Books like

Books like The Gathering

12 books with a reading profile close to The Gathering by Anne Enright. Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

  1. 1 Swing Time

    Swing Time

    by Zadie Smith

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    Two brown girls in a London council estate meet at a dance class in the 1980s.

  2. 2 Unaccustomed Earth

    Unaccustomed Earth

    by Jhumpa Lahiri

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    In this collection of short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri focuses on the private lives of Bengali immigrant families living in New England suburbs and London.

  3. 3 Hell of a Book

    Hell of a Book

    by Jason Mott

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    A Black writer, whose name we never learn, is on a book tour for his novel, and the story follows him as he travels and tries to carry on while his mind seems to drift.

  4. 4 Wolf in White Van

    Wolf in White Van

    by John Darnielle

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    Sean Phillips is a man living with a severe facial disfigurement after a gunshot injury in his teens, and he spends his days alone in Southern California.

  5. 5 BRAWLER

    BRAWLER

    by Lauren Groff

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    This short story collection tracks people navigating the friction between their internal desires and the physical environments of modern Florida and historical Europe.

  6. 6 Idaho

    Idaho

    by Emily Ruskovich

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    On a hot August afternoon in North Idaho, Jenny Mitchell kills her younger daughter, May, with a hatchet while her husband, Wade, and older daughter, June, are nearby.

  7. 7 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

    Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

    by Anne Tyler

    Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

    Pearl Tull is abandoned by her husband Beck and raises three children, Cody, Ezra and Jenny, in Baltimore on her own, with a mix of strictness and bitterness.

  8. 8 The Thing Around Your Neck

    The Thing Around Your Neck

    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2009 collection consists of twelve stories documenting the experiences of Nigerians navigating life in their home country and as immigrants in the United States.

  9. 9 The Sentence

    The Sentence

    by Louise Erdrich

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    Tookie, an Ojibwe woman who survived an unusual incarceration, works at a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis.

  10. 10 Dream Count

    Dream Count

    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

    The novel centers on Chiamaka, a Nigerian travel writer living in America during the pandemic, as she examines the intersections of her past romances and her current desires.

  11. 11 The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

    The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

    by Sherman Alexie

    Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary

    Sherman Alexie's linked stories follow Native American characters on and around the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State.

  12. 12 God Help the Child

    God Help the Child

    by Toni Morrison

    Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

    Lula Ann Bridewell, who calls herself Bride, is a young woman with very dark skin, born to light-skinned parents who rejected her as a baby.

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