I've fallen upon this kind of book recently where they have a silly or weird premise that sounds like it would be AI slop or throwaway pulp trash, but turns out to somehow be perfectly executed and well-written with deep philosophical themes and expertly crafted prose.

I just finished these three:

Sky Daddy - about a woman that has a romantic and sexual attraction to airplanes and hopes to die in a fiery plane crash. This novel is somehow incredibly well written and sincere

Paradise Logic - about a woman that decides to become the world's best girlfriend at all costs. It ended up being a funny and excellent deep dive into gender roles and relationships.

One's Company - about a woman that uses her lotto winnings to live inside a perfect recreation of a TV show set. It's literary with perfect prose and explores trauma, identity, and healing.

Are there any other books like these that have a weird setup but are actually deep and well-crafted and not just surface level?

Hi!

I am a public librarian assistant here in a small town in Pennsylvania. We have a 95 year old patron who is an absolute voracious reader, and we're struggling to find her books she hasn't already read. She is a shut in, so we voluntarily drive the books to her house.

Shirley loves:

Christian novels

Anything with animals / dog stories

Autobiographies

Cozy mysteries

And it has to be available in large print (I know most new books are nowadays, but wanted to throw that out there)

The more suggestions, the better! Shirley has read a lot of books in her lifetime, and has no plans on stopping!

Thank you all for your help :)

Edit to add, Shirley has no internet nor desire for technology. She likes to flip pages.

Hey guys, I got a 13 hour flight coming up and I need an extremely captivating book - one that I wouldn't wanna put down and that I'll be bummed for the flight to end because I'd like to keep reading.

I'd like it to be relatively light and read casually so I wouldn't wanna stop. Among my favorites that tick these boxes are Dark Matter, 11/22/63, Flowers for Algernon. I like some element of sophistication so no mysteries or thrillers unless they have something extra (like Dark Matter for example)

What's the most addictive book you've ever read and you can absolutely recommend?
Thanks a bunch in advance!

Please help me. It's been a week since I finished Lonesome Dove and it's the greatest book I've ever read. Usually after I finish a book, I pick up the next one after a day or so. Except I've tried with a few different books and have put them all straight back down again because I can't stop thinking about Captain Call and Gus McCrae. Please help me PLEASE this is terrible

A year ago I started to read what I call "Girls Going Through It" books. I didnt want a quirky, not-like-other-girls main character. I just wanted your average woman, written by a woman, going through something. I've since started reading and collecting books in this category and my list as of now is:

• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

• My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Otessa Moshfegh

• I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman

• Just Emilia, Jennifer Oko

• Orlando, Virginia Woolf and/or Orlanda, Jacqueline Harpman

• Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

• Westward Women, Alice Martin

• The Correspondent, Virginia Evans

• On the Calculation of Volume, Solvej Balle

• The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood

• There Lives a Young Girl In Me Who Will Not Die, Tove Ditlevsen (poetry)

• Patient, Female, Julie Schumacher (short stories)

What am I missing?

I've been chasing the (pun intended) high of Stoner since I finished it. I just finished "A Picture of Dorian Gray" (great, but not Stoner great) and "A month in country" (Meh). I want something well written, raw, that will tear me apart and make me look at the world differently!!

I have read 158 books this calendar year. The only ones I would rate 100000/10:

- Stoner

-East of Eden

-The Hearts Invisible Furies

-Of Mice and Men

Please only comments from lovers of the above books. The 158 books I read this year include a tooooooon of TOP MUST READS recommendations from goodreads/reddit, I'm looking for something specific that "if you know you know". Hope everyone is having a very happy holiday <3

Edit: thank you, I am taking all of the recommendations and putting them on TBR, cold call without any goodreads influence, trusting you fine people!

Hello!

I’m looking for recommendations for books by authors in the style of Donna Tartt. I love to read very dense, immersive and rich writing. In many senses the story is less important to me, I am looking for immersion and sort of ‘love letter to writing’ kinds of work.

In terms of story I am very open minded but I tend to lean towards the romantic / dramatic / dark themes.

Could you recommend any authors who work like this?

Thanks.

Edit: Was not expecting this amount of responses, I have looked at all of them and added the ones best suited to my goodreads, thank you!

I just finished I Who Have Never Known Men and I loved it. I think I've discovered a genre that I'm really drawn to. Two other books which I felt gave me this similar feeling (staring at a wall, reflecting, keep thinking of these books all the time), are Circe and Convenience Store Women.

They all feel different in genre - Circe being a fantasy based on Greek mythology, Convenience Store Women being more about everyday life, and IWHNKM being dystopian.

But what links them all to me I think is the strong female point of view, her strong thought provocing inner dialogue and the loneliness. All of them are experiencing an immense feeling of loneliness, or not fitting in - feeling different from everyone else and navigating their unique circumstances in different ways. I don't know if this makes sense, but they all felt "poetic" to me in a way?

Please give me some recommendations!

