Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Modern Fiction books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- One More Time: A Memoir (Encore Nonfiction Modern Classics) (2003)
- The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction (Modern Library Paperbacks) (2003)
- Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology (2005)
- Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction (2000)
- Joanna Russ (Modern Masters of Science Fiction) (2019)
- The Bell Jar (Modern Classics) (2005)
- Alone: Beth Ann’s Story of Survival (Equipping Modern Patriots) (2016)
- The Modern Break-Up (2019)
- A Prayer for the Ship (The Modern Naval Fiction Library) (2005)
- Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present (2007)
- Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption (2019)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) (2006)
One More Time: A Memoir (Encore Nonfiction Modern Classics) (2003)
Carol Burnett spent most of her childhood in a Depression-scarred Hollywood neighborhood, where she lived in a single-room apartment with her endearingly batty grandmother, Nanny, a hypochondriacal Christian Scientist with a buried past.
The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction (Modern Library Paperbacks) (2003)
“Make [your] characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.” — “‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not the beginning of a story, but ‘the cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is.” — Nothing is more inspiring for a beginning writer than listening to masters of the craft talk about the writing life.
Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology (2005)
To represent the past century of Korean fiction, this definitive collection extends beyond familiar writers, challenges cultural norms, and crosses political borders.
Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction (2000)
Since its publication in the early seventeenth century Don Quixote has become a classic of world literature, and its hero a symbol of romantic aspiration and absurdity. Even today, Cervantes’s mad knight continues to reach out and hook readers’ psyches. Don Quixote is the story of a verisimilar literary character, whose rich and conflicted inner life and encounters with the world around him became the prototype for the modern novel, from Tom Jones to Lolita.
Joanna Russ (Modern Masters of Science Fiction) (2019)
Experimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, Joanna Russ’s groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought. Her essays and criticism, meanwhile, helped shape the field and still exercise a powerful influence in both SF and feminist literary studies.Award-winning author and critic Gwyneth Jones offers a new appraisal of Russ’s work and ideas.
The Bell Jar (Modern Classics) (2005)
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under — maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies.
Alone: Beth Ann’s Story of Survival (Equipping Modern Patriots) (2016)
So you think you’re afraid of the dark? Twenty-two-year-old Beth Ann is content with her small-town life. That is, until the day America’s electric grid is destroyed by terrorists. What starts out as an inconvenience quickly becomes a catastrophe—not only do the lights stay off, but cars won’t run and phones are dead. The world screeches to a halt.
The Modern Break-Up (2019)
"When it comes to dating, I seem to be going around in a circle. The ones I want don't want me, and the ones who want me, I don't want." -Amelia “I don’t know, I just think there’s too much miscommunication between guys and girls. I mean, no one knows what the fuck is going on. We need to have the discussion.
A Prayer for the Ship (The Modern Naval Fiction Library) (2005)
Small, quick-moving torpedo boats played a vital role in protecting the Allied convoys in the English Channel and the North Sea during World War II, and Sub-Lieutenant Clive Royce is newly assigned to MTB 1991, joining a crew already seasoned by death and fear. Now it is up to him to take the place of their dead first lieutenant and earn the respect of his captain and crewmates.
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present (2007)
From memoir to journalism, personal essays to cultural criticism, this indispensable anthology brings together works from all genres of creative nonfiction, with pieces by fifty contemporary writers including Cheryl Strayed, David Sedaris, Barbara Kingsolver, and more.Selected by five hundred writers, English professors, and creative writing teachers from across the country, this collection includes only the most…
Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption (2019)
A young woman goes through the five stages of ghosting grief. A man’s promising fourth date ends in the emergency room. A female lawyer with bipolar disorder experiences the highs and lows of dating. A widower hesitates about introducing his children to his new girlfriend.
One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.) (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) (2006)
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women — brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul — this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Best Modern Fiction Books Worth Your Attention
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some modern fiction books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Marriage as a National Fiction: Represented Law in the Modern Novel
Author(s): Dagmar Stöferle
ID: 3646508, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2023, Size: 11 Mb, Format: pdf
Legal Narratives in Victorian Fiction
Author(s): Joanne Bridget Simpson
ID: 3646542, Publisher: Routledge, Year: 2023, Size: 15 Mb, Format: pdf
Contemporary Fiction, Celebrity Culture, and the Market for Modernism: Fictions of Celebrity
Author(s): Carey Mickalites
ID: 3238555, Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, Year: 2022, Size: 2 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are really best-sellers according to Los Angeles Times, others are written by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.