Must-Read
Literary Fiction That Rewards Slow Reading
Novels that ask you to slow down. Michael Cunningham's structural triple-helix through one day in three women's lives. Rita Mae Brown's Charlottesville comedy of class and self-destruction. Douglas Coupland's Microsoft-era love letter to a dot-com that did not exist yet.
6 books on this list.
The Hoursby Michael Cunningham
5.0“The Hours by Michael Cunningham review. The 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that triangulates Virginia Woolf, a 1949 LA housewife, and a contemporary NYC editor. One of the great American literary novels of its decade.”
Venus Envyby Rita Mae Brown
4.0“Venus Envy by Rita Mae Brown 1993 review. A Virginia gallery owner mistakenly told she has weeks to live writes the truth to every important person in her life. Then she does not die.”
Microserfsby Douglas Coupland
5.0“Microserfs by Douglas Coupland review. The 1995 novel about Microsoft programmers starting a Bay Area startup. The defining Silicon Valley novel of its decade.”
The Sand Castleby Rita Mae Brown
3.0“The Sand Castle by Rita Mae Brown 2008 review. A multigenerational Maryland family rents a beach cottage on Chincoteague for one last summer day before the matriarch dies.”
The Casanova Embraceby Warren Adler
4.0“The Casanova Embrace by Warren Adler 1978 review. A Chilean dissident in Washington beds a string of women for political intelligence. An FBI handler tries to piece it together after his death.”
Blood Tiesby Warren Adler
3.0“Blood Ties by Warren Adler 1979 review. An assimilated American Jewish lawyer travels to Bavaria for a family wedding and uncovers a Nazi-era secret that pulls his identity apart.”