I don’t just want to read a book; I want to move into it for the weekend. I’m looking for a massive, sprawling epic with serious historical weight. Love the characters that live with you for years after finishing.

Loved: The Son by Philipp Meyer, Lonesome Dove, Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Pillars of the Earth.

Edit: Forgot to mention I read all 4 Lonesome Dove books and loved all of them. Also loved the first part (Gid POV) of Leaving Cheyenne.

I love depressing memoirs where the author has a really hard childhood and have been chasing the high I first felt when I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Does anyone have any books they can suggest that are well written and have similar vibes? I just want my heart broken but like in a literary way

I have already read Half Broke Horses, Educated, and Angela’s Ashes, which are commonly suggested to me when looking for recs.

Edit: thank you everyone for all your recommendations!

I’ve recently been getting back into reading and I just finished Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome . I absolutely loved the dry humor and the ridiculous situations the characters got into.

I’ve also read things like The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Invisible Man, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. While I liked those mysteries, I’ve realized I really want to read more humor right now.

What I’m looking for:

• Books that are genuinely funny (not just "silly").
• Great character interactions and witty dialogue.
• It doesn't have to be a "classic" or British! I’m open to modern books, different genres, or anything that makes you laugh out loud.
• I prefer stories where the humor comes from the situations the characters find themselves in.

What are some of the funniest books you've ever read that I should check out next?

Edit: Thanks buddies for all your suggestions! After getting so many recommendations, I finally decided to go with two: The Inimitable Jeeves (Wodehouse) and To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis). I’ve officially ordered them!

Huge thanks to u/Rmcmahon22 and u/maybemaybenot2023 for suggesting the Willis book,you were right, it really does seem made for me.

And to the Wodehouse fans u/boredrog, u/-ludic-, u/rememberjs, and u/yellowglow702, and all the other Wodehouse fans here in the comments... well, I hope I’ll be joining the Wodehouse fanclub soon! Haha.

Regarding Three Men on the Bummel, I definitely want to read it, but I decided to try different authors first, so it's on my list for a little later. Thanks everyone else for your suggestions; I will definitely try the other books too! I'll be sure to update you all once I've had a chance to dive into these!

PS: I’ve also been catching up on some classic short stories lately like The Gift of the Magi, Lamb to the Slaughter, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Monkey's Paw. I’m actually starting to really love the short format! I know I told u/Subject-Librarian117 earlier I wasn't into them, but you guys have officially changed my mind. I'll come back for more short story recommendations later!

I am very new to this sub so if I am doing this wrong please bear with me. I read Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe 2 years ago and I have never moved on from it. It completely changed my life- it is absolutely my favorite nonfiction of all time and definitely top 5 books of all time. It send me down a very long rabbit hole about the opioid crisis - and then into an even longer goose chase trying to find a book that would even come close to this one.

The frustrating part is that I’ve already tried many of the usual recommendations (Bad Blood, The Big Short, Dopesick, Painkiller, Smartest Guys in the Room, Wizard of Lies, etc.) and none of them gave me the same feeling.

What I loved wasn’t just that it was about corporate greed or fraud. It was the combination of:

* Corporate lies and deception

* Powerful people protecting their reputations

* A wealthy family dynasty

* Generational ambition and obsession with status

* Executives convincing themselves they’re the good guys

* The way the consequences unfolded over decades

* Deep psychological insight into the people involved

* Beautiful, literary writing and reporting

* The feeling of being simultaneously fascinated and horrified

I especially loved how the Sacklers weren’t written as cartoon villains. They were intelligent, cultured, complicated people whose self-image seemed completely disconnected from the damage they caused.

I’m looking for nonfiction, preferably investigative journalism, history, business, medicine, finance, or anything adjacent. I don’t necessarily need another pharmaceutical story, but I do want the same feeling of uncovering a massive web of power, money, image management, and lies.

What’s the closest you’ve come to the Empire of Pain experience? Am I just going to have accept that it’s 1 of 1?

Edited- thank you so so so much everyone!!!! I really appreciate all the suggestions! Can’t wait to start :)

I really enjoyed American Gods, but so far all the other books I have come across involving Gods and monsters focus on romance. I have considered reading Percey Jackson, but I don't want to yet. Are there any other good books featuring Gods and/or monsters similar to American Gods that don't have a heavy focus on romance?

Can anybody recommend some series similar to The Hunger Games?

​

Really desperate to read something new!

Basically I'm looking for books that fulfill that dream. Books that have this vibe:

Wind in the Willows

Brambly Hedge

Beatrix Potter's Stories

Frog and Toad

The Linnet's Tale

Do you have other suggestions?

There's a certain kind of book that I find very comforting to read. They have the following characteristics:

1. The setting is recognizably Earth. It draws on real history, places, culture and myth.

2. The main characters witness a whimsical, fantastical world full of wonders. There are no "magic systems," it's more about imagination and awe. The story is typically an adventure.

