Books like

Books like Train Dreams

12 books with a reading profile close to Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

A Month in the Country

by J.L. Carr

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

Tom Birkin arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby in 1920, physically scarred and suffering from a nervous facial twitch following his service in the Great War.
2

Their Eyes Were Watching God

by Zora Neale Hurston

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

Janie Crawford returns to Eatonville, Florida, and recounts her life to her friend Pheoby Watson.
3

Johnny Got His Gun

by Dalton Trumbo

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

Joe Bonham, a young American soldier serving in World War I, wakes up in a hospital bed to discover he is a victim of a massive artillery shell explosion.
4

No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Short Stories

by Gabriel García Márquez

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

The title novella follows a retired veteran who visits the post office every Friday, expecting a pension check that never arrives.
5

Winesburg, Ohio

by Sherwood Anderson

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

Set in a small Midwestern town at the turn of the century, this collection of interconnected stories centers on George Willard, a young reporter for the local newspaper.
6

Out Stealing Horses

by Per Petterson

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

Trond Sander, a sixty-seven-year-old man, has moved to a remote cabin in eastern Norway to live alone with his dog.
7

Black Swan Green

by David Mitchell

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, classic literature

Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor navigates thirteen months of adolescence in a claustrophobic Worcestershire village during 1982.
8

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.
9

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.
10

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.
11

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.
12

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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