A blistering, hilarious, and excruciating exploration of self-sabotage and existential malaise. Dostoevsky’s Underground Man is one of literature’s earliest unreliable narrators — neurotic, brilliant, and painfully human. Part philosophical screed, part social autopsy, this short novel pairs especially well with Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych for those interested in mortality, alienation, and the comedy of suffering.