Virginia Woolf 329 pages Mariner Books (1928)
Read this if you like: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, magical realism, literary satire
tl;dr summary: 16th-century aristocratic English teenager grows up into a 19th-century British woman and has many adventures along the way.
Roberto Bolaño 607 pages Vintage Español (1998)
Read this if you like: David Foster Wallace, Jack Kerouac, Mexican culture and literature
Tl;dr summary: Two young Mexican poets go on a road trip that turns into a 20-year flight around the world.
F. G. Haghenbeck 282 pages Oceano (2018)
Read this if you like: Magical realism, Mexican culture, speculative non-fiction
tl;dr summary: Frida Kahlo’s life story, mostly.
Juan Villoro (trans. Kimi Traubb) 136 pages George Braziller, Inc. (2015)
Read this if you like: Denis Johnson, Roberto Bolaño, Mexican culture
tl;dr summary: Magical realism without the magic in modern Mexico
Charlotte Perkins Gilman 120 pages (Herland), 117 pages (With Her in Ourland) The Forerunner (1915-1916)
Read this if you like: Mark Twain, Gulliver’s Travels, utopias
tl;dr summary: Women do things better, and that includes building a civilization.
See Herland on Bookshop See With Her in Ourland on Bookshop
Jennifer Wortman 167 pages Split/Lip Press (2019)
Read this if you like: Susan Minot, Kristen Roupenian, writing flash fiction
Tl;dr summary: Stories of people trying to find and show love and mostly failing, but in a funny, beautifully-written way.
I did a post a few weeks back exploring what people mean when they talk about genre. For many, the word “genre” is synonymous with speculative fiction (and, often, the specific subgenres of speculative fiction that focus on technology, magic, or plot over the language and characters).
The truth is, though, that genre is simply a synonym for category. Every story—or, for that matter, every written work—can be assigned at least one genre label. There are also quite a few realistic subgenres, if not quite the proliferation of them that exists on the speculative side. And, just like speculative genres, these realistic genres and subgenres have their own sets of tropes and conventions that writers can follow or subvert as it suits their stories’ needs.
Sarah Gerard 166 pages Two Dollar Radio (2015)
Read this if you like: Experimental literary fiction
tl;dr summary: Bulimic woman struggles with co-dependent relationship, astronomy, veganism.
