21 Top fiction books like Godwin by Joseph O'Neill

Cover of Godwin by Joseph O'Neill

Godwin

By: Joseph O'Neill

3.60

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

The odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might cha…

If you liked the fiction plot in Godwin by Joseph O'Neill , here is a list of 21 books like this:

Cover of Wild Houses by Colin  Barrett

1. Wild Houses

By: Colin Barrett

3.78

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and sma… read more

Similar categories in Colin Barrett's Wild Houses book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"What you are in, Dev, is a holding pattern, only you're not holding out for anything."

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"All boys, all children, are capable of cruelty at the right juncture of opportunity and circumstance, but only a few become committed prodigies of sadism..."

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"In the dream, exactly as he had in real life, he sensed the slow, inexorable approach of the shapeless, prospectless days to come, days when there would be no need to get out of bed or brush his teet…"

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"He looked around the empty kitchen. A part of him wanted this of course. A part of him had always wanted this, to be alone, away from even the prospect of any demand upon him to talk, to interact, to…"

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

Cover of Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham

2. Great Expectations

By: Vinson Cunningham

3.35

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man’s life in the highly a… read more

Similar categories in Vinson Cunningham's Great Expectations book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"For him, identity had been a kind of curation or collation—he picked up aspects as he went, freestyle."

-Vinson Cunningham, Great Expectations

"It had always struck me as a place to be lost, experienced passage by passage in a series of unfolding images—not something you could take in in one possessive glance."

-Vinson Cunningham, Great Expectations

Cover of Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

3. Headshot

By: Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical inti… read more

Similar categories in Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • sports
  • audiobook
"The desire to please people is the desire to not be singular."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"Tanya Maw's sister is two years older, the perfect age gap for wisdom transmission."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"It can be intoxicating to play a sport that requires one to look in their opponent's eyes."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"It's a warmth that she'll feel again very few times in her life. It's almost like love, but it has a surer, less desperate edge to it."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

Cover of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

4. The Heart in Winter

By: Kevin Barry

4.02

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romant… read more

Similar categories in Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"... the morning was starkly lit under a migraine - white and vast opening sky."

-Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter

Cover of Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

5. Fire Exit

By: Morgan Talty

3.79

Format: 243 pages, Hardcover

The blood that came out of me was blood that ran through her veins. It’s strange: all blood looks t… read more

Similar categories in Morgan Talty's Fire Exit book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"...what's more sacred than laughter at the dinner table?"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"That's my life, though--not knowing, but wishing. [Charles Lamosway]"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"We are made of stories, and if we don't know them--the ones that make us--how can we ever be fully realized? How can we ever be who we really are?"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"...I was thinking and thinking about how, in just the past year, I had just started to know her, but then I began to unknow her, getting farther and farther away like watching a boat drift from the s…"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

Cover of This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

6. This Strange Eventful History

By: Claire Messud

3.63

Format: 448 pages, Hardcover

An immersive, masterful story of a family born on the wrong side of history, from one of our finest… read more

Similar categories in Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • africa
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Family life, like playing chess, involved always thinking several steps ahead."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"Literature... Now, that's a religion I can believe in. That is perhaps my God."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"... she'd been a fool, enamored of a figment, had created the soul of a man who never existed -"

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"All-U-Can Hi-way 4-Sale Thru. This American English thrilled him - its energy, its freedom, its carelessness."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

Cover of My Friends by Hisham Matar

7. My Friends

By: Hisham Matar

4.34

Format: 399 pages, Hardcover

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return , a luminous novel of friendship, family, and … read more

Similar categories in Hisham Matar's My Friends book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • africa
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"A vast distance exists between a protester and his slogan; the entire history of politics exists in that gap."

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

"For a writer, exile is prison, a severing from the source, and so, courageous or not, he dies in front of our eyes."

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

"She was older and all the more beautiful, had the weary tiredness of one who, in surrendering to her life, was ennobled by it."

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

"I walked off feeling an emptiness well up inside me. It seemed, for all the emptiness that it was, a presence. It made me want to run away, dive deeper into myself, into that cold desolation, to the …"

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

Cover of Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

8. Blue Ruin

By: Hari Kunzru

3.86

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty, po… read more

Similar categories in Hari Kunzru's Blue Ruin book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Winner by Teddy Wayne

9. The Winner

By: Teddy Wayne

3.37

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

“Be prepared to fully lose yourself in The Winner—a book I started and then simply couldn’t stop re… read more

Similar categories in Teddy Wayne's The Winner book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Bear by Julia  Phillips

10. Bear

By: Julia Phillips

3.38

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A mesmerising novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unex… read more

Similar categories in Julia Phillips's Bear book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"There'd been only three hundred students in the whole school, which made it a tiny, gossipy hellhole, a bucket of crabs snapping at each other and falling over themselves."

