Books like

Books like The Sellout

12 books with a reading profile close to The Sellout by Paul Beatty. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Erasure

by Percival Everett

Also deep and open-ended · analytical, literary

Thelonious "Monk" Ellison is a professor and experimental novelist whose books are praised but sell badly.
2

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

by Joan Didion

Also deep · analytical, literary

Joan Didion captures the disintegration of American institutional life during the late 1960s with a focus on California.
3

Pastoralia

by George Saunders

Also deep and thought-provoking · literary, experimental

George Saunders' collection mixes satire, dark comedy and surreal settings, with working-class characters who struggle against a strange economy.
4

Interior Chinatown

by Charles Yu

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

Interior Chinatown follows Willis Wu, a background actor trapped in the repetitive hierarchy of a procedural television show titled Black and White.
5

Lost Children Archive

by Valeria Luiselli

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

A family of four travels by car from New York City to the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona.
6

Clevinger's trial (from 'Catch-22')

by Joseph Heller

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

Joseph Heller’s standalone play, Clevinger’s Trial, adapts the eighth chapter of his novel Catch-22 into a rhythmic, one-act script.
7

Assembly

by Natasha Brown

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

In this concise novel, an unnamed Black British woman prepares for a weekend party at her white boyfriend’s family estate.
8

Amerika

by Franz Kafka

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

Karl Rossmann is a teenager banished by his parents to America after a scandal with a maid.
9

Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

David Mitchell’s debut novel connects nine disparate characters across the globe through a series of interlocking narratives.
10

1985

by Anthony Burgess, Anthony Burgess

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

Anthony Burgess divides this work into a critical analysis and a fictional response to George Orwell’s dystopian vision.
11

Lapvona

by Ottessa Moshfegh

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

In the medieval fiefdom of Lapvona, a deformed boy named Marek survives a life of physical brutality and religious delusion.
12

Orlando

by Virginia Woolf

Also deep and open-ended · literary, experimental

The narrative follows Orlando, a young Elizabethan nobleman who begins as a favorite of the court and lives for over three centuries without aging significantly.

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