Books like The Red Pony
12 books with a reading profile close to The Red Pony by John Steinbeck. Inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; an easy read.
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1
Silver Sparrow
by Tayari Jones
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Dana Yarboro knows her father, James Witherspoon, has another family.
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2
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary
In this adaptation, Benjamin Button is born with the physical appearance and ailments of a seventy-year-old man, forcing his father to navigate social embarrassment in nineteenth-century Baltimore.
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3
The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates traveling.
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4
The Sweetness of Water
Also contemplative · narrative, literary
Set in late-Reconstruction Georgia, the narrative follows Prentiss and Landry, two brothers recently freed from slavery who seek employment on George Walker’s farm.
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5
Go Set a Watchman
by Harper Lee
Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch returns to Maycomb, Alabama, from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus.
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6
Peace Like a River
by Leif Enger
Also contemplative · narrative, literary
Set in 1962 Minnesota, the story follows eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy who believes his father, Jeremiah, performs literal miracles.
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7
Hag-Seed
narrative, literary
Felix Phillips is a theater director ousted from his festival job by a treacherous associate.
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8
The Book of Longings
Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Ana is the daughter of a wealthy advisor to Herod Antipas, living in a patriarchal society that forbids women from reading and writing.
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9
Ethan Frome
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
Set in the frozen landscape of Starkfield, Massachusetts, the story follows Ethan Frome, a farmer trapped in a hollow marriage to his sickly, suspicious wife, Zeena.
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10
Bless Me, Ultima
Also contemplative and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Six-year-old Antonio Márez grows up in a New Mexico village in the 1940s, in a household divided between his father's wandering family and his mother's farming one.
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11
The Enchanted April
Also contemplative and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Living in the persistent grey of 1920s London, Lotty Wilkins and Rose Arbuthnot answer a classified advertisement for a month-long rental at an Italian castle.
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12
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
Also inward-looking and contemplative · narrative, literary
Francie Nolan grows up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn during the first two decades of the twentieth century.
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