I love books that are just weird little collections of facts and anecdotes and digressions, bound together by a general theme or vibe. Not a movie, but a collage. Examples include:
* Bluets by Maggie Nelson
* Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
* The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
* Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
* The Analects by Confucius
* The Ghosts of Birds by Eliot Weinberger
Open to reading any genre – would appreciate any books you know of structured like the above 🙂 Books that feel close to poetry, but without the verse + with some sense of a driving concern.
by ATXBookLover
40 Comments
I haven’t read any of what you’ve listed, but what you’re describing sounds a little like some of the books Robert Fulgham has written. Books with names like, “All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten,” “Uh-oh,” “Maybe, Maybe Not,” etc. They’re all full of just odd little things he’s experienced or observed, with thoughtful commentary that can make you reflect on things a little, or see them differently. I think they were also written over several years, originally with no intent of publishing.
The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but little weirds by Jenny Slate might fit
I think you will enjoy The Starless Sea by Erin Morgensten! There kind of is a plot, but it’s mostly a collection of stories and descriptions.
She is very good at setting a specific mood
In search of lost time by Marcel Proust
Not sure but I think Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fits here.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern has minimal plot and really is just about the vibes (which are dreamy)
Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector, feels like the most magical and beautifully written guide to a journey of self-introspection you’ll ever read. Almost meditative.
A lot of Kazuo Ishiguro’s books could fit this description, as they don’t necessarily have a plot but are more a collection of memories, looking back and the emotions over things said or left unsaid, or wondering whether one lived an honest life, or whether the life they chose was one they were happy with.
The Remains of the Day and An Artist of the Floating World are the closest to this, as I would not say they particularly have a plot, or if they do, the plot is rather secondary and in the background.
Never Let Me Go has a little bit more of a plot but is still told as a collection of memories, also 100% worth a read.
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. The prose is basically a character on its own.
Lord Dunsany’s short stories are a vibe. Check out The Sword of Welleran collection. This is the man that basically got the fantasy ball rolling, and his style is beautiful.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Bunch of toffs doing fuck all for hundreds of pages but Oscar Wilde could write his ass off.
This question has been asked many times, and my answer is always Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Franz Kafka – The Caste
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:
“Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no direct action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations.”
Wild Milk by Sabrina Orah Mark
BLood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
Maldoro by the Count of Lautrimont
Anything by Hunter S. Thompson. I really enjoyed “Hell’s Angels” and I think it falls into this category.
On Being Blue by William Gass. Literally about the color blue and also “blue” literature. So gorgeously written I kept having to remind myself to breathe but not much happening really.
On earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong.
Love in the big city and Winter in Sokcho
Always Coming Home by Ursula LeGuin
As someone else said, Hunter Thompson.
Also trainspotting by Irvine welsh
Also catch-22; it has a plot, buried deep in the details of the weird little anecdotes that make up the book. But it’s so oddly stitched together you’ll barely notice it until you get to the end
The Elegance of The Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
84 Charing Cross Street by Helen Hanff
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A room of one’s own by Virginia Woolf
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. “It’s a dictionary of made-up words for emotions we all feel but don’t have words to express.” So, so good.
Meditations really threw me through the loop as It was something I never thought I’d experience reading a book. I kept think “Okay this is some kind of prologue or authors notes section” but its just the whole book hahaha!
If you want to go contemporary :
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett
If you want to go seriously old school:
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
« What you are looking for is in the library » from michiko aoyama.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Characters doing insane things and often being visited by ghosts of the past, a town with a cursed fate, etc. Really an amazing work of magical realism.
Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine, both by Julie Otsuka. They’re both novellas.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.
In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss. This is a collection of short fairytale stories which all kind of have a plot(?), but definitely fills that “vibey” itch for me with her writing.
Waiting for Godot
I feel like most Herman Hesse books fit this description. The plot is never that important except for maybe Siddhartha.
They read more like literary philosophy to me.
Anything by Otessa Mossfegh. Sure there are technically “plots,” but I challenge anyone to tell me exactly what happens in Death in Her Hands
Feel like Welcome to Nightvale might work here?
Welcome to Nightvale – it kinda has a loose plot, but the vibes take over entirely, in my opinion.
quite literally anything by annie dillard!
Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson…a BIT of a plot but barely. Also works by Elizabeth Strout. My memory of Moby Dick is also a little like this.
Don Quixote. No plot, just little adventures and assorted silliness.
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. Such a wonderful nature/island vibe but not much plot. It’s about the feeling.
Love bluets. My wife and I used to read random pages to each other on rainy days on the couch. Now I have no idea where the books is so we just say “hey remember bluets?!”
A lot of Bill Bryson’s books are pretty much just a collection of anecdotes and facts about a particular place or topic. My favorite is A Walk in The Woods which is about the Appalachian Trail. Some other good ones are In a Sunburned Country (about Australia) and Notes from a Small Island (about England).