Books like The World According to Garp
12 books with a reading profile close to The World According to Garp by John Irving. Deep and inward-looking; a moderate read.
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1
Still Life
by Sarah Winman
Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
In 1944, British soldier Ulysses Temper meets art historian Evelyn Skinner in a ruined Tuscan cellar.
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2
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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3
The Cider House Rules
by John Irving
narrative, classic literature
Set in early twentieth-century Maine, the narrative follows Homer Wells, a perpetual orphan raised at St.
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4
A Thousand Ships
narrative, classic literature
Natalie Haynes reimagines the Trojan War through a choral narrative that centers the women, goddesses, and victims usually relegated to the margins of epic poetry.
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5
The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx
Also inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Quoyle, a socially inept and physically ungainly third-rate newspaperman, retreats to his ancestral home in Newfoundland following the death of his unfaithful wife and the discovery of his parents’ double suicide.
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6
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
Also deep · narrative, classic literature
In post-war North London, two former soldiers, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal, navigate a cityscape shaped by the aftermath of the British Empire.
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7
The History of Love
Also inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
The story follows Leo Gursky, an elderly locksmith in New York who avoids solitude by making himself seen in public, unaware that a manual he wrote in Poland sixty years ago survived the Holocaust.
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8
The Edible Woman
Also inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Marian McAlpin works at a consumer research firm, methodically cataloging the tastes of the public while maintaining a predictable relationship with her fiance, Peter.
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9
The House of the Spirits
Also inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
The story spans three generations of the Trueba family in an unnamed Latin American country through the twentieth century.
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10
Hag-Seed
narrative, classic literature
Felix Phillips is a theater director ousted from his festival job by a treacherous associate.
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11
Sister Carrie
Also deep · narrative, classic literature
Eighteen-year-old Caroline Meeber leaves her rural Wisconsin home for Chicago with nothing but a small satchel and a desire for material comfort.
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12
The Winter of Our Discontent
Also inward-looking · narrative, classic literature
Ethan Allen Hawley, a scion of a formerly wealthy New England family, works as a grocery clerk for an immigrant shopkeeper in the fictional town of New Baytown.
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