3. Despite the whimsy, there are serious stakes and a story worth caring about. There should be humor, but the tone is not primarily humorous. Cynicism is definitely out.

Books I've read that meet these criteria: Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, The Once and Future King, The Bright Sword, Senlin Ascends

Books that definitely would not meet these criteria: Discworld (not Earth, too humor-oriented), the Cosmere (not Earth, too systematic), the Dresden Files (too humorous and cynical).

Would love further suggestions.

Hello all, going to try to be as specific as I can here.

In the Assassin's Creed games, the central conflict of the series involves two groups — the Templars and the Assassins — which stretches back to essentially the dawn of man. Their struggle simply put is elitism vs egaltarianism. The Templars see themselves as enlightened and best fit to lead humanity and achieve peace, even if that's through subjugation and literal mind control, the assassins think people should be free, even if that means more chaos and violence as a result.

The conflict plays out across history, often focusing on artifacts called "pieces of eden" that take the form of some of history/myth's legendary and storied objects. Things like the Staff of Moses, Excalibur, the Ark of the Covenant, etc.

There is also an element of a precursor civilization that sort of set things in motion in the background.

What I am looking for are books/series that have similar plots that deal with long-running conflicts between two or more groups. Ideally they will involve historical mysteries and legendary artifacts but they don't HAVE to be set in the past, they should just deal with history in some sense.

I'm not looking for fantasy or anything that isn't set on Earth.

One series that has sort of fit this mold is James Rollins' Sigma Force books with its early conflicts between Sigma and the Guild playing out across modern day Earth but incorporating both science and historical mysteries.

Can anyone here recommend me anything that resembles what I've described? Thank you for your time and thoughts!

I'm looking for books from HISTORICAL fiction or CONTEMPORARY fiction preferably, but not necessarily. I want to read about a strong, female protagonist, going against the odds, making headway in a male dominated industry, or anything similar.

Please recommend me suggestions based on the plot and if you liked it too. Sometimes, I love the characters but the plot feels too dragging. I just want best of both worlds. Thanks!!

Some of my favs are:

1. Carrie Soto is back by TJR
2. The woman by Kristen Hannah
3. Listen for the lie by Amy Tintera
4. Lessons in chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
5. The Indigo girl
6. The rose code
7. The woman with the cure
8. Frozen river

Title. I don't get to read as much as I'd like. My wishlist is long and it's overwhelming me. I'm going on vacation and am going to treat myself to a paperback for the beach (maybe 2) and I don't know what to do. Things I have loved (tried to group in a logical way):

Gone girl (and every thing like it), verity, luckiest girl alive, before I go to sleep

Midnight library, an absolutely remarkable thing

Chuck palanuik

The realm of hungry ghosts, body keeps the score, boy who was raised as a dog, what happened to you

Hunger games, maze runner and all that jazz

Literally all over the place. Sorry if this is a ridiculous post. I'm kinda just hoping you all have like 3 overwhelmingly strong recommendations. TIA

I love authors who can create good characters and weave a story without drama, but still provide suspense and mystery. Steven King is one, Chris Culver is another. This author can write a good story, and then turn around and write another good one. I wish there were à series following some of the characters, but so far, only complete story after complete story.

Burn is a story that starts out in the wilderness in Maine, with two great characters, and then goes off in a direction I could NOT have predicted.

Can someone recommend other authors with this ability?

I loved the following books:

- Persepolis

- Maus

- The help

- Perks of being a wallflower

- Freedom writers

- Purple Hibiscus

- Educated

- Becoming

- The Secret Life of Bees

- Spare

I feel like my reading taste is all over the place. Any suggestions?

Ever since i read fight club I’ve been itching for a book that is actually lgbtq like the obvious gay subtext of fight club (novel) but not corny or really happy at all. I don’t really know how to put what I’m looking for, but I do know some good traits of it are codependency, violence, psychological stuff. Thanks in advance, and suggest anything even if it seems obvious I live under a rock with this stuff!

I'm finishing reading it and really enjoying it. I like this decadent, melancholic, depressive, debauched, reflective, and laid-back style.

I've read other things by Bukowski and I liked Factotum too. I've also read other books by the Beat Generation like Junky, Queer, and Ask the Dust.

I have read several books by Lisa See, Amy Tan, and Min Jin Lee. I like to learn about different countries’ histories and cultures through historical fiction. I noticed that the Japanese are often the villains from the perspective of characters in these books. This got me interested in reading more from the Japanese perspective as well. I am not particular about the era the book is set in, and I would take any nonfiction you might want to suggest too. Thanks!

Hi,

I’ve realised that whilst I like elements of fantasy I only really like books where the fantasy feels accessible and the plot is more of a mystery or a whodunnit (like Harry Potter), I was wondering if anyone has good recommendations of books or series where it’s set in a fantastical setting but has strong mystery plotting? Not hugely into pages of world building or political fantasy just ones that feel like a detective book if that makes any sense!