If you liked
Books like 11/22/63
by Stephen King
11/22/63 is Stephen King writing the most disciplined speculative novel of his career. A time-travel premise, the Kennedy assassination, and a small-town romance that runs across years of patient pre-1963 American texture. If you finished it and needed another book that took its speculative premise this seriously, these are our picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
American Godsby Neil Gaiman
“American Gods by Neil Gaiman 2001 review. An ex-convict named Shadow takes a job as bodyguard to a strange man named Wednesday and learns the old gods of immigration are still here, dying slow. The defining American urban fantasy of the 2000s.”
Project Hail Maryby Andy Weir
“Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 2021 review. A junior-high science teacher wakes alone on a deep-space craft with no memory. Andy Weir's third novel and the canonical contemporary hard science fiction novel about a single problem solved correctly.”
Klara and the Sunby Kazuo Ishiguro
“Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.”
Never Let Me Goby Kazuo Ishiguro
“Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 review. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, a special English boarding school. As adults, they begin to understand what Hailsham was for. The novel that defined the contemporary literary-SF register.”
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugoby Taylor Jenkins Reid
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 2017 review. An aging Hollywood icon agrees to tell the true story of her career and her seven marriages, but only to an unknown journalist. The TikTok-era literary fiction novel that defined contemporary Hollywood-memoir-fiction.”
The Ocean at the End of the Laneby Neil Gaiman
“The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman 2013 review. A middle-aged man returns to his Sussex childhood home for a funeral and remembers something he had carefully forgotten. Late Gaiman at his most patient and most personal.”
FAQ
Common questions about 11/22/63 read-alikes
- What is the closest match for 11/22/63?
- American Gods. Different premise but the same patient willingness to walk slowly through a specific America (the small-town highway America of mid-century, in both cases) and trust that the texture is doing the work.
- I want more Stephen King.
- The Stand (1978) is the canonical doorstop. The Dark Tower series is the late-career magnum opus. 11/22/63 is one of his late-career standalones, with Dolores Claiborne and Lisey's Story being similar in tone.
- I want more disciplined speculative fiction.
- Project Hail Mary, Klara and the Sun, and Never Let Me Go are the closest matches in our catalog — each uses speculative premises to do other kinds of work.
- I want something about period America.
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo runs through the same 1950s-into-1970s American period. The Ocean at the End of the Lane runs mid-century Britain with the same patient atmospheric texture.
The original