Books like 'Self'
Readers who enjoyed Self by Yann Martel also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism realistic humor
-
My Sweet Orange Tree by José Mauro de Vasconcelos
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFifty years after its first publication, the multimillion-copy international bestseller is available again in English, sharing the heartbreaking tale of a gifted, mischievous, direly misunderstood boy growing up in Rio de Janeiro.When the precocious Zeze grows up, he wants to be a poet in a bow tie...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism realistic 20th-century audiobook book children classics -
![Cronopios and Famas by Julio Cortázar]()
Cronopios and Famas by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 25 ratings"The Instruction Manual," the first chapter, is an absurd assortment of tasks and items dissected in an instruction-manual format. "Unusual Occupations," the second chapter, describes the obsessions and predilections of the narrator's family, including the lodging of a tiger-just one tiger- "for the sole purpose of seeing the mechanism at work in all its complexity...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary -
![The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Álvaro Mutis]()
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Álvaro Mutis
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMaqroll the Gaviero (the Lookout) is one of the most alluring and memorable characters in the fiction of the last twenty-five years...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics -
![The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore]()
The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSince the publication of Self-Help, her first collection of stories, Lorrie Moore has been hailed as one of the greatest and most influential voices in American fiction...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction fiction contemporary female-author anthologies classics 20th-century -
-
![Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver]()
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics coming-of-age contemporary -
![All Fires the Fire by Julio Cortázar]()
All Fires the Fire by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsCortazar's stories are like small time pieces, where each polished part moves relentlessly on its own particular path, exercising a crucial and perpetual influence on the mechanism as a whole...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary fiction -
![Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away by Richard Brautigan]()
Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThree unforgettable Brautigan masterpieces reissued in a one-volume omnibus edition. REVENGE OF THE LAWN: Originally published in 1971, these bizarre flashes of insight and humor cover everything from "A High Building in Singapore" to the "Perfect California Day." This is Brautigan's only collection of stories and includes "The Lost Chapters of TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies comedy contemporary -
![Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu]()
Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMircea Cartarescu, born in 1956, is one of Romania's leading novelists and poets...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book classics contemporary fiction -
![The Dream Songs by John Berryman]()
The Dream Songs by John Berryman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis edition combines The Dream Songs, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969 and contains all 385 songs. Of The Dream Songs, A. Alvarez wrote in The Observer, "A major achievement. He has written an elegy on his brilliant generation and, in the process, he has also written an elegy on himself... -
![The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante]()
The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHenry Molise, a 50 year old, successful writer, returns to the family home to help with the latest drama; his aging parents want to divorce. Henry's tyrannical, brick laying father, Nick, though weak and alcoholic, can still strike fear into the hearts of his sons. His mother, though ill and devout to her Catholicism, still has the power to comfort and confuse her children... -
![Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pišťanek]()
Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pišťanek
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPeter Pišt'anek’s reputation is assured by Rivers of Babylon and by its hero, the most mesmerizing character of Slovak literature, Rácz, an idiot of genius, a psychopathic gangster. Rácz and Rivers of Babylon tell the story of a Central Europe, where criminals, intellectuals and ex-secret policemen have infiltrated a new ‘democracy’... -
![Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing / Superfudge by Judy Blume]()
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing / Superfudge by Judy Blume
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsACE 0330483633 (ISBN13: 9780330483636)Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge are the first two books about the adventures of the Hatcher family.Peter Hatcher's younger brother Fudge may only be little, but he's one BIG heap of trouble... -
![The Complete Plays by Joe Orton]()
The Complete Plays by Joe Orton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history and was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward... -
![62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar]()
62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs one of the main characters, the intellectual Juan, puts it: to one person the City might appear as Paris, to another it might be where one goes upon getting out of bed in Barcelona; to another it might appear as a beer hall in Oslo...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book classics contemporary fiction -
-
![Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver]()
Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMore than sixty stories, poems, and essays are included in this wide-ranging collection by the extravagantly versatile Raymond Carver. Two of the stories—later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love—are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver’s literary development... -
![The Collected Stories by Grace Paley]()
The Collected Stories by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis reissue of Grace Paley's classic collection—a finalist for the National Book Award—demonstrates her rich use of language as well as her extraordinary insight into and compassion for her characters, moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again... -
![Math Curse by Jon Scieszka]()
Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsDid you ever wake up to one of those days where everything is a problem? You have 10 things to do, but only 30 minutes until your bus leaves. Is there enough time? You have 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants... -
![The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth]()
