress, an isolated outpost on the northern frontier overlooking a barren plain.

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