Literary Fiction Books
Character-driven novels that prize prose, interiority, and ambiguity over plot mechanics.
266 books
Thriller
11/22/63
Stephen King
Dystopian
1Q84
村上春樹
Romance
28 Summers
Literary Fiction
A Certain Hunger
Chelsea G. Summers
Comedy
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
A Confederacy of Dunces
Non-Fiction
A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry
Non-Fiction
A Grain of Wheat
Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo
Memoir
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers
A Lesson Before Dying
Ernest J. Gaines
Literary Fiction
A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby
Literary Fiction
A Month in the Country
Non-Fiction
A Scanner Darkly
Philip K. Dick
A Separate Peace
Romance
A Suitable Boy
Vikram Seth
Literary Fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan
A Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki Murakami
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
Contemporary Fiction
Agnes Grey
Anne Bronte
Crime
All American Boys
Jason Reynolds
Fantasy
All Our Wrong Todays
Literary Fiction
All the Colors of the Dark
Chris Whitaker
Romance
All the Pretty Horses
Cormac McCarthy
Horror
American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
An American Marriage
Tayari Jones
Literary Fiction
An Artist of the Floating World
Kazuo Ishiguro
Historical Fiction
An Iliad
Alessandro Baricco
Mystery
An Instance of the Fingerpost
Iain Pears
Fantasy
An Unkindness of Ghosts
Rivers Solomon
Non-Fiction
Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie
Anna Karenina
Annabel
Edgar Allan Poe
Anything Is Possible
Elizabeth Strout
Literary Fiction
Arrow of God
Non-Fiction
Babel
Samuel R. Delany
Bag of Bones
Historical Fiction
Beautiful Ruins
Jess Walter
Beauty
Beautyland
Marie-Helene Bertino
Romance
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
川口俊和
Romance
Bel Canto
Historical Fiction
Beowulf
Seamus Heaney
Big Swiss
Jen Beagin
Comedy
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Literary Fiction
Bleak House
Charles Dickens
Non-Fiction
Blindsight
Peter Watts
Bliss Montage
Ling Ma
Blue Sisters
Coco Mellors
Literary Fiction
Bones and All
Camille DeAngelis
Brick Lane
Fantasy
Brida
Paulo Coelho
Mystery
Broken Harbor
Tana French
Literary Fiction
Butcher's Crossing
John Williams
Thriller
By a Thread
Marty Beaudet
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Contemporary Fiction
Case Histories
Kate Atkinson
Contemporary Fiction
Caucasia
Danzy Senna
Comedy
Choke
Chuck Palahniuk
Thriller
City on Fire
Garth Risk Hallberg
Mystery
Clockers
Richard Price
Comedy
Closing Time
Joseph Heller
Non-Fiction
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Anthony Doerr
Fantasy
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Haruki Murakami
Horror
Come Closer
Literary Fiction
Come and Get It
Kiley Reid
Historical Fiction
Commonwealth
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Literary Fiction
Conversations with Friends
Sally Rooney
Cosmicomics
Romance
Cranford
Elizabeth Gaskell
Crime and Punishment
Non-Fiction
Cry, the Beloved Country
Alan Paton
Literary Fiction
Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese
Contemporary Fiction
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Dead Souls
Nikolai Gogol
Young Adult
Dear Martin
Nic Stone
Demian
Hermann Hesse
Literary Fiction
Dept. of Speculation
Historical Fiction
Dictionary of the Khazars
Milorad Pavic
Comedy
Disorientation
Elaine Hsieh Chou
Mystery
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Deepa Anappara
Literary Fiction
Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak
Horror
Dolores Claiborne
Stephen King
Non-Fiction
Earth Abides
George Rippey Stewart
Literary Fiction
East of Eden
John Steinbeck
Thriller
Eileen
Ottessa Moshfegh
Non-Fiction
Einstein's Dreams
Alan P. Lightman
Romance
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Non-Fiction
Every Day Is for the Thief
Contemporary Fiction
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
Emily Austin
Literary Fiction
Everything I Never Told You
Celeste Ng
Contemporary Fiction
Everything Is Illuminated
Jonathan Safran Foer
Literary Fiction
Exciting Times
Naoise Dolan
Literary Fiction
Exit West
Mohsin Hamid
Non-Fiction
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer
Literary Fiction
Fates and Furies
Lauren Groff
Non-Fiction
Ficciones
Jorge Luis Borges
Foster
Foucault's Pendulum
Crime
Franny and Zooey
J. D. Salinger
Freshwater
Historical Fiction
Fugitive Pieces
Anne Michaels
Non-Fiction
Giovanni's Room
James Baldwin
Non-Fiction
Girl, Woman, Other
Bernardine Evaristo
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin
Happenstance
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki Murakami
Contemporary Fiction
Hello Beautiful
Ann Napolitano
Fantasy
Her Body and Other Parties
Carmen Maria Machado
Romance
Honey
Rupi Kaur
Horror
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski
Literary Fiction
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
C Pam Zhang
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Julia Alvarez
Non-Fiction
How to Stop Time
Matt Haig
Mystery
I Am the Messenger
Markus Zusak
Immortality
Milan Kundera
Infinite Jest
Invisible Monsters
Historical Fiction
Jazz
Toni Morrison
Memoir
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Cho Nam-ju
Fantasy
Lavinia
Ursula K. Le Guin
Literary Fiction
Leave the World Behind
Less Than Zero
Bret Easton Ellis
Literary Fiction
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders
Thriller
Long Bright River
Liz Moore
Young Adult
Long Way Down
Jason Reynolds
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Luster
Historical Fiction
Machines Like Me
Ian McEwan
Romance
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert
Romance
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Helen Simonson
Literary Fiction
Margo's Got Money Troubles
Rufi Thorpe
Matrix
Sophia Stewart
Contemporary Fiction
Middlemarch
George Eliot
Literary Fiction
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie
Literary Fiction
Milkman
Anna Burns
Moby Dick
Monkey Bridge
Non-Fiction
Mother Night
Kurt Vonnegut
Thriller
Motherless Brooklyn
Jonathan Lethem
Contemporary Fiction
Mrs Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Romance
Mrs. Hemingway
Ariel Lawhon
Non-Fiction
Mumbo Jumbo
Ishmael Reed
Literary Fiction
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante
Literary Fiction
My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout
Young Adult
NW
Zadie Smith
Narcissus and Goldmund
Hermann Hesse
Literary Fiction
Native Son
Nausea
Jean-Paul. Satre
Nervous Conditions
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Literary Fiction
News of the World
Paulette Jiles
Literary Fiction
Nightbitch
Rachel Yoder
Literary Fiction
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
Kenzaburo Oe
Literary Fiction
No Longer Human
太宰 治
Comedy
No One Is Talking About This
North Woods
Daniel Mason
Non-Fiction
Notes from Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Literary Fiction
Notes on a Scandal
Zoe Heller
Literary Fiction
Nothing to See Here
Kevin Wilson
Romance
Of Love and Other Demons
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Fantasy
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
Oh William!
