Books like 'The Last Novel'
Readers who enjoyed The Last Novel by David Markson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 26 ratings"There is a distinguished mind at work beneath the totally acceptable dullness of clerking. The mind is that of Pessoa. We must be given the chance to learn more about him...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical 20th-century adult audiobook book classics contemporary -
![Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace]()
Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratings...Categorized as:
literary-fiction university fiction mental-illness audiobook contemporary sci-fi classics -
![Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, John Updike]()
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 postmodernism university 20th-century adult anthologies classics -
![Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin]()
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:
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![The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov]()
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFrom the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales—eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time—display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical university 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook classics -
![Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar]()
Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsHoracio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club...Categorized as:
literary-fiction postmodernism university 20th-century action-adventure adult book classics -
![Water by John Boyne]()
Water by John Boyne
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage, not a notorious woman on the run from her past.But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer...Categorized as:
literary-fiction fiction contemporary domestic-drama psychological thriller book adult -
![Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar]()
Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams . . . A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer's victim . .Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult anthologies classics -
![The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn]()
The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsAn Adventure of the Mind and SpiritFather Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his superiors: Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in central Europe. His followers all him B, but his enemies say he’s something else: the Antichrist...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical university 20th-century adult audiobook book classics -
![The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera]()
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 75 ratingsIn The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover... -
![Immortality by Milan Kundera]()
Immortality by Milan Kundera
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThis breathtaking, reverberating survey of human nature finds Kundera still attempting to work out the meaning of life, without losing his acute sense of humour. It is one of those great unclassifiable masterpieces that appear once every twenty years or so.'It will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover. Not many novels can do that...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult audiobook book classics -
![The Mustachioed Woman of Shanghai by Isham Cook]()
The Mustachioed Woman of Shanghai by Isham Cook
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWant to know what's really going on with relationships in China today? It is the Shanghai of courtesans and concubines, danger and decadence, updated to 2020. American expat author Isham Cook has disappeared... -
![The Truth She Knew by Andrew Brown]()
The Truth She Knew by Andrew Brown
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMama didn’t want me. In fact, she would’ve traded my soul back for someone different if God would’ve let her, but he didn’t, so she was stuck with me. For eighteen-year-old Lacey, life at home is a rollercoaster. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be good enough to truly deserve Mama’s love. But when Lacey enters college and meets Walker, everything starts to change...Categorized as:
literary-fiction university adult anthologies coming-of-age contemporary epic family -
![Memento & Following by Christopher J. Nolan]()
Memento & Following by Christopher J. Nolan
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsChristopher Nolan's Memento is an intricate, original, fascinating thriller, hailed by Philip French of the Observer as 'one of the year's most exciting pictures'. Its protagonist Leonard (Guy Pearce) is a puzzle, even to himself. He sports the trappings of an expensive lifestyle, yet he lives in seedy motels, and seems to be on a desperate mission of revenge to find the man who murdered his wife... -
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![A Clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway]()
A Clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1933; it was also included in his collection Winner Take Nothing (1933).James Joyce once remarked: "He [Hemingway] has reduced the veil between literature and life, which is what every writer strives to do. Have you read 'A Clean Well-Lighted Place'?... It is masterly...Categorized as:
literary-fiction university 20th-century audiobook book classics contemporary fiction -
![Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsPublished two weeks after his seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest. But more: it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue...Categorized as:
literary-fiction postmodernism university 20th-century adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre]()
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsJean-Paul Sartre, the great French existentialist, displays his mastery of drama in NO EXIT, an unforgettable portrayal of hell.The play is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for all eternity...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical university 20th-century action-adventure adult afterlife audiobook -
