Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like Bewilderment
The best books like Bewilderment are The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, and Lab Girl. Bewilderment by Richard Powers is about climate grief, neuroscience and consciousness, father and child. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
01
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Elizabeth Kolbert · Science
The Sixth Extinction is Elizabeth Kolbert's account of the mass extinction event currently underway — the sixth in Earth's history, and the first caused by a single species.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
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The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
David Wallace-Wells · Science
The Uninhabitable Earth is David Wallace-Wells's catalog of what climate change will do to human civilization if carbon emissions continue on or near their current trajectory.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Lab Girl
03
Hope Jahren · Memoir
Lab Girl is Hope Jahren's memoir of becoming a scientist, told alongside a parallel account of plant biology that is one of the most original structural decisions in recent nonfiction.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary →
- A Farewell to Arms
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Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction
A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Fine Balance
05
Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction
A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Little Life
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Hanya Yanagihara · Literary fiction
A Little Life follows four men from college into middle age and beyond — Willem, an actor; JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, a lawyer with a past that is revealed in increasingly devastating detail as the novel progresses.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce · Literary fiction
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces the intellectual and spiritual development of Stephen Dedalus from early childhood to the edge of adulthood, when he leaves Ireland to pursue life as an artist.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Thousand Acres
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Jane Smiley · Literary fiction
A Thousand Acres retells King Lear on a thousand-acre Iowa farm in the 1970s.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Visit from the Goon Squad
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Jennifer Egan · Literary fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a novel told in thirteen chapters, each from a different point of view and sometimes in a radically different form — including one chapter composed entirely as a PowerPoint presentation.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain · Literary fiction
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins where Tom Sawyer left off — Huck Finn, the outcast son of the town drunk, has been taken in and given a respectable life he doesn't want.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - American Pastoral
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Philip Roth · Literary fiction
American Pastoral opens with a narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, learning at a high school reunion about the life and death of Seymour "the Swede" Levov — a man who embodied postwar American success so completely he seemed almost allegorical.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Americanah
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · Literary fiction
Americanah follows Ifemelu, a young Nigerian woman who leaves Lagos for America as a university student and spends fifteen years navigating a country that insists on categorizing her in ways Nigeria never did.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary →
Books like Bewilderment: quick answers
What are the best books like Bewilderment?
The best books like Bewilderment by Richard Powers are The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Bewilderment, such as climate grief, neuroscience and consciousness, father and child.
What should I read after Bewilderment?
A natural next read after Bewilderment is The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
What books are similar to Bewilderment by Richard Powers?
Bewilderment centers on climate grief, neuroscience and consciousness, father and child. Books with a similar feel include The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
