Books like Underworld
12 books with a reading profile close to Underworld by Don DeLillo. Deep, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
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1
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
In December 1976, seven gunmen stormed Bob Marley’s residence in Kingston, Jamaica, an event that serves as the pivot for this narrative spanning three decades.
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2
Ghostwritten
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
David Mitchell’s debut novel connects nine disparate characters across the globe through a series of interlocking narratives.
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3
Milkman
by Anna Burns
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Middle sister lives in an unnamed city under the shadow of paramilitary violence and state surveillance, reminiscent of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
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4
How to be Both
by Ali Smith
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
This novel connects two distinct eras through a dual-narrative structure that can be read in either order.
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5
The Fraud
by Zadie Smith
Also deep and open-ended · history, dense
Eliza Touchet is housekeeper and cousin to the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth in Victorian London.
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6
Number9Dream
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Nineteen-year-old Eiji Miyake travels from rural Yakushima to the neon-drenched cityscape of Tokyo to find the father he has never met.
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7
Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
The story follows a nameless teenager known only as the kid, a runaway from Tennessee who joins the Glanton gang along the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the late 1840s.
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8
The Satanic Verses
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Two Indian expatriates, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, survive a mid-air plane explosion over the English Channel and undergo startling physical transformations.
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9
The Crying of Lot 49
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Oedipa Maas is appointed executor of the estate of Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul and her former lover.
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10
The Tin Drum
by Günter Grass
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Oskar Matzerath, an inmate in a mental institution, narrates his life through his toy tin drum.
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11
Midnight’s Children
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
Saleem Sinai is born at the exact stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, linking his life to the birth of independent India.
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12
To Paradise
Also deep and open-ended · dense, literary
This novel follows three distinct narratives set in a reimagined New York City across different centuries.
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