-Julia Phillips, Bear

"What was Sam afraid of? Withering away here. Dreaming of chances she'd never be able to take, and shriveling up from that denial, getting poorer and put under more pressure and pushed farther from th…"

-Julia Phillips, Bear

Cover of The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

11. The Safekeep

By: Yael van der Wouden

4.08

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the … read more

Similar categories in Yael van der Wouden's The Safekeep book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

12. Long Island Compromise

By: Taffy Brodesser-Akner

3.88

Format: 464 pages, Hardcover

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating novel about one American family, the dark moment that shatter… read more

Similar categories in Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Long Island Compromise book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya

13. The Hypocrite

By: Jo Hamya

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a nove… read more

Similar categories in Jo Hamya's The Hypocrite book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"No stories are entirely imaginary, cherub, he'd said then. Everything is always a little bit real. Sometimes you steal things from other stories and change them until they work how you like."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"The contradiction of the time had been the heightened moral obligation to consider other people as a means to keeping one's own self-interest afloat. Showing other people care meant avoiding them."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"In the theatre's dark, he weighs up what to do out of love. There have been enough divergences so far for him to believe that Sophia's play is a self-contained thing that may only tangentially concer…"

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

Cover of The Material by Camille Bordas

14. The Material

By: Camille Bordas

3.42

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A single momentous day transforms the lives of students and professors at a school for stand-up com… read more

Similar categories in Camille Bordas's The Material book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Godwin by Joseph O'Neill

15. Godwin

By: Joseph O'Neill

3.60

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

The odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might cha… read more

Similar categories in Joseph O'Neill's Godwin book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • africa
  • benin
  • literature
  • soccer
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • football
  • sports
  • audiobook
Cover of Entitlement by Rumaan Alam

16. Entitlement

By: Rumaan Alam

3.59

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A novel of money and morality from the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind … read more

Similar categories in Rumaan Alam's Entitlement book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

17. The Coin

By: Yasmin Zaher

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling, far from home, as she gets… read more

Similar categories in Yasmin Zaher's The Coin book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"And the poet, he asked, who was it again? Aisha didn't know him, neither did Matthew. But, of course, Gregory did. He asked if he was the 9/11 denier. No, definitely not a denier, but very vocal when…"

-Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

Cover of Colored Television by Danzy Senna

18. Colored Television

By: Danzy Senna

3.83

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity–industrial complex… read more

Similar categories in Danzy Senna's Colored Television book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

19. The Rich People Have Gone Away

By: Regina Porter

3.57

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife Darla head upstate to their summer cottage to wai… read more

Similar categories in Regina Porter's The Rich People Have Gone Away book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu

20. Someone Like Us

By: Dinaw Mengestu

3.66

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

After abandoning his once promising career as a journalist in search of a new life in Paris, Mamush… read more

Similar categories in Dinaw Mengestu's Someone Like Us book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • literary fiction
  • africa
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"Sometimes I look at you and think that things go right through you. You're like a donut. There's a hole in the middle, where something solid should be"

-Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

Cover of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

21. Creation Lake

By: Rachel Kushner

3.67

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of th… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake book and Joseph O'Neill's Godwin

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"Charisma does not originate inside the person called "charismatic." It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist."

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"Plus, Lucien said, a lot of them had come from other social milieus and had tattoos from earlier lives, since people who change affinities are the same kinds of people who are attracted to the perman…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"My biker and these tramps, as people who organize their life around some subculture or other: People can sometimes pretend so thoroughly that they forget they are pretending. At which point, it could…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"I could sense him gathering a false hindsight that afternoon in the Place des Vosges, shaping a retrospective narrative, the thing a person tells himself about fate, about how everything had seemed f…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

18 best-selling contemporary books like Godwin by Joseph O'Neill

Transform Your Habits

Wild Houses

Colin Barrett

3.78

Transform Your Habits

Great Expectations

Vinson Cunningham

3.35

Transform Your Habits

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

Transform Your Habits

Fire Exit

Morgan Talty

3.79

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20 must-read fiction books like The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Exhibit

R.O. Kwon

3.24

Transform Your Habits

Worry

Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Transform Your Habits

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

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