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis novel in verse about a group of California yuppies was one of the most highly praised books of 1986 and a bestseller on both coasts... -
![The Best of Saki by Saki]()
The Best of Saki by Saki
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsThe short stories of Saki give brief but dazzling glimpses into the lives of the Edwardian rich; a class that virtually disappeared with the advent of the First World War. With delicious malice, Saki portrays the follies, eloquence, tradition and foibles of his characters...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies classics comedy -
![Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernández, Julio Cortázar]()
Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernández, Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsInhabited by rich, eccentric characters and full of strange and surprising landscapes, this collection of short stories deeply influenced a generation of magical realists.If I hadn't read the stories of Felisberto Hernandez in 1950, I would not be the writer I am today. Because he taught me that the most haunting mysteries are those of everyday life...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction low-fantasy -
![Putting on the Ritz by Joe Keenan]()
-
![Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus]()
Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsForty years ago I first linked up with Unguentine and we made love on twin-hulled catamarans, sails a-billow, bless the seas . . .So begins the courtship of a certain Unguentine to the woman we know only as “Mrs. Unguentine,” the chronicler of their sad, fantastical tale. For forty years, they sail the seas together, alone on a giant land-covered barge of their own devising... -
![The Wine of Youth by John Fante]()
The Wine of Youth by John Fante
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsContains the stories in Dago Red, first published in 1940, together with seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father’s God... -
![The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin]()
The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe main character, Andrei, is a passenger aboard the Yellow Arrow, who begins to despair over the trains ultimate destination and looks for a way out as the chapters count down. Indifferent to their fate, the other passengers carry on as usual — trading in nickel melted down fro the carriage doors, attending the Upper Bunk avant-garde theatre, and leafing through Pasternak’s Early Trains...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult alternate-history audiobook book -
-
![So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan]()
So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"So the Wind Won't Blow it all Away" is a beautifully-written, brooding gem of a novel - set in the Pacific Northwest region of Oregon where Brautigan spent most of his childhood. Through the eyes, ears and voice of Brautigan's youthful protagonist the reader is gently led into a small-town tale where the narrator accidentally shoots dead his best friend with a gun... -
![Dear Shameless Death by Latife Tekin]()
Dear Shameless Death by Latife Tekin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA strange magical story of a young girl growing up in modern Turkey, from her birth in a small rural village haunted by fairies and demons to hertraumatic move to the big city. It concentrates on the daughter's struggle gainst her overbearing mother and is both fantastic and hallucinatory...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book contemporary female-author fiction -
![Fup by Jim Dodge]()
Fup by Jim Dodge
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFirst published in 1983, this story is set in the coastal hills of Northern California between 1880 and the present. The tale revolves around three characters: two humans and one duck. Jim Dodge is the author of "Not Fade Away" and "Stone Junction"... -
![The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie]()
The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA beloved American writer whose books are championed by critics and readers alike, Sherman Alexie has been hailed by Time as "one of the better new novelists, Indian or otherwise". Now his acclaimed new collection, The Toughest Indian in the World, which received universal praise in hardcover, is available in paperback...Categorized as:
humor lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism realistic 20th-century 21st-century anthologies -
![The Risk Pool by Richard Russo]()
The Risk Pool by Richard Russo
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Risk Pool is a thirty-year journey through the lives of Sam Hall, a small-town gambling hellraiser, and his watchful, introspective son Ned...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction realistic 20th-century action-adventure book comedy coming-of-age -
![The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]()
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAn elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas...Categorized as:
humor lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism realistic 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
![Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson]()
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWritten on the Body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book... -
![The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies]()
The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsHailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in the bestselling Lyre of Orpheus.There is an important decision to be made... -
![The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories by Truman Capote]()
The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet on the outskirts of a small Southern town, The Grass Harp tells the story of three endearing misfits--an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies--who one day take up residence in a tree house. AS they pass sweet yet hazardous hours in a china tree, The Grass Harp manages to convey all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom...Categorized as:
humor lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![In His Own Write by John Lennon]()
In His Own Write by John Lennon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAbout The Awful I was bored on the 9th of Octover 1940 when, I believe, the Nasties were still booming us led by Madolf Heatlump (who only had one). Anyway they didn't get me. I attended to varicous schools in Liddypol. And still didn't pass—much to my Aunties supplies... -
-
![Full of Life by John Fante]()
Full of Life by John Fante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe narrator is an Italian-American writer living in Los Angeles with his pregnant wife, Joyce. As the novel follows the course of Joyce's pregnancy, John deals with Joyce's shifting emotional moods, her growing interest in Roman Catholicism (from which John himself has fallen away), and termite infestation in the house... -
