Hello! I’ve been on a losing streak lately trying to find books I really, really like, so I thought I’d come here and see if folks could help. Some of my favorites:
* Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
* Gould’s Book of Fish, Richard Flanagan
* Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
* The Door, Magda Szabó
* The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
* Spaceman of Bohemia, Jaroslav Kalfař
* A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.
* The Overstory, Richard Powers
* The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
* everything Shirley Jackson ever wrote
I guess my style is “wordy and philosophical with a dreamy edge”? I lean toward SF and low/modern/urban fantasy, and am skeptical of a lot of (but not all) modern literary fiction (may I never read another book about a old white author and/or college administrator who has a terrible secret) but am open to pretty much anything.
Thanks!
by joespinnahardy
5 Comments
{{The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern}}
{{The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami}}
Prince of Tides
Books by Phillip Roth and Neal Stephenson
You might like [The Left Hand of Darkness](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18423.The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness), it’s an excellent classic sci-fi novel that gets quite philosophical at times.
And for something really different, if you’d like just some pure dreamy lyrical philosophical vibes, [Invisible Cities](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9809.Invisible_Cities) is really good. No plot and barely any characters, only a series of lovely short descriptions of fantastical cities. There were a bunch of times when Piranesi reminded me of this book.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Six very different but connected stories with a nested structure (basically 1 2 3 4 5 6 5 4 3 2 1), spanning hundreds of years and various genres (historical fiction, futuristic sci fi, post apocalyptic, contemporary farce, etc).
You may enjoy the following:
[Celestial Bodies](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49382648) by Jokha Alharthi
[Greek Lessons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61686012) by Han Kang
[Commonwealth](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28214365) by Ann Patchett
[Song of Solomon](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11334) by Toni Morrison
[The Rabbit Hutch](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122769174) by Tess Gunty