Books like The Stone Diaries
12 books with a reading profile close to The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Set in a crumbling house in the Himalayas against the 1980s Gorkhaland insurgency, the narrative follows Biju and Sai.
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2
A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
John Wheelwright narrates the life of his best friend, Owen Meany, a boy with a high-pitched voice who accidentally kills John’s mother with a foul ball during a Little League game in 1953.
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3
The Lowland
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Subhash and Udayan are brothers born in Calcutta, separated by temperament and political conviction.
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4
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy, Margaret R. Higonnet
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman living in the rural English countryside, discovers her family descends from the aristocratic d’Urberville line.
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5
Martin Eden
by Jack London
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Martin Eden, a coarse and uneducated sailor, decides to overhaul his entire identity after meeting Ruth Morse, a woman from a refined bourgeois family.
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6
Of Love and Other Demons
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
In the old Colombian port of Cartagena, twelve-year-old Sierva María is the neglected daughter of a marquis.
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7
Villette, a novel
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Lucy Snowe, a young woman without family or financial security, travels to the fictional Belgian city of Villette to become a teacher at a girls’ boarding school.
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8
Tokyo Ueno Station
by Yū Miri
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Kazu is a ghost who haunts the grounds of Tokyo’s Ueno Park, mirroring the era he spent living there as a homeless laborer.
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9
The Marriage Plot
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Set in the early 1980s, the story follows three Brown University graduates navigating the transition to adulthood.
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10
A Fine Balance
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Set in mid-1970s India during the government-mandated Emergency, the narrative centers on four strangers cohabitating in a cramped apartment to survive economic hardship.
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11
Leaf Storm and Other Stories
Also deep and contemplative · narrative, classic literature
This collection centers on the titular novella set in the fictional town of Macondo, narrated through the perspectives of a colonel, his daughter, and his grandson.
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12
The Sun Also Rises
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Jake Barnes, an American journalist living in Paris, lives with a physical wound from the Great War that leaves him impotent.
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