Recs if you like The Rings of Saturn...

Based on the list/book published in 2006, general editor Peter Boxall.

Introspective books by people who observe a lot, ponder a lot, feel a lot, and write about it. Creative memoir, self-indulgent navel-gazing, or "wan little husks" (as Joyce Carol Oates once put it)... whatever you personally think about autofiction, including whether or not it really is a genre, this somewhat experimental form of writing most definitely gives both writers and readers a chance to engage in narratives in a different way.

Nonfiction books and essays about visual art and how it functions as a mirror to ourselves. They discuss art's meaning, its interpretations, how art changes through our eyes, the effects of systematic discrimination upon how art is made and consumed, and help to develop better, more critical, and more introspective ways of looking at art and our museums.

Recommendations welcome!

A list published by The Guardian on 5/16/2026, as voted on by authors, critics, and academics worldwide.

The Guardian Top 100 Best Novels

Unconventional and experimental novels that play with syntax, style, narrative and structure Tristram Shandy - the grandfather of experimental Pale Fire - intertwines a poem and commentary Dictionary of the Khazars - in the form of a dictionary Man Eating typewriter - written in Polari Exercises in style - 99 retellings of the same story Hopscotch - designed to be read in multiple ways If on a winter’s night a traveller - a story within a story within a…

Fiction, memoir, or essay collections that heavily or centrally feature walking.

Books that were featured on an episode of Backlisted.

In May 2026 the Guardian published a list of the 100 greatest novels published in English of all time. The list was created based on votes from authors, critics, and academics.

Due to an error, the list originally included The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley instead of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Both are included here, as an unofficial 101 best novels