Recs if you like Speedboat...
books for purple readers
book recs for purple readers according to read your color on substack | updated periodically
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half-glimpsed images: the novel in fragments
the fragmentary novel is constructed of fragments or vignettes, typically following images, thoughts, and feelings over a sequential series of events. in a world of disruption, displacement, and of time being swallowed and spat out by the machines of capitalism and colonialism, the fragmentary novel offers an alternative structure.
title borrowed from jenny offill. recommendations welcome.
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experimental lit
books with an experimental structure or narrative choices, metafiction, oulipo, postmodernism, etc.
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Weird Women of the Late 20th Century (1945-2001)
Lives of outsiders rendered in sharp prose style. Descendants of Shelley, the Brontes, and Woolf; forebears to 'Weird Girl Lit'. Title refers to the authors, the subjects of the work may not always be women. Focused on novels published between WW2 and 9/11, with a few memoirs and short story collections.
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Quickies! Books that are 200 pages or less
I see a few lists on here with this theme, but they were short themselves - and I was looking for a more diverse selection. So, thought I'd make my own list and share it! Nice for reading goals, but mostly, I like breaking up the rhythm if I'm reading something exceptionally long.
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narratively and structurally inventive novels
my favorite novels featuring experimental, inventive, unconventional narrative forms and structures
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Bending The Rules - 50 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…
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summer reads
stories of excess, sensuality, pleasure, adventure, reactivity, and eros, as well as stories that reflect the feeling of a summer holiday or the lethargy and fatigue of late summer
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Purple Reader
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Joan Didion's Book Recommendations
A reading list compiled by the author and shared in 2015.
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English 170R - Selected Obscure/Eclectic Fictions
A course syllabus for David Foster Wallace's class "English 170R-Selected Obscure/Eclectic Fictions" Spring '03
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literature of the city
this list is a nod to the fictional course taught in one of my favorite books of 2026 (and possibly all time), Offseason, which does not take place in a city for the most part, excepting one important and hilarious chapter, but i loved the idea of collecting great writing (mostly) about the city i call home, NYC!
please send suggestions! i’d love to explore more NYC works. i fall out of love with this city from time to time, and nothing cures me faster than a good NYC book 🍎🍃✨
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The Great American Novel
This is the list from The Atlantic. "In 1868, a little-known writer by the name of John William DeForest proposed a new type of literature, a collective artistic project for a nation just emerging from an existential conflict: a work of fiction that accomplished “the task of painting the American soul.” It would be called the Great American Novel, and no one had written it yet, DeForest admitted. Maybe soon."
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