It's a powerful thing when a book opens your mind to questions about the human condition, the self, and the nature of existence. Novels that are philosophical in nature take us to fictional worlds that somehow reflect and comment on the human condition better than reality, making you question where you stand and what you believe in. These are the top novels to get your philosophical juices flowing without a trip to Plato's cave.
This mind-bending book from 2020 uses the concept of place to philosophize. In the novel, readers are introduced to an unusual home set in a parallel world with endless corridors, walls crowded with thousands of statues, and labyrinth-like halls of ocean that lead to tidal-wave staircases that flood rooms. Owned by a man named Piranesi, the home exists to be explored. Or is it that Piranesi lives to explore the home?
The story of the house unfolds in journal texts written by Piranesi. We learn from the entries that Piranesi meets with an entity called the Other twice a week. The sole purpose of the meetings is to search for hidden knowledge that is buried somewhere in the house. Readers will be drawn into themes of isolation, mental health, madness, and the nature of reality.
If you missed this best-selling 2001 novel by Yann Martel during its popular streak in the early '00s, it's time to "get on the boat" with this ocean-as-a-metaphor classic. You may also remember that this novel was turned into a film in 2012. Life of Pi is the story of a 16-year-old boy named Pi Patel who is stranded at sea on the Pacific Ocean for 227 days as the sole survivor of a shipwreck. A Bengal tiger named Richard Parker is now his only companion on a small life boat. While it presents as a survival tale, Life of Pi is actually a deep exploration of religion and faith. There's also a plot twist that highlights the power of storytelling in making sense of our circumstances.
This 2020 speculative novel hits on the themes of choice, regret, and personal purpose. In The Midnight Library, a woman named Nora Seed is presented with the opportunity to undo the regrets that cause her daily misery by picking alternate life paths from books in a magical library. After gaining the ability to pursue her "perfect life" by seeing how things would have unfolded if she had made different choices, Nora discovers that finding perfection isn't as obtainable as it looks.
Rebekah Bergman's debut novel from 2023 pulls some heavy philosophical punches by holding society's obsession with youthfulness and self-preservation up to an unusual mirror. In The Museum of Human History, an eight-year-old girl named Maeve Wilhelm enters into a coma after a drowning accident. Once it becomes clear that comatose Maeve has stopped aging, she attracts people who want to harness the power of her eternal state of sleep. While keeping the reader on their toes with an odd, haunting premise and the occasional dip into the realm of science fiction, The Museum of Human History explores impermanence in a technological age.
We'll be working to grow this list, especially since most of these reads predated COVID and some pretty significant world events that have undoubtedly had a major impact on our collective ontological thinking (i.e. contemplating the nature of reality and existence). If you have a book that helped shift or shape your philosophical musings, please share with us!
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