I recently read project Hail Mary by Andy weir and felt this sense of wonder like wow imagine being on this seemingly impossible mission all alone and you end up discovering something that forever changes your worldview. It was a beautiful book, one that sparked sad, exciting, and incredibly lonely feelings. But mostly I just felt a sense of wonder while reading it. I’m not sure why. But are there any books that made you feel like that?
by brx9446
43 Comments
Check out To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
If you’re interested in science nonfiction, I highly recommend Ed Yong’s An Immense World!! Its book cover featuring a monkey looking up with awe & wonder at a butterfly is what reading the book feels like.
1Q84. I know, it’s problematic, but the language is just so beautiful. I felt. Hypnotized.
The House on the Cerulean Sea!
*Pilgrim at Tinker Creek* by Annie Dillard.
All the Light We Cannot See. Incredible.
Listening to the final 15 minutes of it now.
Ted Chiang’s stories of your life and others, Exhalation.
Stephen king’s 11/22/63
An Immense World by Ed Yong // The Immense Journey by Loren Eisley // The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery // The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green // Lark Ascending by Silas House
11/22/63 by Stephen King
The Time Traveler’s Wife. And The Night Circus.
*The Rings of Saturn* by W.G. Sebald and *Suspended Sentences* by Patrick Modiano.
Siddhartha.
I just finished reading Project Hail Mary last night. Absolutely loved it and totally agree with what you said. I’m a fairly new reader and I think this is the first book I could actually connect with a character and genuinely loved him all the way to the end. Rocky has my heart (it’s funny how the first novel character i could connect with isn’t a human lol)
I don’t know if this is the same thing but Dark Forest had me looking up scientific hypothesis and dreaming of what was possible. Thankfully I have great people around me that are willing to listen to my mad scientist ramblings.
Haven’t seen this suggested yet, but Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. She gives a sense of wonder to a fantasy world to actually make it feel fantastical. And it has pirates.
Also, Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson is a good one.
Just note both are fanatsy novels.
Midnight library
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
there is a sense of wonder i can’t explain with that first bit of the book, and then a sense of mystery and intrigue that i also love for the rest
The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. The imagery is beautiful first off, and it has really well done themes of identity and how it changes and how knowledge and discovery are only as moral as the people who use it. To me, it’s a very gentle and beautiful book
The Overstory by Richard Powers. Its about trees, but I thought it was an amazing story filled with beautiful language that changed how I look at the world and my place in it
Ten Thousand Doors of January
Station Eleven
the three body problem series by cixin liu
Dune was very impressive in the scope of world building and political implications but also pretty pessimistic and depressing. It took me a couple years to get over that.
Piranesi, this is 100% wonder!!
The Far Side Gallery
The ocean at the end of the Lane. There was just something that made me feel like a kid again. Magical.
Circe Madeline Miller
I felt this way reading Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers. Fair warning that it is sad, but the characters are among the most brave, real people I’ve encountered in a book on a very long time. It was beautiful.
I’d also recommend either (or both) Winter’s Tale and a Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin.
I’m currently listening to The Martian on audible and was considering getting this one after. Guess that settles that now!
When Breath Becomes Air, Kalanithi. An amazing book. You will take so many thoughts away from it.
If you haven’t already read The Martian, also by Andy Weir, I’d recommend that. Absolutely insane read.
The Devil you know by Gwen Adshead
Wolf Hall by Hilari Mantel
I loved Tress of The Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson!
Cloud Cuckoo Land, the Sea of Tranquility imo
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King
Light From Uncommon Stars. It will give you the same feeling of found family between a few unexpected “cultures” and the lengths we go to when we learn what that family means to us.
Hundred years of solitude
Check out Borne by Jeff Vandermeer or The Southern Reach Trilogy. Shogun by James Clavell is really good if you are into 17th century Japan. It’s about an Englishman who shipwrecks and wakes up on the shore of Japan in the 1600s
Check out Borne by Jeff Vandermeer or The Southern Reach Trilogy. Shogun by James Clavell is really good if you are into 17th century Japan. It’s about an Englishman who shipwrecks and wakes up on the shore of Japan in the 1600s.
Cloud Atlas. It’s an amazing novel.
If you liked the main character then the “Bobiverse” series might be for you. I know a fair amount of people found him annoying though in which case maybe I’d recommend something more like “Ringworld”.
The Red Rising series & a gentleman in Moscow.
2 different senses of wonder in 2 very different ways for me.