Books like 'An Unreliable Man'
Readers who enjoyed An Unreliable Man by Jostein Gaarder also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary fantasy psychological philosophical family literary-fiction
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Dark Mother Earth by Kristian Novak
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn amnesiac writer’s life of lies and false memories reaches a breaking point in this stunning English-language debut from an award-winning Croatian author.As a novelist, Matija makes things up for a living. Not yet thirty, he’s written two well-received books. It’s his third that is as big a failure as his private life... -
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome inhabitants of a peaceful kingdom cannot tolerate the act of cruelty that underlies its happiness.The story "Omelas" was first published in New Dimensions 3, a hard-cover science fiction anthology edited by Robert Silverberg, in October 1973, and the following year it won Le Guin the prestigious Hugo Award for best short story...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century anthologies audiobook classics contemporary dark -
Iliad, Books 1–12 by Homer
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHere is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of Homer's stirring heroic account of the Trojan war and its passions...Categorized as:
literary-fiction adult ancient-civilization audiobook book classics contemporary epic -
Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, John Updike
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsThe only available collection that brings together all of Kafka's storiesthose published during his lifetime and those released after his death...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary drama -
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The Good Egg by Jory John
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this follow-up to Jory John and Pete Oswald’s popular picture book The Bad Seed, meet the next best thing: a very good egg, indeed!The good egg has been good for as long as he can remember. While the other eggs in his carton are kind of rotten, he always does the right, kind, and courteous thing... -
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThe Next Person You Meet in Heaven: (B&N Exclusive Edition) The Sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch AlbomThis special edition contains an extra chapter and is available exclusively at Barnes & Noble... -
Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRussian novelist Victor Pelevin is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most brilliant young writers at work today. His comic inventiveness and mind-bending talent prompted Time magazine to proclaim him a "psychedelic Nabokov for the cyber-age...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century adult audiobook book classics contemporary -
I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMercer Mayer’s Little Critter is having quite the grumpy day in this classic, funny, and heartwarming book. Whether he’s cranky on the slide or stubborn in the sandbox, both parents and children alike will relate to this beloved story... -
A Day Like This by Kelley McNeil
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWhat if everything you’ve ever loved, ever known, ever believed to be true…just disappeared?Annie Beyers has everything—a beautiful house, a loving husband, and an adorable daughter. It’s a day like any other when she takes Hannah to the pediatrician…until she wakes hours later from a car accident. When she asks for her daughter, confused doctors tell Annie that Hannah never existed... -
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders..Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
The Loft by Bette Lee Crosby
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratings50 YEARS OF MEMORIES ARE HIDDEN IN THE WALLS OF THE LOFT... Annie only needs to find one... the one that will save Oliver's life. On the day of their wedding, Annie saw nothing but happiness ahead, but when an accident calls her back to Memory House, her world is changed forever... -
A Spell of Rowans by Byrd Nash
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRaised by a narcissistic mother, the Rowan children’s magical talents were twisted to fit her needs. When Rachel dies, her children must confront the past to have a future.Rachel Rowan could sniff out secrets and her antique shop, Rosemary Thyme, was a front to torment the residents of Grimsby. When she dies, her children are faced with the deadly fallout of blackmail, murder, and magic...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction romance fantasy mystery fiction magical-realism contemporary -
What Lies Beyond The Stars by Michael Goorjian
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“Something in me knows of a life I was meant to live but for whatever reason, I have not . . . ”Words that ring painfully true for Adam Sheppard, a San Francisco programmer who has spent the vast majority of his 30-something years lost in the dim glow of a computer screen...Categorized as:
literary-fiction action-adventure adult book contemporary fiction humor magical-realism -
For One More Day by Mitch Albom
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 65 ratings"Every family is a ghost story..."Mitch Albom mesmerized readers around the world with his number one New York Times bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction philosophical 21st-century afterlife audiobook book christian -
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Sum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman, Multivoice
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSUM shows us forty wonderfully imagined possibilities of life beyond death. In one afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, your creators are a species of dim-witted creatures who built us to figure out what they could not. In a different version of the afterlife you work as a background character in other people's dreams...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 21st-century adult afterlife anthologies audiobook contemporary -
