Books like

Books like The Nakano Thrift Shop

12 books with a reading profile close to The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; an easy read.

1

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

by Deesha Philyaw

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

Deesha Philyaw’s short story collection centers on the private lives of Black women navigating the tension between traditional Christian morality and their own physical desires.
2

Beautyland

by Marie-Helene Bertino

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

Adina Gady grew up in Philadelphia believing she was a human girl, but she is actually an extraterrestrial sent to observe the inhabitants of Earth.
3

French Braid

by Anne Tyler

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

The Garrett family of Baltimore are followed over several decades, starting in 1959 when Mercy and David Garrett go on a family vacation to a lakeside spot.
4

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

by Kate Atkinson

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

Ruby Lennox begins her story at the moment of her conception in 1951 in York, and narrates her family's history through her own eyes.
5

Dancing girls and other stories

by Margaret Atwood

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

This debut short fiction collection tracks the displacement of Canadian urbanites and expatriates navigating the social shifts of the 1970s.
6

Drown

by Junot Díaz

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

Drown is a debut short story collection told mostly by Yunior, who grows up between a poor neighborhood in the Dominican Republic and the industrial towns of New Jersey.
7

How the García girls lost their accents

by Julia Alvarez

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

The narrative follows the four García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—as they flee the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic to settle in New York City.
8

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.
9

The Wife

by Meg Wolitzer

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

Joan Castleman has stood beside her husband Joe, a celebrated novelist, for decades.
10

We the Animals

by Justin Torres

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

Three brothers, the youngest of whom narrates, grow up in upstate New York with a Puerto Rican father and a white mother who love them fiercely and also hurt them.
11

Another Brooklyn

by Jacqueline Woodson

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

In the 1970s, August moves from Tennessee to Bushwick, Brooklyn, after the death of her mother.
12

Breathing Lessons

by Anne Tyler

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

Maggie and Ira Moran, a married couple in their fifties in Baltimore, drive to the funeral of a friend's husband in Pennsylvania.

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