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Literary Fiction

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Authors to Read Now

Featured titles: Cloud Cuckoo Land & All The Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

Featured titles: Normal People & Beautiful World Where...

Sally Rooney

Featured titles: The Underground Railroad & Harlem Shuffle

Colson Whitehead

Diana Gabaldon

Featured titles: The Lincoln Highway & A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles

Richard Powers

Featured Titles including The Night Watchman

Louise Erdrich

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The Whiskers on a Berry: An Exclusive Guest Post From Jackie Polzin, Author of Brood

BN Editors

Truth and Memory: The Unreliable Narrators of Kazuo Ishiguro

BN Editors

I Loved Writing this Book: An Exclusive Guest Post from Jane Smiley, Author of Perestroika in Paris

BN Editors

Understanding Literary Fiction

What are some examples of literary fiction? Pride and Prejudice is a literary fiction novel that focuses in-depth on character development, which is one of the main aspects of literary fiction writing. The reader gets to know famous literary fiction characters like Elizabeth Bennet and perceive each of the Bennet sisters’ personal thoughts and dreams. Literary fiction dives more into literary elements such as the plot or the underlying theme of the novel. Literary fiction books such as Of Mice and Men tend to explore and reflect on the human condition. Some literary fiction plots focus on political or social conditions of a given time-period or place. For example, Things Fall Apart is a popular work of literary fiction that describes political tensions between Nigeria’s colonial government and the indigenous Igbo people in the 1890’s. George Orwell’s 1984 not only explores the political state of the nation, but also social conditions of its people. Literary texts are more likely to have a darker tone and slower pace compared to genre or popular fiction. Famous literary authors not only include such bookcase staples as F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.D. Salinger, but modern literary fiction writers like Running with Scissors’ Khaled Hosseini or Cloud Cuckoo Land’s Anthony Doerr. Shop at Barnes & Noble for literary fiction books everyone is talking about, as well as the best literary graphic novels and literary romance classics to add to your reading list. Looking for literary fiction to read immediately? Download literary fiction eBooks to your smartphone, tablet, or NOOK device and start reading today!

Browse some of the best literary fiction books in 2021 including:

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyashi
Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley

Literary Fiction

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