Books like 'I Wear the Black Hat'
Readers who enjoyed I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological comedy humor social-commentary sports politics crime journalism dark
-
Coma Girl: Part 5 by Stephanie Bond
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsNEW! An Amazon exclusive! From the international bestselling author of STOP THE WEDDING! and the BODY MOVERS mystery series comes a new story of family drama, suspense, comedy, and romance. In COMA GIRL, a victim of a tragic event lies in a hospital bed, at the mercy of friends and relatives who think she can't hear them. But she SO can. COMA GIRL is a daily serial available on stephaniebond... -
![Coma Girl: part 3 by Stephanie Bond]()
Coma Girl: part 3 by Stephanie Bond
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsNEW! An Amazon exclusive! From the international bestselling author of STOP THE WEDDING! and the BODY MOVERS mystery series comes a new story of family drama, suspense, comedy, and romance. In COMA GIRL, a victim of a tragic event lies in a hospital bed, at the mercy of friends and relatives who think she can't hear them. But she SO can... -
![Coma Girl: part 2 by Stephanie Bond]()
Coma Girl: part 2 by Stephanie Bond
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNEW! An Amazon exclusive!From the international bestselling author of STOP THE WEDDING! and the BODY MOVERS mystery series comes a new story of family drama, suspense, comedy, and romance.In COMA GIRL, a victim of a tragic event lies in a hospital bed, at the mercy of friends and relatives who think she can't hear them. But she SO can.The COMA GIRL daily serial is available on stephaniebond... -
![Coma Girl: Part 4 by Stephanie Bond]()
Coma Girl: Part 4 by Stephanie Bond
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the international bestselling author of STOP THE WEDDING! and the BODY MOVERS mystery series comes a new story of family drama, suspense, comedy, and romance. In COMA GIRL, a victim of a tragic event lies in a hospital bed, at the mercy of friends and relatives who think she can't hear them. But she SO can. COMA GIRL is a daily serial available on stephaniebond... -
-
![Suttree by Cormac McCarthy]()
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsArguably the masterpiece of a novelist as highly praised and scarcely read as any living writer, the Vintage Contemporaries reprint of Suttree should help to bring McCarthy the readers to match his many awards and voluminous reviews...Categorized as:
crime dark humor philosophical social-commentary 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbia) by Ivy Smoak]()
Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbia) by Ivy Smoak
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Mistletoe and holly and lights all aglow. It’s my favorite time of year. Until my husband had to go and ruin it.Christmas is officially canceled at my house now that I’ve kidnapped my husband and locked him in the basement. And not even Santa can get me out of this mess.I know what you’re thinking. That I’m crazy. But I swear I’m not... -
![Running the Light by Sam Tallent, Doug Stanhope]()
Running the Light by Sam Tallent, Doug Stanhope
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA bona fide “instant classic” (Doug Stanhope) novel that tells the story of a road comic crashing and burning by acclaimed comedian Sam TallentBilly Ray Schafer stepped off the plane in Amarillo, Texas, with twenty-six hundred dollars tucked down the leg of his black ostrich-skin cowboy boot... -
![A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz]()
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn irreverent comic adventure, spanning three continents, about a father and son against each other and against the world.For most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn’t decide whether to pity, hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son... -
![Unhinged Cain by Brooklyn Cross]()
Unhinged Cain by Brooklyn Cross
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsContemporary/MF/Thriller-Horror/Serial Killer/Captive/DarkKirby wished for a new life, but the Devil sent her Cain.I knew what my calling in life was at a young age. I was the embodiment of death. The scent of blood and watching the life fade from something’s eyes was more delicious than any dessert... -
![Dance With The Devil by Joanna Blake]()
Dance With The Devil by Joanna Blake
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsI waited years for her. One day she disappeared without a trace. I just didn’t know she was carrying my baby. I’m one of the Sons of Satan, part of an inner circle we call The Devil’s Riders. I was just a prospect when I first saw her. Becky Townsdale, the curvy girl who worked at Mae’s diner. She’s so pretty it hurts to look at her... -
![The Bad Seeds by C.J. Skuse]()
The Bad Seeds by C.J. Skuse
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSweetpea soon to be a major TV series starring Ella PurnellSweetpea is coming home at last…Newly married, with a loving family surrounding her, everything's coming up roses for ex-serial killer Rhiannon Lewis, right?Wrong.Her husband has just been shot, and the daughter she left behind in the UK is desperately ill... -
![What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg]()
What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhat Makes Sammy Run?Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick... -
![Sudden Death by David Rosenfelt]()
Sudden Death by David Rosenfelt
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFirst at the crime scene, Andy Carpenter wishes he had never seen the folded torso with the large red stain on its back. The victim is Tony Preston, wide receiver for the New York Jets, and the suspect is Kenny Schilling, the New York Giants' star running back who is clamoring for Andy's services... -
![Franz Kafka's The Castle (Dramatization) by David Fishelson, Aaron Leichter]()
Franz Kafka's The Castle (Dramatization) by David Fishelson, Aaron Leichter
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsNote - This is not the novel by Franz Kafka! For the novel see The... -
-
![Dead Head by C.J. Skuse]()
Dead Head by C.J. Skuse
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCan a serial killer ever lose their taste for murder?Since confessing to her bloody murder spree Rhiannon Lewis, the now-notorious Sweetpea killer, has been feeling out-of-sorts.Having fled the UK on a cruise ship to start her new life, Rhiannon should be feeling happy. But it’s hard to turn over a new leaf when she’s stuck in an oversized floating tin can with the Gammonati and screaming kids... -
![Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh]()
Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA spectacular return of the wild, dissolute gang from Trainspotting, from the author the New York Times called “Blisteringly funny…. ”The gang from Trainspotting have mostly cleaned up their act…until they are drawn back together to Scotland for one last scheme—a scheme one of them won’t survive. It’s an action-packed, hilarious and rollicking trip, as well as a moving elegy to the crew... -
![A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley]()
A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrederick Exley's inimitable "fictional memoir" A Fan's Notes has assumed the status of a classic since its first publication in 1968. Mordantly and poignantly, Exley describes the profound failures of his life; professional, sexual, and personal... -
![Убивать осознанно by Karsten Dusse]()
Убивать осознанно by Karsten Dusse
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsБьорн Димель — «грязный адвокатишка», вынужденный прикрывать и оправдывать преступления большого криминального авторитета. Брак Бьорна Димеля разваливается на части, его жена вот-вот сбежит с обожаемой дочкой в неопределенном направлении. В отчаянии Бьорн записывается на курс тренинга по осознанности... -
![Boy Parts by Eliza Clark]()
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIrina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle.Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema... -
![Pastoralia by George Saunders]()
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsWith this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination.The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity-and our humanity-in a startling new light...Categorized as:
humor philosophical social-commentary 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl]()
Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn these dark, disturbing stories Roald Dahl explores the sinister side of human nature: the cunning, sly selfish part of each of us that leads into the territory of the unexpected and unsettling.Originally published in 1960, Kiss Kiss brings together 11 of Roald's macabre adult tales... -
![Blister by Jeff Strand]()
Blister by Jeff Strand
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThey call her Blister. She’s a hideously disfigured twenty-three year-old woman, living in a shed next to her father’s house, hidden away from the world.Jason Tray is a successful cartoonist, banished to his agent’s lakeside cabin for a few days of mandatory rest and relaxation... -
![Mystery Man by Colin Bateman]()
Mystery Man by Colin Bateman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the king of the comic crime caper. He's the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency's clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It's not as if there's any danger involved... -
![Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk]()
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsShe's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists... -
-
![Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz]()
Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsIn the dazzling new thriller from the master of dark suspense, the hand of fate reaches out to touch an ordinary man with greatness. So long as he is ready. So long as he is, above all, afraid.Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it... -
![Skagboys by Irvine Welsh]()
Skagboys by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s. Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone... -
![The Floating Opera and The End of the Road by John Barth]()
The Floating Opera and The End of the Road by John Barth
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Floating Opera and The End Of The Road are John Barth's first two novels. Their relationship to each other is evident not only in their ribald subject matter but in the eccentric characters and bitterly humorous tone of the narratives. Both concern strange, consuming love triangles and the destructive effect of an overactive intellect on the emotions... -
![Post Office by Charles Bukowski]()
Post Office by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 40 ratings"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service... -
![Sleeping at the Starlite Motel: and Other Adventures on the Way Back Home by Bailey White]()
Sleeping at the Starlite Motel: and Other Adventures on the Way Back Home by Bailey White
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAnyone who has read her bestseller Mama Makes Up Her Mind--or who has heard her on National Public Radio--knows that Bailey White is one of the keenest observers of Southern eccentricity since Mark Twain. Sleeping at the Starlite Motel revives White's reputation as a master storyteller, Southern division, as it catalogs the oddities of the Georgia town she knows so well... -
![Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard]()
Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe playwright and novelist Thomas Bernhard was one of the most widely translated and admired writers of his generation, winner of the three most coveted literary prizes in Germany. Gargoyles, one of his earliest novels, is a singular, surreal study of the nature of humanity. One morning a doctor and his son set out on daily rounds through the grim mountainous Austrian countryside... -
![Factotum by Charles Bukowski]()
Factotum by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsOne of Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job... -
![God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsSecond only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr... -
![The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant]()
The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNorman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan... -
![The Pale King by David Foster Wallace]()
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe "breathtakingly brilliant" novel by the author of Infinite Jest (New York Times) is a deeply compelling and satisfying story, as hilarious and fearless and original as anything Wallace ever wrote. The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace... -
-
![Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley]()
Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNick Naylor likes his job. In the neo-puritanical nineties, it's a challenge to defend the rights of smokers and a privilege to promote their liberty. Sure, it hurts a little when you're compared to Nazi war criminals, but Nick says he's just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage and put his son through Washington's elite private school St. Euthanasius... -
![Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey, محمد غفوری]()
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey, محمد غفوری
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOnce the Orme family’s magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing “inner and outer stillness,” Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum... -
![Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse]()
Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratings‘If you like your thrillers darkly comic and outrageous this ticks all the boxes’ The SunThe last person who called me ‘Sweetpea’ ended up dead…’I haven’t killed anyone for three years and I thought that when it happened again I’d feel bad. Like an alcoholic taking a sip of whisky. But no. Nothing. I had a blissful night’s sleep. Didn’t wake up at all. And for once, no bad dream either... -
![Das Kind in mir will achtsam morden by Karsten Dusse]()
Das Kind in mir will achtsam morden by Karsten Dusse
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBjörn Diemel ist zurück – und mordet ganzheitlicher als je zuvor.Björn Diemel hat die Prinzipien der Achtsamkeit erlernt, und mit ihrer Hilfe sein Leben verbessert. Er hat den stressigen Job gekündigt und sich selbstständig gemacht. Er verbringt mehr Zeit mit seiner Tochter und streitet sich in der Regel liebevoller mit seiner Frau... -
![The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch]()
The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIris Murdoch's richly peopled novel revolves round a happily married couple, Kate and Octavian, and the friends of all ages attached to their household in Dorset. The novel deals with love in its two aspects, the self-gratifying and the impersonal; - The Nice And The Good - as they are embodied in a fascinating array of paired characters... -
![Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk]()
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsFrom the author of the underground sensation Fight Club comes this wickedly incisive second novel, a mesmerizing, unnerving, and hilarious vision of cult and post-cult life.Tender Branson—last surviving member of the so-called Creedish Death Cult—is dictating his life story into the flight recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean... -
![The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker]()
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlthough most of the action of The Mezzanine occurs on the escalator of an office building, where its narrator is returning to work after buying shoelaces, this startlingly inventive and witty novel takes us farther than most fiction written today. It lends to milk cartons the associative richness of Marcel Proust's madeleines... -
![The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel]()
The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsShulman, a chubby, middle-aged stationery-store owner from New Jersey, has always claimed that he's been gaining and losing the same thirty-five pounds since junior high-and that if you added all of that discarded weight together, he had lost an entire person. Another Shulman. A Shulman he never really cared for. A Shulman he'd always tried to lose by dieting and exercising... -
![Brute: Extreme Horror by Ash Ericmore]()
Brute: Extreme Horror by Ash Ericmore
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNever enter a house when no one knows where you are …Grace is canvasing for the Green Party. Ugh. Knocking on doors in a clearly conservative road. But the first house is a bust, and when the second offers a kindly gent looking for assistance – she can do nothing but offer to help.And that’s when everything goes so horribly wrong.Grace is no long free. Grace is a captive... -
![Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith]()
Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 24 ratings44 SCOTLAND STREET - Book 2The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy—just ask his mother. Back are all our favorite denizens of a Georgian townhouse in Edinburgh... -
-
![Black Flies by Shannon Burke]()
Black Flies by Shannon Burke
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA "raw and fascinating" novel based on the author's experiences as a New York City paramedic during the crack epidemic--"Burke is a poet of trauma" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-'90s Harlem... -
![The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel by Alain de Botton]()
The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel by Alain de Botton
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn The Romantic Movement , Alain de Botton explores the progress of a love affair from first meeting to breaking up, intercut with musings on the nature of art of love... -
![The Man Who Walked Through Walls by Marcel Aymé]()
The Man Who Walked Through Walls by Marcel Aymé
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe excellent Monsieur Dutilleul has always been able to pass through walls, but has never seen the point of using his gift, given the general availability of doors. One day, however, his tyrannical boss drives him to desperate, creative measures — he develops a taste for intramural travel and becomes something of a super-villain... -
![The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson]()
The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson
Rated: 3.84 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsBegun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s... -
![Being There by Jerzy Kosiński]()
Being There by Jerzy Kosiński
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsJerzy Kosinski’s clever parable of a naive man thrust into the modern world is more pointed now than ever.Chance, the enigmatic gardener, becomes Chauncey Gardiner after getting hit by a limo belonging to a Wall Street tycoon. The whirlwind that follows brings Chance to his new status of political policy advisor and possible vice presidential candidate... -
![Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself by Robert Montgomery Bird]()
Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself by Robert Montgomery Bird
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOriginally published in 1836.Sheppard Lee, Written By Himself is a work of dark satire from the early years of the American Republic. Published as an autobiography and praised by Edgar Allan Poe, this is the story of a young idler who goes in search of buried treasure and finds instead the power to transfer his soul into other men's bodies...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