![Forever Ago by J. Rose]()
Forever Ago by J. Rose
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHALLIEI’m alone in the sea of my grief until I meet Zeke, a tornado of complications who leaves destruction in his wake. I fall hard and fast, despite all the warning signs.Our love story is far from a fairy-tale. But if it hurts, then it’s real.There’s a monster hiding beneath his tattooed skin, an addiction that will tear us apart...Categorized as:
university literary-fiction romance dark mental-illness contemporary new-adult substance-abuse -
![The Art Lover by Carole Maso]()
The Art Lover by Carole Maso
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhat is the power of art in the face of death? In The Art Lover Carole Maso has created an elegant and moving narrative about a woman experiencing (and reliving) the most painful transitions of her life...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult book contemporary dark-academia -
![Love & Ruin by J.A. Owenby]()
Love & Ruin by J.A. Owenby
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe shadows have always been my safe place. I prefer to hide, stay under the radar.In a rare burst of bravery,I decide to go to college far away.But people are cruel everywhere, and even though I’m far from home, I still want to hide.Until Hendrix.He sees me. Defends me.At first he seems too good to be true, but he wins my trust, makes me feel safe in his presence...Categorized as:
university literary-fiction romance contemporary new-adult fiction enemies-to-lovers mental-illness -
![Crave by Sarah Kane]()
Crave by Sarah Kane
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in an unnamed city from which voices and images spring, Crave charts the disintegration of a human mind under the pressures of love, loss and desire.Produced by Paines Plough and Bright Ltd (Guy Chapman and Paul Spyker), Crave premiered at the Traverse Theatre for the 1998 Edinburgh Festival. It received its English premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London in September 1998...Categorized as:
postmodernism university 20th-century classics contemporary dark drama female-author -
![The Instructions by Adam Levin]()
The Instructions by Adam Levin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBeginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker... -
![Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You: 13 Stories by Alice Munro]()
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You: 13 Stories by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the thirteen stories in her remarkable second collection, Alice Munro demonstrates the precise observation, straightforward prose style, and masterful technique that led no less a critic than John Updike to compare her to Chekhov...Categorized as:
literary-fiction university 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies classics contemporary -
![The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir]()
The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThree long stories that draw the reader into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical university 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary -
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![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:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies -
![Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti]()
Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Auto-da-Fé" is the story of Peter Kien, a distinguished, reclusive sinologist living in Vienna between the wars. With masterly precision, Canetti reveals Kien's character, displaying the flawed personal relationships which ultimately lead to his destruction... -
![Molloy by Samuel Beckett]()
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMolloy, the first of the three masterpieces which constitute Samuel Beckett’s famous trilogy, appeared in French in 1951, followed seven months later by Malone Dies (Malone meurt), and two years later by The Unnamable (L’Innommable). Few works of contemporary literature have been so universally acclaimed as central to their time and to our understanding of the human experience... -
![Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard]()
Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is 1967. In separate wings of a Viennese hospital, two men lie bedridden. The narrator, Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of the celebrated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness... -
![In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass]()
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIN THIS SUITE of five short pieces -- one of the unqualified literary masterpieces of the American 1960s -- William Gass finds five beautiful forms in which to explore the signature theme of his fiction: the solitary soul’s poignant, conflicted, and doomed pursuit of love and community...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary -
![Metamorphosis and The Judgment by Franz Kafka, Steven Berkoff]()
Metamorphosis and The Judgment by Franz Kafka, Steven Berkoff
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsGregor Samsa is a man dedicated to industry, self-sacrifice, and survival. On waking one morning, he finds that he has been transformed into a gigantic insect. Being trapped in this alien body is a fate that he passively accepts, just as he accepts the fact of his inevitable death... -
![The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera]()
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsRich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970's. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than just its historical implications...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard]()
Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRose Leonard is on the run from her life. Taking refuge in a remote island community, she cocoons herself in work, silence and solitude in a house by the sea. But she is haunted by her past, by memories and desires she'd hoped were long dead. Life and love are offered by new friends, her lonely daughter, and most of all Calum, a fragile younger man who has his own demons to exorcise... -
