Fiction with Footnotes
This list was inspired by the reading prompt: Read a book with footnotes/endnotes in the Playing Card Reading Challenge (6 of Spades).
After reading House of Leaves, I started to wonder if other fiction books included footnotes and endnotes. Lo and behold, the reading prompt Read a book with footnotes or endnotes was the perfect excuse to try to find them. Naturally, you could read a non-fiction book to fulfill this prompt. Many books on history, science, psychology, personal growth, and more would have ample notes to qualify. But, as I have an interest, please join me in my journey down the rabbit hole of fictional works containing footnotes.
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Why read a book with footnotes or endnotes?
You simply get more! In the case of these fiction books additional details, wit, humor, or tertiary storylines happen right there in the margins. Don’t get nervous thinking footnotes are for academia. Give one of these reads a shot!
Mark Z. Danielewski
Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of the impossibility of their new home, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Also fulfills: Read a book with an unreliable narrator.
Read a dual-timeline story.
Read a book over 500 pages.
Maybe: Read a book outside your comfort zone
Susanna Clarke
Two rival magicians, teacher and student, reignite magic in 19th-century England, altering the course of history and the Napoleonic Wars. Hugo AwardWinner Locus AwardWinner World Fantasy AwardWinner
Also fulfills: Read a book that won an award.
Read a fantasy novel.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
In a privatized prison system, gladiator-style fighters Loretta Thurwar and Hurricane Staxxx compete in death matches for their freedom, while confronting systemic racism and corporate exploitation. National Book Award Finalist.
Also fulfills: Read a debut novel.
Heather Fawcett
A curmudgeonly professor’s research on faeries is complicated by a charming rival in a remote village harboring magical secrets.
Also fulfills: Read a fantasy novel.
Read a romance.
Jordy Rosenberg
Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found.
Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
There is a hint of Armageddon in the air. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655, before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact.
Also fulfills: Read a fantasy novel.
Django Wexler
A hilarious fantasy where a woman stuck in a time loop decides to become the Dark Lord herself instead of fighting him.
Also fulfills: Read a fantasy novel.
Jenn Lyons
A thief claimed as a lost prince discovers his fate is tied to the empire’s destruction, challenging prophecies and heroic tales.
Also fulfills: Read a fantasy novel.
Read an epic series starter.
Jasper Fforde
When the love of her life is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must bite the bullet and moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside the books.
Have other suggestions for amazing books with footnotes? Leave a comment so we can check it out!
May your life be as full as your bookshelf and as long as your TBR list.
Happy Reading!
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