The Borrower
By: Rebecca Makkai
4.35
Format: None pages, Hardcover
In this delightful, funny, and moving first novel, a librarian and a young boy obsessed with readin…
Want to ReadIf you liked the fiction plot in The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai , here is a list of 29 books like this:
1. The Borrower
By: Rebecca Makkai
4.35
Format: None pages, Hardcover
In this delightful, funny, and moving first novel, a librarian and a young boy obsessed with readin… read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- lgbt
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
- books about books
2. Erasure
By: Percival Everett
3.62
Format: 280 pages, Paperback
"Thelonious (Monk) Ellison has never allowed race to define his identity. But as both a writer and … read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in Percival Everett's Erasure book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
3. The Berry Pickers
By: Amanda Peters
4.14
Format: 307 pages, Hardcover
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mys… read more
Want to Read $ 2.99Similar categories in Amanda Peters's The Berry Pickers book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
4. Happiness Falls
By: Angie Kim
3.75
Format: 387 pages, Hardcover
When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they kn… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Angie Kim's Happiness Falls book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"I lost a World - the other day! Has Anybody found? - Emily Dickinson, 1896"-Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
5. Tom Lake
By: Ann Patchett
3.99
Format: 309 pages, Hardcover
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again prov… read more
Want to Read $ 15.99Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
"In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murder…"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
"Hazel, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something important, you need to be brave.' I then explained to the dog how I have told myself for so many years that my career fell apart because I wasn't …"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
"It's as if someone bought all the diamonds at Tiffany's, and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cu…"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
6. Bright Young Women
By: Jessica Knoll
4.02
Format: 384 pages, Hardcover
An extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity ser… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Jessica Knoll's Bright Young Women book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult
- fiction
"The truth is something people will go to great lengths to keep for themselves. It shouldn't feel like a gift when you get it, but it is."-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
"Time does not heal all wounds. Grief is just like a sink full of dirty dishes or a pile of soiled laundry. Grief is a chore you have to do, and it's a messy one, at that."-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
"There were men who cracked their knuckles while divulging to me what they would do to the defendant if they got the chance, thinking this was somehow reassuring for me to hear. But all it did was mak…"-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
"Her lips are moving silently around words I recognize. 'I carry you like my own personal Time Machine, as I put on my lipstick, smile, and head out to the party.' It's a line by one of her favourite …"-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
7. Let Us Descend
By: Jesmyn Ward
3.70
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congres… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Jesmyn Ward's Let Us Descend book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
"You must leap. You must do as your people did. You must sink in order to rise."-Jesmyn Ward, Let Us Descend
8. The Librarianist
By: Patrick deWitt
3.41
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover
From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who ha… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Patrick deWitt's The Librarianist book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
- books about books
9. James
By: Percival Everett
4.54
Format: 303 pages, Hardcover
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and f… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- fiction
10. The Guest
By: Emma Cline
3.29
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
A young woman pretends to be someone she isn't in this stunning novel by the New York Times bestsel… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Emma Cline's The Guest book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"Younger men had to make everything mean something, had to turn every choice and preference into a referendum on their personality."-Emma Cline, The Guest
"He assumed her attention when he spoke. He had his insecurities, his anxieties. But underlying it all was the certainty that the world would be generous in its orientation toward him."-Emma Cline, The Guest
"All the women in the show hated each other, hated each other so much, just so they could avoid hating their husbands. Only their little dogs, blinking from their laps, seemed real: they were the wome…"-Emma Cline, The Guest
11. North Woods
By: Daniel Mason
4.15
Format: 372 pages, Hardcover
A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those … read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Daniel Mason's North Woods book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
12. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
By: James McBride
4.00
Format: 385 pages, Hardcover
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing de… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
13. Wandering Stars
By: Tommy Orange
3.89
Format: 315 pages, Hardcover
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout best seller There … read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
- contemporary
"And in the year 1924 Indian citizenship will have been granted, even though they will mean to dissolve tribes by giving citizenship, dissolve being another word for disappearance, a kind of chemical …"-Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars
14. Birnam Wood
By: Eleanor Catton
3.82
Format: 432 pages, Hardcover
Birnam Wood is on the move . . . Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening gro… read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
- contemporary
"...wondering, not for the first time, when exactly she had become so technologically dependent that her first instinct in every unpredicted circumstance was to outsource her imagination to her phone."-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood
