Looking for good books told as a correspondence between two people?
August 30, 2022 8:03 PM   Subscribe

Currently reading How To Lose The Time War and I really like it, and want more books in this format.

Feel free to take that where you will. If there's something that sort of has that vibe or energy, I'm down. I could imagine there might be interesting podcast stories in this vein? That's cool too.

If it's LGBT, even better.

If there's romance, even better.

But I'm open to anything that you subjectively find good, regardless of what it's about! This is just a format I want more of!
posted by wooh to Media & Arts (21 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
"epistolary novel" is a phrase that might help your search!

Edit: Ah, damn tags being at the bottom on mobile
posted by sagc at 8:21 PM on August 30, 2022 [2 favorites]


Christopher Priest's The Prestige is something like that. Without giving too much away, it's written as entries in two journals. But there's an element of conversation in the entries that you will eventually pick up on.
posted by SPrintF at 8:22 PM on August 30, 2022


Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede have a trilogy of these that I loooooove, the first one is "Sorcery & Cecelia; or, the Enchanted Chocolate Pot". Vaguely Regency era but with magic!
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:24 PM on August 30, 2022 [4 favorites]


Griffin and Sabine is told as a series of postcards.
posted by migurski at 8:29 PM on August 30, 2022 [10 favorites]


The charming 84 Charing Cross Road is what you want.
posted by kate4914 at 10:10 PM on August 30, 2022 [10 favorites]


Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:54 PM on August 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney.
posted by sizeable beetle at 11:02 PM on August 30, 2022


Steve Kluger has at least three epistolary novels, including one that is an LGBTQ romance (Almost like being in love) and my favourite (Last Days of Summer), about a kid striking up a friendship with a baseball player in the 1940s.
posted by jb at 12:31 AM on August 31, 2022 [1 favorite]




Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn is a fun read.
posted by archimago at 4:08 AM on August 31, 2022


Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad is an incredible book, comprising the (real) correspondence between British radio producer Bee Rowlatt and Iraqi university lecturer May Witwit, who writes from a Baghdad full of bombings, shootings and blockades, where she teaches English literature to young women.

They strike up a friendship after Bee books May to speak on a BBC World Service broadcast, and the book covers about three years as they become close friends and Bee tries to help May escape Baghdad. When I first read it, it made me cry on a plane, and now you've reminded me of it, I'm going to read it again - thank you.
posted by penguin pie at 6:28 AM on August 31, 2022 [1 favorite]


Bernadette, Where Are You? is pretty entertaining and written partially in correspondence.
posted by pinochiette at 7:23 AM on August 31, 2022


A classic epistolary (short) novel worth checking out is one of Jane Austen’s less known works, Lady Susan.
posted by advil at 9:21 AM on August 31, 2022 [2 favorites]


Invitation to a Bonfire by Adrienne Celt, told through letters and diary entries.
posted by veery at 9:39 AM on August 31, 2022


Attachments by Rainbow Rowell. The correspondence is emails and there is romance.
posted by kochenta at 10:41 AM on August 31, 2022


The Screwtape letters by C.S. Lewis where an uncle demon coaches a nephew demon on how to trick and trap humans
posted by jander03 at 2:54 PM on August 31, 2022


The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo is a good one.
posted by centrifugal at 6:01 PM on August 31, 2022


Alice Walker's The Color Purple
posted by strivesc at 8:03 PM on August 31, 2022


The Love and Luck podcast is a gay love story told through voicemails exchanged by two men.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:06 PM on August 31, 2022


As migurski said, Griffin and Sabine is told in postcards -- well, correspondence including postcards, actually. Lavishly illustrated correspondence, a sensual as well as a literary pleasure. The reader opens envelopes, reads letters, becomes intrigued. There are three books in the series. I hated it when the last book ended, which also describes how I felt when I came to the end of This Is How You Lose The Time War.
posted by lhauser at 8:14 PM on August 31, 2022


Responding super late because I wanted to finish the book before recommending it (and it took a while), but S is told as a series of notes written in the margins of a novel between a college senior and a graduate student… plus the novel itself.
(FWIW, just like the Griffin and Sabine series it’s a fairly interactive book with a lot of enclosures and colored handwriting, so I wouldn’t recommend this as an e-book)
posted by Mchelly at 8:57 PM on October 29, 2022


« Older Need a dupe for Kiehl's Silk Groom serum!   |   Stark & Dark Concerts? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.