What are the most recommended books matching 'understated straightforward tone'?
We found 44 book recommendations
What do readers say about The Remains of the Day?
understated, straightforward tone modern day classic formal & unemotional loss and longingFrom the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is the universally acclaimed novel-winner of the Booker Prize and the basis for an award-winning film.
This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, an... More details on The Remains of the Day
Tonight, I find myself here in a guest house in the city of Salisbury. The first day of my trip is now completed, and all in all, I must say I am quite satisfied. This expedition began this morning al...
See 1722 Book Recommendations like The Remains of the Day
What do readers say about Stoner?
straightforward, middle-of-the-century prose a lost classic not bad for book beautifully lyrical, evocative proseMOST LOVED. MOST RED. Ten must-read modern classics.'He learned silence and did not insist upon his love.'This is the great forgotten novel of the last century - a quiet book; the story of a quiet life. William Stoner is a man who learns to contain h... More details on Stoner
WILLIAM STONER ENTERED the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degr...
See 1440 Book Recommendations like Stoner
What do readers say about Never Let Me Go?
interesting and enjoyable elegiac yet life-celebrating subtle and gentle light and entertaining styleFrom the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a devastating novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss.
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an excl... More details on Never Let Me Go
My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the e...
See 2678 Book Recommendations like Never Let Me Go
What do readers say about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time?
smartly written interesting and moving one of the best books ever funny, sad, touchingTHE BESTSELLING NOVEL
THE AWARD-WINNING LONDON THEATRICAL SENSATION
NOW ON BROADWAY
MORE THAN 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD... More details on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
THEN THE POLICE arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and numbers and you know what they are meant to be doing. There was a policewoman and a policeman. The policewoman had a little hole in h...
See 1361 Book Recommendations like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
What do readers say about The Road?
propulsive and never meanders sparse and stark bleak and grim plain and poeticNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
The searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. I... More details on The Road
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone be...
See 3471 Book Recommendations like The Road
What do readers say about We Have Always Lived in the Castle?
weird and macabre lyrical and descriptive psychological horror novel a bewitching novelWinner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is perhaps the crowning achievement of Shirley Ja... More details on We Have Always Lived in the Castle
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two mid...
See 2325 Book Recommendations like We Have Always Lived in the Castle
What do readers say about Station Eleven?
descriptive and compelling excellent storytelling and writing haunting and drifting everything went awayNATIONAL BESTSELLER
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse-the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great La... More details on Station Eleven
THE KING STOOD in a pool of blue light, unmoored. This was act 4 of King Lear, a winter night at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. Earlier in the evening, three little girls had played a clapping game ons...
See 3021 Book Recommendations like Station Eleven
What do readers say about The Day of the Triffids?
science fiction classic classic science fiction cold war paranoia apocalyptic classic scifi novelWhen Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor s... More details on The Day of the Triffids
I felt that from the moment I woke. And yet, when I started functioning a little more sharply, I misgave. After all, the odds were that it was I who was wrong, and not everyone else – though I did not...
See 702 Book Recommendations like The Day of the Triffids
What do readers say about Plainsong?
spare understated style simple but deep clean and truthful spare but unsparingNational Book Award Finalist
A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver.
In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after th... More details on Plainsong
Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up. When the sun reache...
See 198 Book Recommendations like Plainsong
What do readers say about Norwegian Wood?
direct and engaging style mental health and suicide not much logical plot graceful and fluidToru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt t... More details on Norwegian Wood
I WAS THIRTY-SEVEN THEN, STRAPPED IN MY SEAT AS THE HUGE 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to the Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the earth and lent everything the gloomy...
See 2125 Book Recommendations like Norwegian Wood
Please Help Us Improve
Lost? We also have a list of your Recent Book Views
Are You An Author?
When you click the Amazon link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commision, at no cost to you.