"Not at all,’ he said. ‘I was just going to remark that being a cliche can be very useful. You ought to consider it some time.’ ’Oh yeah?’ ’Yeah,’ he said. ‘It means people underestimate you. They thi…"-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood
"As his rhetoric and reading life matured, he grew intensely scornful of what passed at his high school for 'education' - the mania for testing; the intolerance of real dissent; and the conformist cel…"-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood
"... his future, had either been sold or laid to waste by his parents' generation, trapping him in a perpetual adolescence that was further heightened by the infantilising unreality of the Internet as…"-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood
15. Day
By: Michael Cunningham
3.57
Format: 273 pages, Hardcover
As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, fallin… read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Michael Cunningham's Day book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- lgbt
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"Here, then, is the answer. A degree of cruelty is necessary because Garth, like most men, can only deposit his needs at her feet, can only declare his love—that romantic hallucination, which would be…"-Michael Cunningham, Day
16. Hello Beautiful
By: Ann Napolitano
4.16
Format: 416 pages, Kindle Edition
An emotionally layered and engrossing story of a family that asks: Can love make a broken person wh… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"The child inside Julia lay wide-eyed in the dark, knowing that she was Jo, but only because Sylvie was Beth."-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful
"You and your sisters have so many reference points, such a dense history," William said. "I never get used to it."-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful
"She was Julia's wild hair, she was the lake her husband had once been carried out of, and no matter what happened next, she was love."-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful
"You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the o…"-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful
17. Pineapple Street
By: Jenny Jackson
3.57
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected, old money Stockton family, followed her heart, t… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Jenny Jackson's Pineapple Street book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"But you know foundations shouldn't have to be the answer. The real problems are tax laws, anti-labor policies, and the slow expansion of the welfare state," Chip said. Everyone turned and looked at h…"-Jenny Jackson, Pineapple Street
18. The Celebrants
By: Steven Rowley
3.64
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselve… read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Steven Rowley's The Celebrants book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- lgbt
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"My purpose, in this life, has been to love and spend it with you."-Steven Rowley, The Celebrants
"You only live once. That was the truth of it. But if you do it right, and he felt that he had, once is more than enough"-Steven Rowley, The Celebrants
19. The Bee Sting
By: Paul Murray
3.96
Format: 656 pages, Hardcover
From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and … read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
"It is for love. You are doing this for love."-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
"We all have problems. But often instead of accepting the truth about ourselves, we cover it up. We try to make ourselves the way we think we’re expected to be."-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
"Maybe every era has an atrocity woven into its fabric. Maybe every society is complicit in terrible things and only afterwards gets around to pretending they didn’t know. When the kids ask, tell them…"-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
"Maybe that’s how it will go – instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of ‘anomalies’, each time lasting longer, with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apar…"-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
20. Family Family
By: Laurie Frankel
4.00
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover
“Not all stories of adoption are stories of pain and regret. Not even most of them. Why don’t we ev… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Laurie Frankel's Family Family book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"When people thought of mothers, they smelled cookies baking and chocolate melting. But actual mothers got shit for giving their kids too much sugar. When people thought of mothers, they thought soft …"-Laurie Frankel, Family Family
21. The Rachel Incident
By: Caroline O'Donoghue
4.09
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately tr… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- lgbt
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously."-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident
"He was a doctor and I was supposed to take what he said seriously; but he was a dentist and my dad so I didn’t."-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident
"It's not that we weren't capable of warmth as a family. But we were regularly seduced by the concept of being wronged."-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident
"I thought of my parents as heads on Easter Island, and it took moving two miles away to realise they had been people all along."-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident
22. Come and Get It
By: Kiley Reid
3.38
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover
A fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a profe… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Kiley Reid's Come and Get It book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- lgbt
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"Kennedy hadn't considered it before, that to write something beautiful you just do it regular, and then you pull out a red pen."-Kiley Reid, Come and Get It
"Washing her sheets was another thing she'd failed to do. She washed her clothes—every weekend—but when it came to the bedsheets, she'd get stressed out or she'd forget. And then there was too much ti…"-Kiley Reid, Come and Get It
"Okay, sometimes—just being honest— Millie can be . . . a little ghetto." On the word little, Tyler held two fingers an inch apart. "Nooo. Don't say that. Ah love Millie." "But I'm not saying it like …"-Kiley Reid, Come and Get It
23. The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2)
By: Tana French
4.12
Format: 467 pages, Hardcover
