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Recommendations based on Leaving the Atocha Stationby Ben Lerner
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10:04
by Ben Lerner
A poet's journey through life, confronting the obstacles of mortality and identity.
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her ... (Goodreads)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
The Flamethrowers
by Rachel Kushner
An exploration of art, politics, and identity in 1970s New York and Italy.
In 1975, a young art school graduate from Reno moves to New York City hoping to become a successful artist. She meets an older, more established artist, Sandro Valera, the heir of Moto Valera, an ... (Wikipedia)
Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore
A collection of comedic stories depicting everyday life with a unique, wry sense of humor.
A long-awaited collection of stories–twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in ... (Goodreads)
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
A family drama exploring the complexities of relationships, aging and life’s choices.
The novel shifts back and forth through the late 20th century, intermittently following spouses Alfred and Enid Lambert as they raise their children Gary, Chip, and Denise in the traditional ... (Wikipedia)
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace
A journey through the absurdist world of entertainment, drugs, addiction & death.
There are four major interwoven narratives: , These narratives are connected via a film, Infinite Jest , also referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat ". The film is so ... (Wikipedia)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
An autobiographical account of a young man dealing with grief and responsibility.
'When you read his extraordinary memoir you don't laugh, then cry, then laugh again; you somehow experience these emotions all at once.' "Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided ... (Goodreads)
Open City
by Teju Cole
A Nigerian-German psychiatrist wanders the streets of New York City, reflecting on his past and present, and the city's history and culture.
Julius, a man completing the last year of a psychiatry fellowship, wanders the streets of New York City and meets a variety of people over the course of a year. The novel has no substantial plot, and ... (Wikipedia)
Freedom
by Jonathan Franzen
A family saga revealing the struggles of a divided nation, and the power of love to heal.
The novel opens with a brief look at the Berglund family during their time living in St. Paul, Minnesota , from the perspective of their nosy neighbors. The Berglunds are portrayed as an ideal ... (Wikipedia)
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary Shteyngart
A darkly comic exploration of love in a technologically-driven world.
The son of a Russian immigrant , protagonist Leonard (Lenny) Abramov, a middle-aged, middle class, otherwise unremarkable man whose mentality is still in the past century, falls madly in love with ... (Wikipedia)
Outline
by Rachel Cusk
A woman's journey of self-reflection, exploring relationships and the complexities of life.
An English woman writer flies to Athens to teach a summer writing workshop. On the plane, she meets an older Greek bachelor , who tells her about his two failed marriages. The next day she meets with ... (Wikipedia)
A Visit from the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
A mosaic of characters, lives, and relationships as they intertwine and evolve over time.
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. ... (Goodreads)
Turn of Mind
by Alice LaPlante
A retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia is suspected of murdering her best friend. She tries to piece together the truth before it's too late.
A New York Times bestseller, Turn of Mind is a literary thriller about a retired orthopedic surgeon suffering from dementia and accused of killing her best friend. With unmatched patience and a ... (Barnes & Noble)
Dept. of Speculation
by Jenny Offill
A woman's exploration of relationships, marriage, and motherhood amidst personal and familial struggles.
Dept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all. ... (Goodreads)
The Days of Abandonment
by Elena Ferrante
An exploration of womanhood and psychological turmoil in the aftermath of a broken marriage.
The whole story is based on the sudden end of a seemingly solid, happy marriage. Olga, a stay at home mother in her late 30s, is told by her husband Mario that he is leaving her and their two ... (Wikipedia)
Austerlitz
by W.G. Sebald
A man discovers his past and identity through the story of a Jewish boy who escaped Nazi Germany.
Jacques Austerlitz, the main character in the book, is an architectural historian who encounters and befriends the solitary narrator in Antwerp during the 1960s. Gradually we come to understand his ... (Wikipedia)
How Should a Person Be?
by Sheila Heti
A young woman navigates her way through life, love, and art in Toronto. A witty and introspective exploration of identity and creativity.
Chosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of, The New York Times, ,"Funny...odd, original, and nearly ... (Barnes & Noble)
What Belongs to You
by Garth Greenwell
An exploration of intimacy, desire, and the power of secrets in a foreign city.
Longlisted for the National Book Award in Fiction • A Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction • A Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the James Taite ... (Barnes & Noble)
I Love Dick
by Chris Kraus
A woman's journey of self-discovery, exploring the limits of her desires.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
by Aimee Bender
A girl discovers she can taste emotions in food, leading to a painful realization about her family.
The story begins before Rose's ninth birthday, when her mother, Lane, bakes her a cake for the occasion. Rose knows that Lane is unhappy with her life, but Lane’s emotions show otherwise. From the ... (Wikipedia)
The Art of Fielding
by Chad Harbach
A college baseball team's success and failures are intertwined with the lives of five individuals.
Henry Skrimshander begins the novel as a 17-year-old playing on a Legion baseball team in Lankton, South Dakota. Although physically short and not muscular, Henry has an unusual gift for fielding, ... (Wikipedia)
The Line of Beauty
by Alan Hollinghurst
The story of a young gay man in Thatcher's England, navigating his identity and sexuality.
The novel is set in Britain in three parts, taking place in 1983, 1986 and 1987. The story surrounds the young gay protagonist, Nick Guest. Nick is middle-class and from the fictional market town of ... (Wikipedia)
The Rings of Saturn
by W.G. Sebald
An exploration of the physical and metaphysical landscapes of the English coast.
The Rings of Saturn — with its curious archive of photographs — records a walking tour along the east coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is ... (Goodreads)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera
A story of love and loss in a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia.
In 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 ... (Goodreads)
A House for Mr Biswas
by V.S. Naipaul
A man's struggle to create a home and identity for himself in a colonial society.
Mohun Biswas has spent his 46 years of life striving for independence. Shuttled from one residence to another after the drowning of his father, he yearns for a place he can call home. He marries into ... (Goodreads)
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
by George Saunders
A collection of darkly comic stories, exploring the absurdities of life in a post-apocalyptic world.
In six stories and the novella, Bounty, Saunders introduces readers to people struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world. ... (Goodreads)
Play It As It Lays
by Joan Didion
A woman's search for identity amidst the glamour and emptiness of 1960s Hollywood.
The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film producer Carter Lang. The further narration is ... (Wikipedia)
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Post-apocalyptic exploration of a world drastically changed after a pandemic.
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse,, Station Eleven, tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of ... (Barnes & Noble)
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
by Cormac McCarthy
A violent and bloody western epic, exploring the depths of human depravity.
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Sympathizer
by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Vietnam War refugee returns to his homeland and struggles to reconcile conflicting loyalties.
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be ... (Goodreads)
