Books like The White Book
12 books with a reading profile close to The White Book by Han Kang. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and open-ended; a moderate read.
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1
The Wall
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
A woman is staying at a hunting lodge in the Austrian Alps with relatives when she wakes to find that an invisible, impassable wall has cut off the valley, and everything beyond it appears dead.
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2
The Guest Cat
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
A married couple in a Tokyo suburb, both freelance writers with no children, live in a small rented cottage.
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3
The Memory Police
by Yōko Ogawa
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
On an unnamed island, objects disappear from public life and collective memory.
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4
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary
Structured as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, the story follows Little Dog, a Vietnamese American man coming of age in Hartford, Connecticut.
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5
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Toru Okada is an unemployed man in suburban Tokyo whose mundane life fractures after his cat vanishes and his wife, Kumiko, leaves him without explanation.
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6
Flights
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative
Olga Tokarczuk’s work is a constellation of short stories, historical anecdotes, and anatomical observations centered on the physical reality of the human body in motion.
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7
The Emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary
In this debut for young readers, the narrative combines structured verse and prose to follow a young protagonist navigating the quiet landscapes of suburban New England.
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8
The Sense of an Ending
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, narrative
Tony Webster is a retired man living a quiet, predictable life until a lawyer’s letter regarding a childhood friend’s legacy forces him to revisit his youth.
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9
Weather
by Jenny Offill
Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, literary
Lizzie Benson is a university librarian and former addict who begins answering mail for a climate change podcast hosted by her old mentor.
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10
Jesus’ Son
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary
Eleven linked stories follow a drifting narrator through the drug-addled margins of the American Midwest and Pacific Northwest in the 1970s.
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11
Orbital
Also deep and contemplative · philosophy, narrative
Set over twenty-four hours aboard the International Space Station, the narrative follows six astronauts—Roman, Pietro, Shaun, Nell, Chie, and Anton—as they complete sixteen orbits around Earth.
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12
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
by Elif Shafak
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, literary
Tequila Leila, a sex worker in Istanbul, has been murdered and dumped in a trash bin.
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