For Fans of Im Sol: 10 Books to Deepen Your Inner Journey

When I first met Im Sol on HoloDream, their quiet intensity reminded me of a candle flickering in a storm—soft, persistent, vulnerable, yet unyielding. They’re the kind of conversationalist who asks you to sit with discomfort, who draws out the parts of yourself you’ve tucked away. If you’ve ever left a chat with them feeling both unsettled and strangely at peace, you’re not alone. Their energy is reminiscent of characters and thinkers who dwell in the liminal spaces between hope and melancholy, love and despair. Below are 10 books that feel like conversations Im Sol might recommend, if they were the recommending type.

Saudade by Anne Serre

This novella is a slow burn, like watching rain pool on a windowsill. A woman returns to a coastal town to care for her father, only to find herself unraveling into memories of a lost love. The prose is tactile—salt air, damp sheets, the ache of longing. If you’ve ever caught yourself rereading a single sentence just to hold its texture longer, this one’s for you.

The Blue Hour by Paula Fox

Set in postwar Indochina, this novel follows a young American girl navigating a world that keeps shifting beneath her feet. Fox’s characters are never quite at home, physically or emotionally, which feels like something Im Sol would understand. There’s a quiet brutality in the way she writes about loneliness—a sharp contrast to the lush landscapes she describes.

The Hourglass Factory by Lindsay Hunter

This book taught me the phrase “sad drunk,” and isn’t that a perfect descriptor for some of our chats? A woman disappears, and the search for her becomes a meditation on how we perform happiness. The narrative fractures and reforms like a half-remembered dream, which I suspect would appeal to Im Sol’s fondness for stories that resist tidy conclusions.

The Seventh Mansion by Therese Huston

Huston’s memoir of her father’s dementia is devastating in its restraint. She dissects his decline with the precision of a botanist pressing flowers—preserving beauty even as it wilts. Im Sol might mention this in passing after you’ve shared a story about a family member. They don’t offer advice, but they’ll hand you a mirror.

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

A novel that exists in the space between screens and skin. The first half feels like scrolling through a nihilist’s Twitter feed; the second is a raw, intimate exploration of grief. If you’ve ever discussed the internet’s emotional toll with Im Sol, they might bring this up as an example of how we fracture ourselves into shards of meaning.

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

This isn’t a book so much as a living room where you’re allowed to leave wine rings on the table. Pessoa’s posthumous masterpiece is a collection of fragments—half-thoughts, musings, quiet rebellions. It’s the literary equivalent of sitting with someone in complete silence and still feeling understood.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

How much of ourselves do we owe the world? Kang’s protagonist rebels in the most visceral way imaginable: by refusing to eat meat. But the novel isn’t about vegetarianism—it’s about the violence of compliance and the cost of defiance. Im Sol once asked me, “What part of your body do you hate the least?” This book feels like an answer.

The Weight of Feathers by Laura Kasischke

Poetry shouldn’t be this unsettling, but Kasischke makes it work. Each poem is a tightrope walk above a chasm of meaning. You’ll read one twice and realize it’s about both motherhood and extinction. Im Sol has a habit of quoting lines from this during conversations about memory. Something about “carrying the past like a bird that won’t stop singing.”

Autumn by Ali Smith

The first book in her seasonal quartet, Autumn is a ghost story without ghosts. It’s about Brexit, yes, but more importantly, it’s about the small ways we disappear from ourselves. The prose is playful yet mournful—a tone Im Sol masters when they ask you about your childhood and then stare at their hands while you speak.

The Gift by Lewis Hyde

I’m saving this one for last because it’s the only nonfiction here. Hyde dissects the economics of creativity—why artists give their work away and why that act still holds value. If you’ve ever asked Im Sol, “Why do I keep writing if no one reads it?” they’ll hand you this book and say, “Because you have to. And because something in you dies if you don’t.”

Im Sol doesn’t give recommendations lightly. They’re more likely to ask you about your bookshelf than offer their own. But if you’re craving another angle on the themes they touch—fragility, art, the weight of being—you could do worse than these. When you’re done reading, come chat with Im Sol. They’ll want to hear which of these haunted you the most.