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout
Literary Fiction
Oliver Twist
Contemporary Fiction
On Beauty
Zadie Smith
Non-Fiction
On the Beach
Nevil Shute
Non-Fiction
Oona Out of Order
Margarita Montimore
Literary Fiction
Open Water
Caleb Azumah Nelson
Literary Fiction
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov
Literary Fiction
Passing
Nella Larsen
Fantasy
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Andrea Lawlor
Pedro Paramo
Juan Rulfo
Non-Fiction
People of the Book
Jeanne DuPrau
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Pretend I'm Dead
Literary Fiction
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
Non-Fiction
The Round House
Louise Erdrich
Literary Fiction
The Satanic Verses
Salman Rushdie
Literary Fiction
The Secret History
Donna Tartt
Non-Fiction
The Secret River
Kate Grenville
Literary Fiction
The Sellout
Paul Beatty
The Shadow King
Literary Fiction
The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Historical Fiction
The Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker
The Siren
Romance
The Siren
Tiffany Reisz
Historical Fiction
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
The Sorrow of War
Non-Fiction
The Sorrow of War
Nghia M. Vo
Historical Fiction
The Sparrow
Fantasy
The Starless Sea
Erin Morgenstern
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Gabrielle Zevin
Non-Fiction
The Story of the New Name
A W. Reed
The Storyteller
Literary Fiction
The Stranger
Albert Camus
Philosophy
The Stranger in the Lifeboat
Mitch Albom
Horror
The Sundial
Shirley Jackson
Literary Fiction
The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu
Mystery
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith
Fantasy
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Alix E. Harrow
Dystopian
The Testaments
Margaret Atwood
Literary Fiction
The Things They Carried
The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield
Science Fiction
The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin
Romance
The Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
Literary Fiction
The Trial
Franz Kafka
Romance
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James
Non-Fiction
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
Ayana Mathis
Literary Fiction
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
Non-Fiction
The Underground Railroad
Fantasy
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Rachel Joyce
Literary Fiction
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett
Literary Fiction
The Vegetarian
Han Kang
Literary Fiction
The Virgin Suicides
Jeffrey Eugenides
Literary Fiction
The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks
Dystopian
The Water Cure
Sophie Mackintosh
Fantasy
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Contemporary Fiction
The Wedding People
Alison Espach
Mystery
The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga
Literary Fiction
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami
Contemporary Fiction
The Wishing Game
Meg Shaffer
The Witch of Portobello
The Woman in the Dunes
Comedy
The World According to Garp
Jeffrey Eugenides
Memoir
The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
Non-Fiction
The Year of the Flood
Margaret Atwood
Literary Fiction
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Michael Chabon
Literary Fiction
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
Literary Fiction
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
Literary Fiction
This Tender Land
William Kent Krueger
This Time Tomorrow
This Time Tomorrow
Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
Tigana
Fantasy
Till We Have Faces
C.S. Lewis
Literary Fiction
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
Tom Lake
Ann Patchett
Literary Fiction
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Tracks
Louise Erdrich
Literary Fiction
Trainspotting
Irvine Welsh
Literary Fiction
Transcendent Kingdom
Yaa Gyasi
Literary Fiction
Trust
Hernan Diaz
Thriller
Under the Skin
Michel Faber
Underworld
Non-Fiction
Utopia Avenue
David Mitchell
Non-Fiction
VALIS
Philip K. Dick
Veronika Decides to Die
Paulo Coelho
Horror
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson
Mystery
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Thriller
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver
Young Adult
We Were Liars
E. Lockhart
Literary Fiction
We Were the Universe
Kimberly King Parsons
Literary Fiction
Where the Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens
Contemporary Fiction
Where the Forest Meets the Stars
Glendy Vanderah
White Noise
Fantasy
White Oleander
Fitch, Janet
Literary Fiction
White Teeth
Zadie Smith
Historical Fiction
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
Non-Fiction
Wild Seed
Octavia E. Butler
Young Adult
Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
Historical Fiction
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Comedy
Wonder Boys
Michael Chabon
Literary Fiction
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
Non-Fiction
Year of Wonders
Contemporary Fiction
Yellowface
R.F. Kuang
Literary Fiction
Young Mungo
Douglas Stuart
Historical Fiction
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Therese Anne Fowler
Memoir
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert M. Pirsig
