swap_horiz Elizabeth Costello Alternatives

1

The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities is an unfinished novel by Austrian writer Robert Musil, published in installments beginning in...

Modern Ethics Identity Novel

9.2 Excellent

2

Young Törless

Young Törless, originally published in German as Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless in 1906, is the debut novel of Au...

Austrian Ethics Coming Of Age Novel

8.5 Great

3

The Death of Virgil

The Death of Virgil is a 1945 novel by Austrian author Hermann Broch. The narrative takes place over the final eighteen...

Modern Novel Art Death

8.4 Great

4

By Night in Chile

By Night in Chile is a novella by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, published in 2000. The book is presented as a single, u...

Contemporary Ethics Novel Bolano

8.4 Great

5

Tree of Smoke

Tree of Smoke is a 2007 novel by American writer Denis Johnson about the Vietnam War and the people drawn into its intel...

American Ethics Novel War

8.4 Great

6

The Book of Evidence

The Book of Evidence is a 1989 novel by Irish writer John Banville. It is presented through the account of Freddie Montg...

Ethics Novel Irish Guilt

8.4 Great

7

The First Circle

*The First Circle* is a novel by Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, completed in the 1950s and first published abroa...

Modern Ethics Novel Political Philosophy

8.3 Great

8

The Loser

*The Loser* is a 1983 novel by Austrian author Thomas Bernhard that explores the destructive nature of artistic genius t...

Modern Identity Novel Art

8.3 Great

9

Humboldt's Gift

Humboldt's Gift is a 1975 novel by Saul Bellow, the Canadian-American writer. Its narrator, Charlie Citrine, is a succes...

American Novel Art Materialism

8.3 Great

10

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

*The Gospel According to Jesus Christ* is a 1991 novel by Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago that offers a radicall...

Contemporary Ethics Novel Theology

8.2 Great

11

The New York Trilogy

*The New York Trilogy* is a collection of three interconnected novellas—*City of Glass*, *Ghosts*, and *The Locked Room*...

Contemporary Identity Novel Postmodern

8.2 Great

12

Woodcutters

*Woodcutters* is a 1984 novel by Austrian author Thomas Bernhard that delivers a sustained critique of Vienna's cultural...

Modern Satire Novel Art

8.2 Great

13

A Personal Matter

Kenzaburō Ōe's 1964 Japanese novel following a man who contemplates abandoning his brain-damaged newborn, a work of exis...

Modern Ethics Novel Existentialism

8.2 Great

14

The Heart of the Matter

Graham Greene's 1948 novel set in British colonial West Africa, tracing a Catholic police officer's moral collapse under...

Modern Ethics Novel Theology

8.2 Great

15

The Sea, the Sea

Iris Murdoch's 1978 Booker Prize-winning novel about a retired theatre director whose retreat to the seaside becomes an...

Modern Ethics Novel Obsession

8.2 Great

16

The Moon and Sixpence

The Moon and Sixpence is a 1919 novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. It follows Charles Strickland, a London sto...

British Novel Art Meaning

8.2 Great

17

Foucault's Pendulum

'Foucault's Pendulum' is an intellectual novel by Italian author Umberto Eco, published in 1988. The narrative centers o...

Contemporary Novel Conspiracy Eco

8.1 Great

18

A Heart So White

'A Heart So White' is a novel by Spanish author Javier Marías, published in 1992. The narrative follows Juan Ranz, an in...

Language Contemporary Ethics Novel

8.1 Great

19

The Elective Affinities

'The Elective Affinities' is a novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1809. The narrative centers on a...

Ethics Novel Enlightenment Goethe

8.1 Great

20

Lila: An Inquiry into Morals

Lila: An Inquiry into Morals is a 1991 philosophical novel by Robert M. Pirsig and a thematic successor to Zen and the A...

Contemporary Ethics Novel Metaphysics

6.9 Fair