So I’m having trouble picking my next read. I have read 1984,Brave new world, Animal farm, The road by Cormac McCarthy, a boy and his dog at the end of the world, never let me go by kazuo ishiguro, we by yevgen zamayatin, fahrenheit 451, and on the beach by Nevil Shute (Forgive the spelling errors I’m on mobile and it’s hard to type) which book/s do you recommend I get next? Thank you in advance 🙂
by sticked200
16 Comments
Red Rising or Wold War Z
Slaughterhouse 5
A Canticle for Liebowitz
Flowers for Algernon
Kindred by Octavia Butler. Classic speculative/literary fiction genre crossover seems to be what you gravitate towards and this fits right in there.
[The Picture of Dorian Gray](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7912816) by Oscar Wilde
[Blood Meridian](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394535) by Cormac McCarthy
[Stoner](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166997) by Jon’s Williams
[The Stranger](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49552) by Albert Camus
I say spice it up with some magical realism or absurdism. Try 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Metamorphosis by Kafka, or Invitation to a Beheading by Nabokov, who would drown me in a river for suggesting he wrote an absurd novel.
Have you read The Giver by Lois Lowry? It is the “intro dystopia.” Before YA and The Hunger Games. Quick and memorable read.
Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
You already read We, so you might as well read this one.
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? AKA Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick
My favorite dystopian/utopian novel is the sometimes beautiful/sometimes frustrating: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Worth the effort it takes to read it.
If you are ambitious, the epic science fiction poem Aniara by Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson is a fascinating descent into chaos.
Blurb: ‘The film is set in a dystopian future where climate change ravages Earth, prompting mass migration from Earth to Mars. When one such routine trip veers off course, the passengers of the Aniara struggle to cope with their new lives.’
You can find an English translation or watch the Swedish film that came out in 2018.
Assuming you want to continue only reading dystopias then…
the Power by Naomi Alderman
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
the Drought by JG Ballard
a Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
the Death of Grass by John Christopher
The Circle by David Eggers
the Children of Men by PD James
the Iron Heel by Jack London
the Book of Dave by Will Self
the Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri S Tepper
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
the Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
but consider expanding your scope with some realistic novels…
*Flowers for Algernon* by Daniel Keyes
For something a little unusual, you might like [‘The Bees’](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-bees/laline-paull/9780007557745) by Laline Paull, which combines dystopia with xenofiction. For a modern take on dystopia, you might like [‘The Warehouse’](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-warehouse/rob-hart/9780552176057) by Rob Hart.