Books like The Crying of Lot 49
12 books with a reading profile close to The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
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1
Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
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.
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2
Gravity’s Rainbow
Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature
Set against the end of World War II, the narrative tracks Tyrone Slothrop, an American lieutenant in London whose sexual encounters appear to predict the landing sites of German V-2 rockets.
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3
The Satanic Verses
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.
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4
Midnight’s Children
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.
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5
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.
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6
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.
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7
Hopscotch
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.
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8
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.
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9
2666
Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature
The narrative follows five interconnected parts, beginning with four European academics tracking the reclusive German novelist Benno von Archimboldi.
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10
Absalom, Absalom!
Also deep and open-ended · dense, classic literature
Thomas Sutpen arrives in Mississippi in 1833 with a group of enslaved people and a plan to create a vast plantation called Sutpen’s Hundred.
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11
Journey to the End of the Night
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.
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12
Pale Fire
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.
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