It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Tana French's The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2) book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult
- fiction
"She'll bake bread and make jam, because she likes those made her way, but she says she cooked a good meal from scratch every night of her marriage, and now if she wants to live mainly off toasted san…"-Tana French, The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2)
"Trey has a bone-deep mistrust of marriage or anything resembling it. She knows that Lena sometimes stays the night at Cal's place, but Lena also has a place of her own, which she can go back to whene…"-Tana French, The Hunter (Cal Hooper, #2)
24. The Fraud
By: Zadie Smith
3.30
Format: 464 pages, Hardcover
The extraordinary first historical novel from bestselling author of White Teeth Zadie Smith It i… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Zadie Smith's The Fraud book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
"Eliza had long understood her cousin to be beyond the reach of editorial intervention."-Zadie Smith, The Fraud
"What possesses people? Unhappiness, always. Happiness is otherwise occupied. It has an object on which to focus. It has daisies, it has snowdrifts. Unhappiness opens up the void, which then requires …"-Zadie Smith, The Fraud
"I know this country well. Well enough to understand that justice takes time, and that the freedoms of a minority are rarely self-evident to the majority. What is perfectly selfevident to God is – unf…"-Zadie Smith, The Fraud
"God preserve me from novel-writing, thought Mrs Touchet. God preserve me from that tragic indulgence, that useless vanity, that blindness! In a cold dormitory, two hundred miles away, three heartbrok…"-Zadie Smith, The Fraud
25. The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
By: Nita Prose
3.83
Format: 293 pages, Hardcover
When an acclaimed author dies at the Regency Grand Hotel, it's up to a fastidious maid to uncover t… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Nita Prose's The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2) book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- adult
- fiction
- contemporary
"We all make mistakes. It’s what we do after that matters."-Nita Prose, The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
"Mr. Grimthorpe and I have always maintained that books can rehabilitate anyone."-Nita Prose, The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
"You can fight monsters you can see, or you can run away from them. But the invisible ones are inescapable."-Nita Prose, The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
"It's a matter of polish," I say. "With most things, especially masterpieces, it's about removing the tarnish to reveal the shine."-Nita Prose, The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
26. Wellness
By: Nathan Hill
4.00
Format: 611 pages, Hardcover
The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about mar… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Nathan Hill's Wellness book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
"It's an altogether manic and ceaseless conversation, a conversation that feels sometimes like falling down stairs, barely keeping upright, taken by gravity, skipping, grasping, and then somehow landi…"-Nathan Hill, Wellness
"Behind curtains, this, he thinks, is what lovers do—they are alchemists and architects; pioneers and fabulists; they make one thing another; they invent the world around them. So he says, ‘Yes I beli…"-Nathan Hill, Wellness
27. The Vaster Wilds
By: Lauren Groff
3.77
Format: 272 pages, Hardcover
A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited g… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
"For what is a girl but a vessel made to hold the desires of men."-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds
"O put the memory away, girl, she told herself sternly. For the sorrow could eat you entire."-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds
"And humans were not made to be always alone; humans survive only in the company of other humans."-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds
"Against the resistance of other minds, one's thoughts are pulled out of their comfortable shapes, and true thinking begins."-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds
28. The Morningside
By: Téa Obreht
3.61
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland, a ma… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Téa Obreht's The Morningside book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- literary fiction
- fiction
29. Now Is Not the Time to Panic
By: Kevin Wilson
3.69
Format: 246 pages, Hardcover
From the New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here comes an exuberant, bighearted no… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Kevin Wilson's Now Is Not the Time to Panic book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"I wondered if this was a sign that, whatever happened this summer, I'd be the one with a scar."-Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic
"To be a teenager, it takes very little to think that someone else might actually know who you are, even as you spend all your time thinking that no one understands you. It's such a lovely feeling."-Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic
"I want to be an artist," he told me, like we were both admitting that we weren't human. We didn't understand how normal this was, to be young, to believe that you were destined to make beautiful thin…"-Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic
"You want to put up posters in Graceland?" I asked. I thought that if there was one place in the entire world where devotees would kill you for desecrating the sanctity of a holy space, it would be th…"-Kevin Wilson, Now Is Not the Time to Panic
30. Anita de Monte Laughs Last
By: Xóchitl González
3.82
Format: 342 pages, Hardcover
New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-gener… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Xóchitl González's Anita de Monte Laughs Last book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
"we're all just here trying to get you to see your own light because it's strong enough to guide you."-Xóchitl González, Anita de Monte Laughs Last
"You fall for someone, you get so into them your whole world shrinks, and suddenly barely have a life besides them."-Xóchitl González, Anita de Monte Laughs Last
31. Pox Romana: The Plague That Shook the Roman World (Turning Points in Ancient History)
By: Colin Elliott
3.76
Format: 328 pages, Hardcover
A wide-ranging and dramatic account of the Antonine plague, the mysterious disease that struck the … read more
Want to Read $ 17.60Similar categories in Colin Elliott's Pox Romana: The Plague That Shook the Roman World (Turning Points in Ancient History) book and Rebecca Makkai's The Borrower
