Books like Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction — picked by fans

I first read Lolita when I was 14 and have read it every few decades since, learning something new each time.

I love the first-person immediacy of it and the way it is a crime novel in reverse: the narrator is already imprisoned but not for the crime he describes. It is a love story turned on its head: what the narrator says is love is in fact abuse.

It is a road trip across the vastness of the US, like one I took when I was a student.

I don’t think Garcia Marquez needs a review or introduction. Reading any of his books is a pleasure, with easy and delightful writing and striking sentences.

These sentences often describe things or people in a way that feels natural and perfectly captured. For instance, he describes the world as so new that many things lack names. His eloquent descriptions, like that of ice, create vivid images. The characters are relatable, and you feel a happy exhaustion after finishing the book, reminiscent of great works like Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

Those who find the stories too unbelievable should learn about Colombian history, as they provide real context. I simply love the book!

I love the experimental and absurd sensibility of this novel. In an age known for its groundbreaking fiction, this work stands out for its playfulness and complexity. Like Swift, Sterne was a clergyman of the Church of England, and I love how intelligent and sophisticated he is about dirty jokes and silly scenarios.

I also appreciate Sterne’s commitment to pushing the envelope: Sterne inserts all sorts of oddities, from marble pages to graphical representations of the book’s winding narrative. The book obsesses over the minutiae and small details of everyday life even as it considers weighty issues and tragic events.

Predicting both Freud and postmodernism, I love how this work feels both ultra-modern and very much of its time. 

In this novel, time becomes almost a character. It is an empty time, although so heavy and thick, to fill in all the space around the protagonist Dino and to enter into him.

Art and sex, the only Dino’s activities, are not characterized by their distinctive passion and enthusiasm that sometimes destroy and sometimes raise a man. Art and sex become a dead pastime dominated by time alone.      

I was a young mom when I first read this book, and abortion, death with dignity, and orphaned children weren’t exactly topics I was seeking out. But Irving pulled me in with a story so human, so layered, I couldn’t look away.

What struck me most was how these enormous ethical conflicts—ones that still ignite fierce debate—were explored through a quiet, powerful relationship between a boy and his mentor. Watching that relationship evolve helped me understand that ethics aren’t fixed; they shift with time, context, and lived experience.

This book made me sit with discomfort, question certainty, and lean into compassion. And that’s why I still think about it.

In some ways, this is an even more daunting novel than Musil’s masterpiece. Initially, it gives the impression of meandering over some 800 pages, with the first hundred pages dealing with individuals who do not reappear until towards the end. It is less a novel with a narrative plotline and more a novel in which the protagonists are themselves the plot.

These individuals do much more than represent Austria and Vienna in the 1920s. Indeed, it could be seen almost as a sequel to Musil’s Man Without Qualities, which deals with the same social milieu. It is always amusingly chaotic yet equally cynical as it shows us a sector of Middle European society that was bred to run an empire when, abruptly, there is no longer an empire left to run. 

It is a vast panorama, presenting a society of rather dull-witted people educated well beyond their natural intelligence.… show more.

There are many remedies for racism, including education, transmission, and prevention. So as not to limit myself to the human and social sciences, I suggest this children's novel by Ayaan Mohamud. It's an embodied account, a fictionalized testimony that we discover by following Hanan, the main character, who attends a prestigious school where she is subjected to a very routine form of Islamophobic ostracism.

She follows her mother's advice to stay the course and not overreact for a while. But after a tragedy, this position is no longer tenable and she makes her voice heard, in other words, she takes her place as a visible Muslim in American society in a different way.

This novel will delight young and old alike and is a good complement to the more scientific works cited in this list of recommendations. It was originally written for my children, so they wouldn't shut up.

The Trio captures the essence of friendship and love and the coexisting yet diametrically opposed social anxieties that can accompany them. This is why I love this book–love is presented as complex, challenging, and fraught with more that is unsaid than actually expressed.

I also love this book because it expresses love as a real feeling, something that is experienced but not always easy to explain (or get along with). The characters are relatable, honest, and flawed, yet likable. The book is also set in beautiful locations–Stockholm, Paris, London–which makes it beautiful to read.

“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” That’s how Updike’s story A & P starts, and really, all I’m doing in recommending this book to you is actually recommending that you read the story A & P.

I once became an English major mostly because I was an unconfident student, and both of my parents were English teachers. I figured I could go home and get help with my homework if I needed it. I always say Updike’s A & P is the first story I ever really liked. Later, when I made the English Honor Society in college, I was asked to read a story that was important to me, and I chose this one.

I used to think all stories were old like Beowulf or MacBeth, but this one showed me stories could come from situations I’d lived. After all, I had worked in… show more.

I read fiction to experience the delicious sensation of seeing the world through a protagonist’s eyes—the exhilarating leap into another time and place. As a teen, I often daydreamed about bumping into a favorite music performer. Part coming-of-age tale, part fish-out-of-water adventure, this novel follows innocent and strait-laced Mary Jane as she gets a crash course in how other people live when a famous rock star and his movie-star wife check into rehab at the house where she’s working as a summer nanny.

I shared Mary Jane’s sense of awe and curiosity and admired the grit and care she brought to the often out-of-control adults around her. This novel is a joy to read and a masterclass in character creation and development—I recommend it for aspiring and experienced writers.