Readers usually come away from Piranesi wanting one of three things: another vast, strange place to wander, another narrator whose view of the world is not quite the reader’s, or more of Susanna Clarke herself. This list is arranged around those three wishes. Nothing here gives away the mystery of the House; if you have not finished it yet, our spoiler-light reading notes are a gentler place to start.
More Susanna Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004)
Clarke’s first novel is enormous where Piranesi is compact: two magicians revive English magic during the Napoleonic Wars. Its footnotes, its fairy roads and its sense of old, half-forgotten places will feel familiar.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke (2006)
A collection of stories set in the same England as Jonathan Strange, full of fairies, bargains and clever women. A good choice if you want Clarke’s voice in shorter pieces.
Vast, impossible places
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (1946)
The first Gormenghast novel takes place inside a crumbling castle so large that whole regions of it are forgotten. The rituals, the decaying halls and the people who never leave make it the most obvious ancestor of Clarke’s House.
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1972)
Marco Polo describes impossible cities to Kublai Khan, one short chapter at a time. It is less a story than a series of architectural dreams, and it rewards the same slow attention Piranesi asks for.
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
This English selection of Borges’ stories includes “The Library of Babel”, about a universe of endless hexagonal galleries of books, and “The House of Asterion”, a story Clarke has said echoes back and forth with Piranesi. She has described Borges as a writer she loved in her twenties, and his influence is felt in every hall of the House.
The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis (1955)
Clarke has also pointed to Charn, the dead, deserted city in this Narnia book, as an inspiration for the House. The chapters in Charn’s silent halls of statues are short, but they are among the most atmospheric Lewis wrote.
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (2019)
A graduate student finds a library book that contains a scene from his own childhood, and follows it to a hidden underground harbour of stories. Lush, dreamy and full of doors.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)
A house that is slightly larger on the inside than the outside, and then much larger. This is horror rather than wonder, and its layered typography makes it a physical puzzle, but the dread of an impossible interior is unmatched.
Narrators who do not see everything
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (1970)
A young priestess serves in a desert temple built over a dark labyrinth she alone may enter. Her world is small and absolute, and the book is about what happens when someone from outside arrives. It is the second Earthsea book; our Earthsea guide explains the order.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (2013)
A man returns to his childhood home and remembers what happened there when he was seven. It is short, and it shares Piranesi’s gap between what a narrator experiences and what the reader slowly understands.
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (2015)
An elderly couple cross a post-Arthurian Britain covered by a mist that steals memories. Ishiguro’s calm, careful narration hides as much as it shows.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (2014)
A biologist keeps a journal on an expedition into a changed coastline called Area X. The landscape is beautiful and wrong, and the narrator’s account cannot be fully trusted.
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall (2007)
A man wakes with no memory and follows letters left by his former self. It is a puzzle book about memory and language, with a conceptual shark swimming through it.
How to choose
If you loved the House itself, start with Titus Groan or Invisible Cities. If you loved the voice, try The Tombs of Atuan or The Ocean at the End of the Lane. For the doors and thresholds that run through all of these books, read our essay on why we keep opening impossible doors.