Please help me find some literary(ish) page turners!

Anything by Sarah Moss and Grace McCleen, just perfect

I thought Stoner by John Williams was a great book. I couldn't put it down.

Agreed. Ages since I read it, but I loved it. Also Middlemarch.

All of Jane Austen, but I expect most people here have already done that. Persuasion is my favourite.

Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone.

Dickens - David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit are my favourites.

The Quincunx, a 20th century version of a 19th century novel. Couldn't put it down.

I love Evelyn Waugh too and on the back of that would strongly recommend Anthony Powell's 12-novel sequence, A Dance to the Music of Time.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby.

A Perfect Spy, John le Carre. Not really a spy story, more about what spying does to a man.

Adds another 20 books to wish list

I am loving all these suggestions!

I want to add Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.

Possession by A.S. Byatt is one of my favourite reads. Definitely literary, but also a page-turner. If you loved Fingersmith, I think you’ll enjoy this.

Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

if you like fantasy, then you can’t beat Robin Hobb’s trilogies. Fantastic characterisation and world building. Start with Assassin’s Apprentice but there’s loads to keep you going. Really immersive.

Phantoms by Genevieve Riley

Where the Crawdads sing has some beautiful prose in it.
Gone with the wind and the 'sequel' Scarlett.

Daniel Deronda, by George Elliot.

I was astonished by how invested I was in the protagonists, and how different from the norm for that era the author's attitude was to minorities. The most interesting and engrossing work of classic English literature I have ever read.

Virtually anything by Solzhenitsyn. My favourite is The Cancer Ward. Despite the title (and, yes, some sad parts) it is not grim.

Moll Flanders
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
The Metamorphosis
Antigone
The Scarlet Letter
The Bell Jar

The Trees - Percival Everett
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
Trust - Hernan Diaz
An American Marriage - Tayari Jones
Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
The Song of Achilles - Madeleine Miller
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

Yes, I'd forgotten. The hero - Thorfinn, King of Alba - is meant to be the 'real MacBeth', set in 11th century- but lots of plot differences from the Shakespeare version....

Agre with so many on here (and vehemently disagree with others 😂).

What about the Neopolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante?

Oh yes yes to Johnathan Coe!

Absolutely love Elizabeth "not that one" Taylor. Angel by her is also very good - the original mean girl.

I agree with all the recommendations of Wilkie Collins and the un-recommendations of Eleanor Oliphant.

Books I enjoyed;

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (not that one)

Yes, more good choices. ^^

I’m surprised you haven’t read Wilde’s Dorian Gray OP. From what you write, I’m sure you’d love it. I’m obsessed with the Victorian/Oxford aesthetes - with Pater, Ruskin, Beardsley, etc. Wilde captures the way they spoke, and the dialogue in Dorian Gray will make you shiver.

Also, if you like Evelyn Waugh (who identified as an Oxford aesthete btw) you will love St Aubyn’s Melrose novels. He is kind of similar, but more compassionate and humane. Imagine Waugh with a softer heart.

Yes, great choice. My mother is obsessed with these books and prefers them to Hilary Mantel.

I found the Wolf Hall Trilogy utterly gripping.
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. I don't really enjoy fantasy but this kind of straddles fantasy and not.
Joanne Harris - Gentleman and Players (plus sequels)
John McGregor - Reservoir 13; and Lean, Fall, Stand
Jonathan Coe - The Rotters Club (and sequels)
Rose Tremain - Restoration; and Merival
Claire Fuller - Unsettled Ground
Anthony Quinn - London, Burning; and Curtain Call
Sarah Moss - The Fell; Summerwater

I love it but recognise it is very much a Marmite book. Would not recommend for a long flight.

Other favourite literary (ish) page-turners are

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
A crime in the neighbourhood by Suzanne Berne (long time since I read this)
Notes on a scandal by Zoe Heller

I'd like to read Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid and No One Is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood - they might fit the bill?

Isn’t King Hereafter about Macbeth? (Long time since I’ve read it, so I could be wrong.)

I’d suggest Possession, by AS Byatt, rather than the Children’s Book.

Same, absolutely loved it!

Convenience store woman by Sayata Muraka

Milkman by Anna Burns. It won the Booker prize. I’m sure the style is not for everyone but i loved it.

eleanor oliphant - amazing!

a thousand splendid sunsets or anything by Khalid Hosseini.

A Man Called Ove

Have you tried Dorothy Dunnet? Incredibly rich historical dramas.
There is a very striking Viking one called King Hereafter, then two series- the Lymond and the Nicollo chronicles.

They are long too, which is great if you get into them!

...while Goldfinch is one of my least and should have had a severe pruning