Books like

Books like The Plague

12 books with a reading profile close to The Plague by Albert Camus. Deep, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Wise Blood

by Flannery O'Connor

Also deep and open-ended · philosophy, narrative

Hazel Motes returns from war to a rural Tennessee landscape and establishes the Church Without Christ.
2

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

Set in the Salinas Valley between the Civil War and World War I, the narrative tracks the interconnected fates of the Trask and Hamilton families.
3

Narcissus and Goldmund

by Hermann Hesse

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

Set in medieval Germany, the novel follows two antithetical men who begin as student and teacher at Mariabronn monastery.
4

The Baron in the Trees

by Italo Calvino

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

In 1767, twelve-year-old Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, a young nobleman in Liguria, climbs a tree after a quarrel at dinner, and vows never to come down.
5

Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

During a nuclear conflict, a plane crash leaves a group of British schoolboys stranded on an uninhabited tropical island without adult supervision.
6

The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant Don Quixote of the Mancha

by Thomas Shelton, Charles-Antoine Coypel

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

This massive four-volume set reproduces the classic narrative of Alonso Quijano, a country gentleman who loses his mind from reading romances.
7

The Picture of Dorian Gray Illustrated

by Oscar Wilde

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

In Victorian London, the young Dorian Gray sits for a portrait by artist Basil Hallward, who captures the youth's extraordinary beauty on canvas.
8

Silence

by Shūsaku Endō

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

In seventeenth-century Japan, Father Sebastião Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit, enters the country secretly to locate his former mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira, who reportedly committed apostasy under torture.
9

Invisible Man

by Ralph Ellison

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

An unnamed Narrator chronicles his descent from a hopeful Southern student to a disillusioned resident of a basement apartment in Harlem.
10

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

by Thornton Wilder

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

In 1714, a rope bridge in Peru collapses, sending five travelers to their deaths in the chasm below.
11

The Great Divorce

by C.S. Lewis

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

A narrator boards a flying bus in a grey, rainy city and travels to the foothills of Heaven.
12

Zorba the Greek

by Nikos Kazantzakis

Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative

Set in rural Crete, the narrative follows an unnamed intellectual who attempts to reopen a lignite mine while escaping his bookish existence.

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