20 must-read fiction books like The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

Cover of The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

The Vulnerables

By: Sigrid Nunez

3.61

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times –bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You …

"Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described. They should teach you this in school, but they don’t."

-Sigrid Nunez, The Vulnerables

If you liked the fiction plot in The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez , here is a list of 20 books like this:

Cover of The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

1. The Wren, the Wren

By: Anne Enright

3.55

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of… read more

Similar categories in Anne Enright's The Wren, the Wren book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"It's not that I think about him constantly, he is my way of thinking. His mind is my compass, his eyes my only mirror."

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

"We don’t walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can…"

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

"We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can…"

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

Cover of Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

2. Grief Is for People

By: Sloane Crosley

3.91

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this d… read more

Similar categories in Sloane Crosley's Grief Is for People book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • audiobook
"Grief is for people, not things."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"Suicide is a tax on human consciousness."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"How will he know you loved him," she asks, "unless you try to destroy yourself?"

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"Pictures should be of what you see, not of what the world sees when it sees you."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

Cover of James by Percival Everett

3. 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

Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • novels
Cover of All Fours by Miranda July

4. All Fours

By: Miranda July

3.81

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times–bestselling author of The First Bad Man returns with an irreverently sexy, tende… read more

Similar categories in Miranda July's All Fours book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"But maybe the road split between: a life spent longing vs. a life that was continually surprising"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"Maybe we shouldn't do that," Jordi said. "Flatten ourselves like that. Erratic doesn't have to mean crazy or irresponsible. Shouldn't we be normalizing change?"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"I guess any calling, no mater what it is, is a kind of unresolved ache," I said, giving in to knowing more than him. "It's a problem that you can't fix, but there is some relief in knowing you will c…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"For me lying created just the right amount of problems and what you saw was just one of my four or five faces- each real, each with different needs. The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to co…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

Cover of North Woods by Daniel       Mason

5. 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

Similar categories in Daniel Mason's North Woods book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

6. 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

Similar categories in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • 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

Cover of Day by Michael Cunningham

7. 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

Similar categories in Michael Cunningham's Day book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"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

Cover of The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

8. 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

Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"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

Cover of Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

9. Martyr!

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.24

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of Absolution by Alice McDermott

10. Absolution

By: Alice McDermott

3.81

Format: 324 pages, Hardcover

A riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam War. In Saigon in 1963, two yo… read more

Similar categories in Alice McDermott's Absolution book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of Água Funda by Ruth Guimarães

11. Água Funda

By: Ruth Guimarães

4.07

Format: 200 pages, Paperback

Romance de estreia de Ruth Guimarães (1920-2014), uma das primeiras escritoras negras a ganhar dest… read more

Similar categories in Ruth Guimarães's Água Funda book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • fiction
Cover of Death Valley by Melissa Broder

12. Death Valley

By: Melissa Broder

3.49

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has… read more

Similar categories in Melissa Broder's Death Valley book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"My body is the real problem here. If I could be bodiless - or at least, senseless - I’d be better off."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"This is the problem with human relationships: you come to a person with one feeling and they’re having another."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"I am going to die out here. I might. I could. Die. All this time I should have been practising for dying. What was I doing instead? Reading reviews for sweatpants."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"Stop placing so much value on the known, I tell myself. Fake like this is the hero’s journey. It’s good to get lost. Good for the soul. But how lost is the good amount of lost? If I die here, is that…"

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

Cover of Wellness by Nathan  Hill

13. 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

Similar categories in Nathan Hill's Wellness book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"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

Cover of The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

14. 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

Similar categories in Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"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

Cover of Blackouts by Justin Torres

15. Blackouts

By: Justin Torres

3.77

Format: 306 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories--personal and collect… read more

Similar categories in Justin Torres's Blackouts book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

16. The Vulnerables

By: Sigrid Nunez

3.61

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times –bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You … read more

Similar categories in Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • new york
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • 21st century
  • writing
  • novels
  • audiobook
"Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeli…"

-Sigrid Nunez, The Vulnerables

Cover of So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan

17. So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

By: Claire Keegan

3.99

Format: 128 pages, Hardcover

Librarian's Note: This is the entry for the short story collection. Please don't combine it with th… read more

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?’ ‘So I’m a misogynist now?’ ‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said."

-Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

Cover of Parade by Rachel Cusk

18. Parade

By: Rachel Cusk

3.70

Format: 198 pages, Hardcover

From the exhilarating mind of Rachel Cusk, author of the Outline trilogy, Parade disturbs and defin… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Cusk's Parade book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"He knew that [his work] embodied change, and he wasn’t interested in change. He was interested in the fragments that change leaves behind in its storming passage toward the future."

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"Not to be understood is effectively to be silenced, but not understanding can in its turn legitimise that silence, can illuminate one’s own unknowability. Art is the pact of individuals denying socie…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"Sanity and insanity were not opposites but rather were the two faces of inanimate matter, the point at which the existence of consciousness can get no further in breaking down the existence of substa…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

"The impulse to have a child is very often a response to the woman’s own childhood, as though her childhood has left her incomplete, or has taken a part of her that she is driven to find again. The st…"

-Rachel Cusk, Parade

Cover of This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

19. 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 Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

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

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"Family life, like playing chess, involved always thinking several steps ahead."

-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 Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

20. Land of Milk and Honey

By: C Pam Zhang

3.54

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory… read more

Similar categories in C Pam Zhang's Land of Milk and Honey book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
" Real food is whatever cooks are proud to make. "

-C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

"We all die. We have only the choice, if we are privileged, of whether death comes with a whimper or a bang; of what worlds we taste before we go."

-C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

"My employer was attuned to patterns of human behavior in which he could not take part; because he failed to be swept up in their currents, he could, from his remove, map the tides."

-C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

"What sustains in the end are doomed romances, and nicotine, and crappy peanut butter, damn the additives and cholesterol because life is finite and not all nourishment can be measured."

-C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

Cover of A árvore mais sozinha do mundo by Mariana Salomão Carrara

21. A árvore mais sozinha do mundo

By: Mariana Salomão Carrara

4.15

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

Em uma pequena roça no Sul do país, a vida de Guerlinda, Carlos e seus filhos cumpre o tempo da ter… read more

Similar categories in Mariana Salomão Carrara's A árvore mais sozinha do mundo book and Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables

  • fiction

13 Top contemporary books like The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

Transform Your Habits

The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright

3.55

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Wandering Stars

Tommy Orange

3.89

Transform Your Habits

Day

Michael Cunningham

3.57

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21 must-read fiction books like Day by Michael Cunningham

Transform Your Habits

After Annie

Anna Quindlen

4.03

Transform Your Habits

The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright

3.55

Transform Your Habits

James

Percival Everett

4.54

Transform Your Habits

Leaving

Roxana Robinson

3.87

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