Robert Graves 1934
- What it is
-
Comedy with teeth
- Genre
- Historical fiction Classics
- Feels
- Atmospheric Morally grey Funny Wry Dark
Everything below shares at least two of these traits, or sits with it in some reader's stack. We tell you why as you go.
Books similar to I, Claudius
Coming from I, Claudius? Start with Couples, Shipping News, A Confederacy of Dunces. 45 more below, each with why it fits.
3 books
The closest to yours
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh 2019
Sharp and very funny, but in literary fiction
True Grit
Charles Portis 1969
Sharp and very funny · outlaws and guns in the West
27 books · Alike in just one
Only wry
Shipping News
Annie Proulx 1993
Funny, and it bites, but in literary fiction
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole 1982
Sharp and very funny · odd and endearing
Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis 1998
Comedy with teeth · within the walls of a school
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson 1962
Pitch-black comedy · it gets under your skin
Anatomy of a Murder
Robert Traver 1958
No clean hands here · a trial at the heart of the story
Prater Violet
Christopher Isherwood 1945
Sharp and very funny · funny and sad at once
The age of innocence
Edith Wharton 1920
Love hurts sometimes · love and laughs in equal parts
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov 1777
You end up rooting for the wrong people · a narrator who doesn't tell you the truth
Notes on a Scandal
Zoe Heller 2003
Pitch-black comedy, but in literary fiction
The great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald 2011
A love story that hurts · a love story that makes you laugh
Little Big Man
Thomas Berger 2004
Comforting, like coming home · a narrator who doesn't tell you the truth
Mezzanine
Nicholson Baker 1988
Sharp and very funny, but in literary fiction
the leopard
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1995
Comforting, like coming home · sad, and in no hurry
Lessons in Chemistry
Bonnie Garmus 2022
Sharp and very funny · it leaves you with a warm feeling
The Group
Mary McCarthy 1968
Funny and sad at once · a small, intimate story
Three Men in a Boat
Jerome Klapka Jérôme 2003
Sharp and very funny · comforting, like coming home
The Emperor's Children
Claire Messud 2006
It leaves you thinking, but in literary fiction
Cosmopolis
Don DeLillo 2003
Funny, and it bites, but in literary fiction
The Course of Love
Alain De Botton 2016
Funny and sad at once, but in literary fiction
Bonjour tristesse
Françoise Sagan 1954
Funny and sad at once · melancholic and unhurried
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess 1972
Pitch-black comedy · no clean hands here
18 books
More similar books
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel 2009
Nobody is entirely good · it changes how you see things
Trust
Hernán Díaz 2022
You end up rooting for the wrong people · you'll keep turning it over for days
The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton 1905
No clean hands here · sad, and in no hurry
The quiet American
Graham Greene 1955
Nobody is entirely good · it changes how you see things
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1941
It leaves you shaken · nobody is entirely good
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad 1985
No clean hands here · it tells it with no filter
The Talented Mr Ripley
Patricia Highsmith 1973
Nobody is entirely good · it messes with your head
The Name of the Rose
Umberto Eco 2003
Nothing is quite what it seems · it won't tell you everything at once
Munich
Robert Harris 2019
No clean hands here · a mystery you want to solve
Snow Falling on Cedars
David Guterson 1997
It stays with you · you end up rooting for the wrong people
We Need to Talk about Kevin
Lionel Shriver 2003
Nobody is entirely good, but in literary fiction
Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker 2018
It leaves you shaken · a farewell that moves you
Fingersmith Msr
Sarah Waters 2002
It's hiding a secret · nobody is entirely good
Defending Jacob
William Landay 2012
It leaves you shaken, but in a thriller
The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende 1994
You won't want to come back · it leaves you shaken
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood 2005
Sad, and in no hurry · no clean hands here
Still hunting?
Ask other readers for books like this one
On Drayfus, a stack is a small shelf a reader hand-picked around one theme. Open one with this book and other readers vote in the titles that belong, so your list keeps growing without you.