9 Top contemporary books like Bluets by Maggie Nelson

Cover of Bluets by Maggie Nelson

Bluets

By: Maggie Nelson

4.22

Format: 72 pages, Paperback

Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color... A lyrical, philosophica…

If you liked the contemporary plot in Bluets by Maggie Nelson , here is a list of 9 books like this:

Cover of Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

1. Slouching Towards Bethlehem

By: Joan Didion

4.19

Format: 238 pages, Paperback

The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's S… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • essays
"Happiness is,' after all, a consumption ethic."

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"There is a common superstition that “self-respect"

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language."

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

"The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past."

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Cover of Dream Work by Mary Oliver

2. Dream Work

By: Mary Oliver

4.35

Format: 90 pages, Paperback

Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Olive… read more

Similar categories in Mary Oliver's Dream Work book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • nonfiction
  • queer
"I saw what love might have done had we loved in time."

-Mary Oliver, Dream Work

"I wanted to live my life but I didn’t want to do what I had to do to go on,"

-Mary Oliver, Dream Work

"Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason."

-Mary Oliver, Dream Work

"the black fox that lies down to sleep beneath you, the moon staring with her bone-white eye"

-Mary Oliver, Dream Work

Cover of Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson, Stesichorus

3. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

By: Anne Carson , Stesichorus

4.27

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that … read more

Similar categories in Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • queer
"Under the seams runs the pain."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"There is no person without a world."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"Don't want to be free want to be with you."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

Cover of The Wild Iris by Louise Glück

4. The Wild Iris

By: Louise Glück

4.18

Format: 65 pages, Paperback

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Glück, a stunnin… read more

Similar categories in Louise Glück's The Wild Iris book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • contemporary
"things that can't move learn to see"

-Louise Glück, The Wild Iris

" No one's despair is like my despair-- "

-Louise Glück, The Wild Iris

"I'm tired of you, chaos of the living world--"

-Louise Glück, The Wild Iris

"What does the horse give you That I cannot give you?"

-Louise Glück, The Wild Iris

Cover of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Xaver Kappus, Reginald Snell

5. Letters to a Young Poet

By: Rainer Maria Rilke , Franz Xaver Kappus , Reginald Snell

4.29

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

In 1903, a student at a military academy sent some of his verses to a well-known Austrian poet, req… read more

Similar categories in Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • art
  • memoir
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • essays
"Everything is gestation and then birthing."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. ...live in the question."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"Perhaps all dragons in our lives are really princesses just waiting to see us just once being beautiful and courageous."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Cover of Crush by Richard Siken

6. Crush

By: Richard Siken

3.67

Format: None pages, Paperback

Richard Siken's Crush, selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, is a powerful c… read more

Similar categories in Richard Siken's Crush book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • queer
  • contemporary
Cover of Bluets by Maggie Nelson

7. Bluets

By: Maggie Nelson

4.22

Format: 72 pages, Paperback

Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color... A lyrical, philosophica… read more

Similar categories in Maggie Nelson's Bluets book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • art
  • memoir
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • essays
  • contemporary
  • queer

8. Outline

By: Rachel Cusk

4.20

Format: 488 pages, Hardcover

A woman writer goes to Athens in the height of summer to teach a writing course. Though her own cir… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Cusk's Outline book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

9. Bright Dead Things

By: Ada Limon

3.57

Format: None pages,

Bright Dead Things examines the chaos that is life, the dangerous thrill of living in a world you k… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's Bright Dead Things book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

Cover of Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

10. Giovanni’s Room

By: James Baldwin

4.33

Format: 224 pages, Paperback

Set in the contemporary Paris of American  expatraites, liasons, and violence, a young man finds  h… read more

Similar categories in James Baldwin's Giovanni’s Room book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • queer
"Nobody can stay in the Garden of Eden."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

"Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

"...for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

"I loved her as much as ever and I still did not know how much that was."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

11. Night Sky with Exit Wounds

By: Ocean Vuong

4.00

Format: 258 pages, Paperback

Ocean Vuong's first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial "big"--and very human--s… read more

Similar categories in Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

12. The Year of Magical Thinking

By: Joan Didion

4.44

Format: 212 pages, Paperback

'An act of consummate literary bravery, a writer known for her clarity allowing us to watch her min… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

Cover of Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

13. Time Is a Mother

By: Ocean Vuong

3.94

Format: 114 pages, Hardcover

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershoc… read more

Similar categories in Ocean Vuong's Time Is a Mother book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • queer
  • contemporary
Cover of Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

