I am currently into a format in a DEEP way, so please share all you have found. So far this year I have read –
Daisy Jones and The Six
Cover Story
Dream bound
The Ugly Truth by LC North
In the past have also started but not finished the Themis Files books, and the Illuminae Files.
I have not read World War Z or Flowers for Algernon.
But any recommendations for more books like these would be great! IE. stories told through interviews, government dossiers, descriptions of recorded video, internet posts and articles, and letters sent between characters.
I am also sure I am not the first person to post this request, so links to other threads would be great as well!
by No-Shake-2007
48 Comments
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society! Set in the aftermath of WWII, told completely in letters, telegrams, and diary entries.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Sorcery and Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede
Except the Queen by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder, iirc
Lady Susan, by Jane Austen, is very funny.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Ella Minnow Pea
Devolution
Dracula
84 Charring Cross Road
– Dangerous Liaisons
– Screwtape Letters
– Carrie
– Lady Susan
– Sorrows of Young Werther
– Dracula
– Perks of Being a Wallflower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel#Notable_works
Dear Committee Members by Schumacher
84 Charing Cross Road has the added joy of being a true story! It’s letters between a young woman in the states and a bookstore in England.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
An epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that Dracula is a vampire.
Fantasticland by Max Bockoven
Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts? Told as a series of first person interviews.
Warday by James Kunetka and Whitley Strieber
The unthinkable happened five years ago and now two writers have set out to find what’s left of America.
New York, Washington D.C., San Antonio, and parts of the Central and Western states are gone, and famine, epidemics, border wars, and radiation diseases have devastated the countryside in between.
It was a “limited” nuclear war, just a 36-minute exchange of missiles that abruptly ended when the superpowers’ communication systems broke down. But Warday destroyed much of civilization.
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
the story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, Wormwood, a junior tempter. The uncle’s mentorship pertains to the nephew’s responsibility in securing the damnation of a British man known only as “the Patient”.
Feeling sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty
We need to talk about Kevin
Dracula! And it’s spooky season rn so Dracula’s extra fun.
If you’re open to YA, I super super recommend Jaclyn Moriarty’s Ashbury-Brookfield books, starting with Feeling Sorry for Celia. She’s amazing. I go back to her books constantly for comfort reading, and she nails the epistolary format.
The Appeal, Janice Hallett
Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman. An oldie but goodie.
Also second Patricia Wrede’s Chocolate Pot series.
Sorcery & Cecilia
Freedom & Necessity
Dracula & The Historian
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady– the grandmother of all epistolary novels. It’s as florid as hell, but in all of it’s glory theres some great writing and moving passages. And if you read it in hardback, you can use it as a bludgeon.
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
*The Tenant of Wildfell Hall* by Anne Bronte (it’s the first feminist novel written WAY before feminism was even a thing and it BRILLIANTLY subverts EVERYTHING Anne’s sister’s wrote about)
Some Of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon
Cloud Atlas is partly epistolary
Manon Lescaut. Incredibly readable for such a minor classic.
*The Color Purple* by Alice Walker is told entirely through letters that the main character Celie writes to God and then to her sister.
A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising – Raymond Villareal
Fantasticland – Mike Bockoven
*edit -misspelled author
*The Prestige*, by Christopher Priest. Yes, it was the inspiration for the excellent film, and it’s just different enough that you can still enjoy it if you’ve seen the film.
It’s mostly told through alternating diary entries.
And for October, don’t miss *Carrie*, by Stephen King.
Susanna Clark’s *Piranesi* is a fun one.
Letters from a Peruvian Woman by Françoise de Graffigny.
* Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
* The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
* Augustus by John Williams
* Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
* House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Augustus by John Williams
Augustus by John Williams
Dracula has been mentioned a couple of times, but there is an audiobook of Dracula narrated by Alan Cummings that is absolutely spectacular! I highly recommend the audio on this one!
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Read Clarissa by Samuel Richardson if you really need to get your fill of it
This Is How You Lose The Time War
By Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Anne of Windy Poplars by LM Montgomery
The Love Letters by Madeleine L’Engle
The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis, it’s a new one. Told from both povs . It was so good.
The Rise and Fall of DODO
One of the grandaddies of the genre. *Dracula* by Bram Stoker
Is The Prestige considered epistolary?
Letters from Yellowstone is a lovely book.
Ella Minnow Pea!
Dear Committee Members. it’s a novel composed primarily of letters of recommendation.
*Daddy Long Legs* and *Dear Enemy* by Jean Webster and
*Letters From an Indian Judge to an English Gentlewoman* by anonymous (technically – we do have a good idea of the author and it is a work of fiction, although presented as fact – an outstanding novel.
Dear Committee Members—a series of college recommendation letters. hilarious.
Several People are Typing—Takes place entirely on slack instant messages. also hilarious (and i’ve never used slack—it’s a gimmick that works!)
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
Also if you’re not aware of the [SCP project](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/), each one is an individual wikipedia entry type profile of some sort of creature/entity. There’s usually some supporting documentation, with interviews or transcripts of recordings, witness reports. Things like that.
Demons by Dostoevsky is in this format.
House of Leaves!
ABSOLUTELY This is How You Lose the Time War. Made me fucking SOB
It’s not entirely epistolary, but *Possession* by A.S. Byatt. It’s told in the form of straight up narrative, letters in the modern timeline, letters in the historical timeline, poetry and essays written by the characters, lit crit analysis of those works (written by other characters), an excerpt of a biography written by one character about another character, part of an autobiography written by that same character, diaries, and just about anything else you can think of. It’s all 100% fictional but it’s totally convincing – you think that this is all real stuff that was put together by some editor. It’s one of the few works of fiction that I believe actually merits the description “tour de force”.