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsImaginary friend Budo narrates this heartwarming story of love, loyalty, and the power of the imagination—the perfect read for anyone who has ever had a friend . . . real or otherwise.Budo is lucky as imaginary friends go. He's been alive for more than five years, which is positively ancient in the world of imaginary friends...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAfter the tragic death of his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house - a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce... -
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 94 ratingsBetween life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . .Categorized as:
family literary-fiction philosophical 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book contemporary -
Mystic Tea by Rea Nolan Martin
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA community of quirky, mismatched, and endearing women struggle to find meaning and purpose on a ramshackle monastery in upstate New York. Having spent their lives in service to a church that seems to no longer serve them, they are confused about their own futures and the future of the entire monastery...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction action-adventure adult book christian contemporary female-author -
The Force of Such Beauty: A Novel by Barbara Bourland
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAfter a failed escape attempt, the princess of a tiny kingdom begins to reevaluate her life. Caroline, a former marathon runner who dropped out of school at fourteen to pursue an Olympic medal, was the perfect candidate for a tiara: shapely, disciplined, accustomed to public attention, and utterly uneducated. When she meets Finn, the handsome prince of a small European kingdom, her fate is sealed...Categorized as:
literary-fiction family romance fiction contemporary fantasy historical-fiction audiobook -
Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being... -
My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsAn extraordinary and startlingly original sequel to Ishmael "Enthralling, shocking, hope-filled, and utterly fearless, Daniel Quinn leads us deeper and deeper into the human heart, history, and spirit. In My Ishmael, Quinn strikes out into entirely new territory, posing questions that will rock you on your heels, and providing tantalizing possibilities for a truly new world vision...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical action-adventure adult animals anthologies classics contemporary -
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by Franz Kafka, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook classics contemporary -
Purplicious by Victoria Kann, Elizabeth Kann
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt's purple Pinkalicious! Pinkalicious loves the color pink, but all the girls at school like black. They tease her, saying that pink stinks and pink is for babies. But Pinkalicious doesn't think so that is, until her friends stop playing with her. Now Pinkalicious has a case of the blues... -
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A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA stuffed bear's heart beats with the rhythm of a dead baby; Reno keeps receding to the east no matter how far you drive; and in a mine on another planet, the dust won't stop seeping in. In these stories, Brian Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary dystopia fiction horror -
Windeye by Brian Evenson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA woman falling out of sync with the world; a king's servant hypnotized by his murderous horse; a transplanted ear with a mind of its own. The characters in these stories live as interlopers in a world shaped by mysterious disappearances and unfathomable discrepancies between the real and imagined... -
The Assembler of Parts by Raoul Wientzen
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the start of this extraordinary first novel, eight-year-old Jess finds herself in heaven reviewing her short life. She is guided in this by a being she calls the Assembler of Parts, and her task, as she understands it, is to glean her life's meaning. From birth, it was obvious that she was unlike other children: she was born without thumbs... -
Séances are for Suckers by Tamara Berry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen something goes bump in the night . . . it’s most likely a plumbing problem, or something equally mundane. But fake medium Eleanor Wilde is happy to investigate and cleanse your home of spectral presences—for a fee. Hey, it’s a living . . . Ellie has an ailing sister to care for, and working as a ghost hunter who doesn’t believe in ghosts helps cover the bills for both of them... -
A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsTravis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend... -
Catastrophe: And Other Stories by Dino Buzzati
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn Catastrophe, the renowned Italian short story writer Dino Buzzati brings vividly to life the slow and quietly terrifying collapse of our known, everyday world. In stories touched by the fantastical and the strange, and filled with humor, irony, and menace, Buzzati illuminates the nightmarish side of our ordinary existence...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary fiction horror -
The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOn a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives—and in that moment they become almost as one...Categorized as:
literary-fiction adult anthologies coming-of-age contemporary epic fiction magical-realism -
For a Little While by Rick Bass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA "New York Times Book Review" Editors' Choice "A literary titan...Bass is, hands down, a master of the short form, creating in a few pages a natural world of mythic proportions." -- "New York Times Book Review" Long considered one of the most gifted practitioners of the short story, Rick Bass is unsurpassed in his ability to perceive and portray the enduring truths of the human heart...Categorized as:
literary-fiction adult anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction outdoors psychological -
The Lost Storyteller by Amanda Block
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"A powerful novel about the bond between fathers and daughters, and how stories connect us all. I loved it" Jenny Colgan THE LOST STORYTELLER is the heartwarming and evocative debut novel from a stunning new voice in fiction, Amanda Block. Perfect for fans of Ruth Hogan, Jessie Burton and Diane Setterfield.Rebecca hasn't seen her father Leo since she was six... -