14. Paradise Rot

By: Jenny Hval

3.55

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imager… read more

Similar categories in Jenny Hval's Paradise Rot book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • queer
  • contemporary
"I took a bite of a Bloody Ploughman. Even the flesh was red. 'Bloody,' Carral said. 'Nice colour,' I answered. 'It looks sinful. I bet that was the apple Eve ate, you know, in the Bible, the forbidde…"

-Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

"I'll tell you the fairy tale of the apple. Eve ate the apple, and then Adam came and did so too. Afterwards the apple was forgotten, and it was assumed that it rolled away in the grass while Adam and…"

-Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

Cover of Fugue for Other Hands by Joseph Fasano

15. Fugue for Other Hands

By: Joseph Fasano

4.73

Format: 88 pages, Paperback

The debut poetry collection by Joseph Fasano, Fugue for Other Hands won the 2011 Cider Press Review… read more

Similar categories in Joseph Fasano's Fugue for Other Hands book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

Cover of Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

16. Minor Detail

By: Adania Shibli

4.20

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn a… read more

Similar categories in Adania Shibli's Minor Detail book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • contemporary
"Man, not the tank, shall prevail."

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Não há como descartar a probabilidade de uma conexão entre os dois fatos, ou alguma ligação oculta entre eles, por analogia às relações que os seres humanos encontram entre as plantas, por exemplo, q…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Desde que tive ciência da minha incapacidade consumada de me mover de acordo com os limites, resolvi, finalmente, permanecer dentro dos limites da minha casa, tanto quanto possível. Agora, uma vez qu…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Toch zijn er mensen die in die logica − dus dat je je concentreert op de meest futiele details zoals stof op een bureau of vliegenpoepjes op een schilderij − de enige manier zien om de waarheid te do…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

Cover of Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. by Eve Babitz

17. Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

By: Eve Babitz

4.10

Format: 178 pages, Hardcover

Eve Babitz captured the voluptuous quality of L.A. in the1960s in a wildly original, totally unique… read more

Similar categories in Eve Babitz's Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • essays
  • contemporary
"The only time men fall in love with roses is on douche commercials."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

"...chivalry was just another nefarious masculine scheme to keep women in their place."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

"Well, who is he?' I asked, the first time I saw Mary with his glazed expression. 'Money,' Mary said."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

"It's very easy to stand L.A., which is why it's almost inevitable that all sorts of ideas get entertained."

-Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

Cover of In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

18. In the Dream House

By: Carmen Maria Machado

4.42

Format: 251 pages, Hardcover

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex r… read more

Similar categories in Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • queer
"But this story? This one's mine."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"I thought you died, but writing this, I'm not sure you did."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"Your heart launches itself against your rib cage like an animal."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"How do you get someone you want to want you? Why did no one love you?"

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

Cover of The Carrying by Ada Limon

19. The Carrying

By: Ada Limon

4.40

Format: 120 pages, Hardcover

From National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Ada Limón comes The Carryi… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's The Carrying book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • nonfiction
  • contemporary
"What if, instead of carrying a child, I am supposed to carry grief?"

-Ada Limon, The Carrying

"All I’ve been working on is napping, and maybe being kinder to others, to myself."

-Ada Limon, The Carrying

"I know you don’t always understand, but let me point to the first wet drops landing on the stones, the noise like fingers drumming the skin. I can’t help it. I will never get over making everything s…"

-Ada Limon, The Carrying

"I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marve…"

-Ada Limon, The Carrying

Cover of Pure Colour by Sheila Heti

20. Pure Colour

By: Sheila Heti

3.46

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

Pure Colour is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. … read more

Similar categories in Sheila Heti's Pure Colour book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • philosophy
  • contemporary
"And what opens one heart opens many."

-Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

"The body becomes a woman and it cannot turn back."

-Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

"And a glimpse into one heart is a glimpse into many."

-Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

"Why did it seem like the only way to live-was to disobey?"

-Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

Cover of Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

21. Alphabetical Diaries

By: Sheila Heti

4.02

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A thrilling confessional from the award-winning, beloved author of Pure Colour. Sheila Heti kept a… read more

Similar categories in Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries book and Maggie Nelson's Bluets

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • essays

7 must-read nonfiction books like Bluets by Maggie Nelson

Transform Your Habits

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Joan Didion

4.19

Transform Your Habits

Dream Work

Mary Oliver

4.35

Transform Your Habits

Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke , Franz Xaver Kappus , Reginald Snell

4.29

Transform Your Habits

Bluets

Maggie Nelson

4.22

View all the books

18 Top fiction books like Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Transform Your Habits

Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion , David Thomson

3.92

Transform Your Habits

The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison

4.12

Transform Your Habits

The Stranger

Albert Camus , Matthew Ward , Stuart Gilbert , None

4.02

Transform Your Habits

White Nights

Fyodor Dostoevsky

4.06

View all the books

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