![The Blue Flowers by Raymond Queneau]()
The Blue Flowers by Raymond Queneau
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAt his death in 1976, Raymond Queneau was one of France's most eminent men of letters – novelist, poet, essayist, editor, scientist, mathematician, and, more to the point, pataphysician. And only a pataphysician nurtured lovingly on surrealist excess could have dreamed up The Blue Flowers, Queneau's 1964 novel, now reissued as a New Directions Paperbook... -
![Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan]()
Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA city-dwelling executive heads home to take over his brother's gas station after his mysterious disappearance, but all he finds at home are mysteries and ghosts...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult audiobook book -
![The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek]()
The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe stolid landscape of Chicago suddenly turns dreamlike and otherworldly in Stuart Dybek's classic story collection. A child's collection of bottle caps becomes the tombstones of a graveyard. A lowly rightfielder's inexplicable death turns him into a martyr to baseball. Strains of Chopin floating down the tenement airshaft are transformed into a mysterious anthem of loss...Categorized as:
literary-fiction realistic 20th-century anthologies contemporary fiction illinois north-america -
![West of Rome by John Fante]()
West of Rome by John Fante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWest of Rome's two novellas, "My Dog Stupid" and "The Orgy," fulfill the promise of their rousing titles. The latter novella opens with virtuoso description: "His name was Frank Gagliano, and he did not believe in God. He was that most singular and startling craftsman of the building trade-a left-handed bricklayer... -
![Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies]()
Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn amateur production of The Tempest provides a colourful backdrop for an hilarious look at unrequited love. Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows that she has plans of her own, Hector despairs and tries to commit suicide on the play's opening night... -
![Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips]()
Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPhillips writes stories that lay bare the suffering and joy of men and women who rarely register in our literature. Here are the abused and the abandoned, the violent and the passive, the impoverished and the disenfranchised who populate the small towns and rural byways of the country. A patron of the arts reserves his fondest feeling for the one man who wants it least...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies classics coming-of-age -
![The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle]()
The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Fan Man is a comic novel published in 1974 by the American writer William Kotzwinkle. It is told in the first-person by the narrator, Horse Badorties, a down-at-the-heels hippie living a life of drug-fueled befuddlement in New York City c. 1970... -
![Descent of Man by T. Coraghessan Boyle]()
Descent of Man by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn seventeen slices of life that defy the expected and launch us into the absurd, T.C. Boyle offers his unique view of the world. A primate-center researcher becomes romantically involved with a chimp; a Norse poet overcomes bard-block; collectors compete to snare the ancient Aztec beer can, Quetzacoatl Lite; and Lassie abandons Timmy for a randy coyote... -
![Plays Well with Others by Allan Gurganus]()
Plays Well with Others by Allan Gurganus
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWith great narrative inventiveness and emotional amplitude, Allan Gurganus gives us artistic Manhattan in the wild 1980s, where young artists--refugees from the middle class--hurl themselves into playful work and serious fun. Our guide is Hartley Mims Jr., a Southerner whose native knack for happiness might thwart his literary ambitions... -
-
![In the Penny Arcade by Steven Millhauser]()
In the Penny Arcade by Steven Millhauser
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe seven stories of In the Penny Arcade blend both the real and the fantastic in a seductive mix that illuminates the full range of Steven Millhauser's gifts, from 'August Eschenburg', the story of a clockmaker's son whose extraordinary talent for creating animated figures is lost on a world whose taste for the perverse and crude supersedes that of the refined and beautiful, to 'Cathay', a...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction horror -
![The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet]()
The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMade speechless by her eccentric father, the beautiful Etheria is traded for a piece of precious jade. Memory, her sister, tells her story, that of a childhood enlivened by Lewis Carroll and an orangutan named Dr. Johnson and envenomed by the pernicious courtship of Radulph Tubbs, Queen Victoria's own Dragon of Industry...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book contemporary female-author fiction -
![Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet]()
Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThese three short novels are the first works to appear in English by a remarkable contemporary French author, Marie Redonnet. Born in Paris in 1947, Redonnet taught for a number of years in a suburban lycée before deciding to pursue a writing career full time...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book coming-of-age contemporary female-author -
![The Furies by Janet Hobhouse]()
The Furies by Janet Hobhouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn exhilarating, fiercely honest, ultimately devastating book, The Furies confronts the claims of family and the lure of desire, the difficulties of independence, and the approach of death.Janet Hobhouse's final testament is beautifully written, deeply felt, and above all utterly alive... -
![The Harpole Report by J.L. Carr]()
The Harpole Report by J.L. Carr
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Harpole Report is the third novel by J. L. Carr, published in 1972. The novel tells the story mostly in the form of a school log book kept by George Harpole, temporary Head Teacher of the Church of England primary school of "Tampling St. Nicholas". Like all of Carr's novels, it is grounded in personal experience... -
![The Age of Miracles by Ellen Gilchrist]()
The Age of Miracles by Ellen Gilchrist
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn observation of family life at its least conventional. These stories portray human longing and love as an elderly couple find joy and recognition, a physician tries to mould his lover into the image of his dead wife and some children kidnap their mother to stop her having a facelift...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
