What are the top suggestions for books matching '20th century absurdist'?

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.

Now a Hulu limited series starring Christopher Abbott, George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, and Hugh Laurie.

Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a co... Read more about Catch-22

Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn’t quite jaundice. If it became jaundice they could trea...

READ THE EXCERPT

'A story for our, and all, times' Guardian

The Plague is Albert Camus's world-renowned fable of fear and courage

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation ... Read more about The Plague

The unusual events described in this chronicle occurred in 194- at Oran. Everyone agreed that, considering their somewhat extraordinary character, they were out of place there. For its ordinariness is...

READ THE EXCERPT

Suppressed in the Soviet Union for twenty-six years, Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece is an ironic parable of power and its corruption, good and evil, and human frailty and the strength of love. Featuring Satan, accompanied by a retinue that includes t... Read more about The Master and Margarita

At the hour of sunset, on a hot spring day, two citizens appeared in the Patriarchs’ Ponds Park. One, about forty, in a gray summer suit, was short, plump, dark-haired and partly bald. He carried his ...

READ THE EXCERPT

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So th... Read more about Good Omens

You may be feeling run down and always in the same old daily round. Home and family matters are highlighted and are hanging fire. Avoid unnecessary risks. A friend is important to you. Shelve major de...

READ THE EXCERPT

A visually stunning adaptation of Albert Camus' masterpiece that offers an exciting new graphic interpretation while retaining the book's unique atmosphere.

The day his mother dies, Meursault notices that it is very hot on the bus that is taking him ... Read more about The Stranger

The old people’s home is at Marengo, about eighty kilometers from Algiers, I’ll take the two o’clock bus and get there in the afternoon. That way I can be there for the vigil and come back tomorrow ni...

READ THE EXCERPT

These seemingly disparate characters gradually realize their connections to each other just as they realize that something is not quite right about their world. And it seems as though the answers might lie with Hawthorne Abendsen, a mysterious and re... Read more about If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the ...

READ THE EXCERPT

Witty and caustic, Candide has ranked as one of the world's great satires since its first publication in 1759. In the story of the trials and travails of the youthful Candide, his mentor Dr. Pangloss, and a host of other characters, Voltaire merciles... Read more about Candide

IN THE castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia, there once lived a youth endowed by nature with the gentlest of characters. His soul was revealed in his face. He combined rather sound judgme...

READ THE EXCERPT

"When a true genius appears in the world,

You may know him by this sign, that the dunces

Are all in confederacy against him."

-Jonathan Swift, "Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting"... Read more about A Confederacy of Dunces

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either ...

READ THE EXCERPT

With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, Hesse's best-known and most autobiographical work is one of literature's most poetic evocations of the soul's journey to liberation

Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellec... Read more about Steppenwolf

THE DAY HAD GONE BY JUST AS DAYS GO BY. I had killed it in accordance with my primitive and retiring way of life. I had worked for an hour or two and perused the pages of old books. I had had pains fo...

READ THE EXCERPT

No longer human is one of the most famous novels of contemporary Japanese literature. His controversial and brilliant author, Osamu Dazai, incorporated numerous episodes of his turbulent life into the three notebooks that make up this novel and narra... Read more about No Longer Human

I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. I was born in a village in the Northeast, and it wasn’t until I was quite big that I saw my first train. I climbed up and d...

READ THE EXCERPT