![Lithium for Medea by Kate Braverman, Rick Moody]()
Lithium for Medea by Kate Braverman, Rick Moody
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLithium for Medea is a tale of addiction: to drugs, physical love, and dysfunctional family chains. It is also a tale of mothers and daughters, their mutual rebellion and unconscious mimicry. Rose grew up with an emotionally crippled, narcissistic mother while her father, a veteran gambler, spent his waking hours in the garden cut off from his wife's harangues... -
![The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski]()
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... -
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![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...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult book classics -
![At Last by Edward St. Aubyn]()
At Last by Edward St. Aubyn
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNow a 5-Part Limited Event Series on Showtime, Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Blythe Danner A New York Times Notable Book of of the Year • One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of the Year • Named One of the best books of the Year by The Telegraph and Esquire Here, from the writer described by The Guardian as "our purest living prose stylist" and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called "the most...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism 21st-century adult audiobook bildungsroman book -
![The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov]()
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magical literary detective story - subtle, intricate, leading to a tantalizing climax - about the mysterious life of a famous writer...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion]()
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter]()
Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVirtuosic and exquisitely compressed, these stories show Salter at his best.The collection received the 1989 PEN/Faulkner Award... -
![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... -
![Leave Society by Tao Lin]()
Leave Society by Tao Lin
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA bold portrait of a writer working to balance all his lives—as an artist, a son, and a loner. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.In 2014, a novelist named Li leaves Manhattan to visit his parents in Taipei for ten weeks. He doesn't know it yet, but his life will begin to deepen and complexify on this trip... -
![Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories by John Updike]()
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... -
![Honored Guest by Joy Williams]()
Honored Guest by Joy Williams
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWith her singular brand of gorgeous dark humor, Joy Williams explores the various ways–comic, tragic, and unnerving—we seek to accommodate diminishment and loss. A masseuse breaks her rich client's wrist bone, a friend visits at the hospital long after she is welcome, and a woman surrenders her husband to a creepily adoring student...Categorized as:
literary-fiction fiction contemporary 21st-century female-author psychological anthologies adult -
![The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe]()
The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLike a surreal and highly caffeinated version of The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies...Categorized as:
literary-fiction postmodernism university 20th-century adult audiobook book classics -
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![The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq]()
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHaving made his name with an exhibition of photographs of Michelin roadmaps – beautiful works that won praise from every corner of the art world – Jed Martin is now emerging from a ten-year hiatus. And he has had some good news...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 20th-century 21st-century adult audiobook -
![A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe]()
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsKenzaburō Ōe, the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, is internationally acclaimed as one of the most important and influential post-World War II writers, known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and his own struggle to come to terms with a mentally handicapped son...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical university 20th-century adult audiobook book classics -
![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...Categorized as:
literary-fiction philosophical postmodernism university 21st-century adult audiobook book -
![Second Skin by John Hawkes, Jeffrey Eugenides]()
Second Skin by John Hawkes, Jeffrey Eugenides
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"John Hawkes is an extraordinary writer. I have always admired his books. They should be more widely read...Categorized as:
literary-fiction postmodernism philosophical fiction contemporary classics 20th-century nautical -
![Museums & Women and Other Stories by John Updike]()
Museums & Women and Other Stories by John Updike
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis is John Updike’s largest and most various collection of short stories. Some, such as the title story, have the tone and personality of essays; others objectify the chimeras of middle-class existence; a number of vignettes reflect the face of America in the fictional microcosm of Tarbox; the longest story, a hallucinatory trip up the Nile, allegorizes our foreign policy... -
![My Only Wife by Jac Jemc]()
My Only Wife by Jac Jemc
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTen years ago the narrator unlocked the door of a wrecked apartment, empty of any trace of his wife. As stunning as her disappearance is his response. He freezes on the facts of her, haunting his recollections. This is the story of a man unable to free himself enough from the idea of a woman to try to find her...
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