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud tells the haunting story of a young man who narrowly survives a terrible car wreck that kills his little brother. Years later, the brothers’ bond remains so strong that it transcends the normal boundaries separating life and death. Charlie St. Cloud lives in a snug New England fishing village...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction action-adventure afterlife audiobook book coming-of-age contemporary -
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At the Waterfall by Smardline S.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTwo strangers. One cabin. A summer fling .Grief and fear aren’t strangers to Jake and Mia. Jake, a climber addicted to control, lives for the next thrill but avoids love at all costs.He has his Never sleeps with the same girl twice.No exchanging names.No staying over—can't risk anyone catching feelings.That is until he’s forced to share a cabin with princess and her no-noise-before-8-AM rule...Categorized as:
literary-fiction romance contemporary poc-mc multi-pov psychological fiction fantasy -
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsWinner of the 1992 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, "Ishmael" is a unique and captivating novel that has earned a large and passionate following among readers and critics worldwide...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book classics -
The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsBetween 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life... -
The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"In the twilight of a childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide... -
All of It by Kim Holden
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Veronica Smith has it all: a loving family, a funky car named Jezebel, and a plan to go to college after graduation. On the first day of senior year she meets Dimitri Glenn-a mysterious transfer student with gray eyes and a mischievous smile who seems determined to win her heart... -
A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L'Engle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsKatherine Forrester Vigneras, in a continuation of her story from The Small Rain, returns to New York City from Europe to retire. Now in her seventies, she encounters an old friend from her Greenwich Village days who, it turns out, is the former Bishop of New York. He asks Katherine to give a benefit concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction book children children-books classics contemporary female-author -
Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories by John Updike
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe triumphant collection of short stories by America's most acclaimed novelist... -
The Baggage Handler by David Rawlings
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen three people take the wrong suitcase from baggage claim, their lives change forever. A hothead businessman coming to the city for a showdown meeting to save his job.A mother of three hoping to survive the days at her sister's house before her niece’s wedding.And a young artist pursuing his father’s dream so he can keep his own alive... -
The Patron Saint of Ugly by Marie Manilla
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBorn in Sweetwater, West Virginia, with a mop of flaming red hair and a map of the world rendered in port-wine stains on every surface of her body, Garnet Ferrari is used to being an outcast... -
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsAn alternative cover for this ISBN can be found hereOne day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children classics -
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Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsA page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children classics -
Skeletal by Katherine Hayton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThree months before she died Daina Harrow faced a bully at school.Six weeks before she died Daina Harrow suffered an assault in the park.One week before she died Daina Harrow stole a secret people had killed to hide. That was ten years ago. Ten long years.Now, her bones have been found on a building site. A coroner's inquest has been reopened. A parade of witnesses is about to start... -
Don't Try This at Home by Angela Readman
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA girl repeatedly chops her boyfriend in half but, while her other half’ multiplies, she is still not satisfied. Love transforms a mother working down the chippie into Elvis. Clary’s father puts antlers on stuffed rabbits to make jackalopes, but when her mother walks out on them, Clary has to help her father if they are to survive...Categorized as:
literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction haunted-places humor -
Here in Avalon by Tara Isabella Burton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn “enchanting” (Caroline Kepnes, author of You) New York City fairy tale about two sisters that fall under the spell of an underworld cabaret troupe that might be a dangerous cult—but one that makes the materialist world left in its wake feel like a sinister cult itself.Rose has come a long way...Categorized as:
literary-fiction fantasy fiction magical-realism contemporary 21st-century mystery urban-fantasy -
Bear by Julia Phillips
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA mesmerising novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unexpected visitor — a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods, by the celebrated, bestselling author of Disappearing Earth.They were sisters and they would last past the end of time.Sam and her sister, Elena, dream of another life...Categorized as:
literary-fiction family north-america usa washington-dc washington fiction contemporary -
The Octopus Man by Jasper Gibson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOnce an outstanding law student Tom is now lost in the machinery of the British mental health system, talking to a voice no one else can the voice of Malamock, the Octopus God - sometimes cruel, sometimes loving, but always there to guide him.After a florid psychotic break, the pressure builds for Tom to take part in an experimental drugs trial that promises to silence the voice forever...Categorized as:
literary-fiction family fiction mental-illness contemporary psychological fantasy book
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